Random Thought: Future presidents of the US are going to have an almost impossible "connect" issue with citizens of America and the world. After Obamageddon has sent out emissaries like Robert Gibbs, Jay Carney, Josh Earnest, Joe Biden, Susan King, Eric Holder, Jen Psaki, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to explain and/or deliver messages, no one will ever believe what the next ..or for that matter, any future president says on domestic or foreign policy. Just the fact that these people's names are readily identifiable to the general public speaks volumes about the damage Obamageddon has caused.

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Soapbox Moment: At long last, the Fine Arts Academy will get started.. $36 Million for an elitist foray into extreme selectivism.. Elitist? Selectivism? You betcha! 600 students from 6th grade to 12th grade.. That's 7 grades, so each grade will have but about 85 students per grade.. Sure 600 "select student will be tapped in "year one", but after that, only 85 entering 6th grade students will be screened and selected (well, there will be some attrition through moves and drop outs.. maybe even a few by expulsion should progress be faltering). Can you not see what will happen...almost guaranteed to happen.. Student wannabe's will have to "try out" for spots.. should your child be pretty good, he/she may follow a child prodigy/protege and be found lacking.. or your child may have to be chosen for a spot between him/her and a child of a MCSD administrator or perhaps the child of a friend of the screening committee, or, heaven help us "political correctness". Yes.. this will be an excursion into extreme elitism as it can possibly get in a public school system. Columbus High and other magnet programs will look like open door programs. What has been wrought!
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You know.. there is only one fair solution... The Fine Arts Academy plans need to be scrapped and the already "squirreled away" $30,000,000.00 should be spent on correcting ignored problems like autism retrofits, handicap accesses, and textbook acquisitions starting this week. When the other $6,000,000.00 is collected, then use it to jumpstart music/arts programs that already exist or need to be restarted in schools that they were previously stripped away from.

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L-E headline/story: "GEORGIA SCHOOL CLIMATE STAR RATINGS * Mixed reviews for local schools in climate ratings * Local schools received mixed reviews as the Georgia Department of Education released ratings designed to express what it calls “the quality and character of school life — the culture of a school.”
Billed as the first in the nation, the inaugural Georgia School Climate Star Ratings are based on data from the 2013-14 school year.
The school climates are expressed by the following star ratings:
• 5 stars = excellent
• 4 stars = above average
• 3 stars = average
• 2 stars = below satisfactory
• 1 star = unsatisfactory

Six local schools received 5 stars: Key Elementary, Midland Academy, Double Churches Middle and Columbus High in Muscogee County, and Creekside and Park in Harris County. Two local schools received one star: St. Marys Road Elementary and Baker Middle. All the rest in Muscogee, Harris and Chattahoochee counties received 4, 3 or 2 stars." -- Good grief.. wanna bet this story was available before the SPLOST election? Now.. it's almost condescending.. and very revealing the Mark Price has conveniently not included all the individual schools' "star ratings". Listing 4 MCSD schools as 5s, and 2 schools as 1s while intimating a balance between the other rating levels exacerbates the cover up already in effect by the MCSDMCSB. The L-E does such damage by soft-peddling the deficiencies of the MCSD and bringing parents up-to-date on such.

On above story: Something is amiss here.. there's no mention of Dorothy Height Elementary on this list but it's listed on the MCSD site, and Cusseta Road Elementary and Muscogee Elementary is listed on this list but not on the MCSD web site.

In addition Key & Midland Elementary (with points ratings of 71.6 each) are listed as 5-Star schools, while 9 other MCSD elementary schools have 4-Star rating but higher point ratings that Key & Midland..

Also, this list says we have 33 elementary schools yet the MCSD site says we have 32.. Muscogee and Cusseta Road are listed on this list but not the MCSD list, and Dorothy Height is not on this list but included on the MCSD site

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Rumor had it that Obamageddon had purchased a mansion in Hawaii..mistaken identity...now it has been determined that a Chicago friend of Obamageddon has purchased it.. wonder if there was amistaken identity when the Hawaiian birth certificate were issued?

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You know..despite Lewis' "attempt" to divide the school areas in 3 "perpendicular" lines, he still worked the SPLOST on the dreaded "horizontal" line.

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From L-E story on post-SPLOST analysis: "What about all those (YES) voters from Green Island and Wildwood who favored the tax? Many believe in the Muscogee County School District Superintendent, David Lewis, who came to town talking about abolishing the Macon-Dixon line, has a 10-year plan to improve the schools, and has said he plans to keep Columbus High School a total magnet school." -- Good grief.. anyone who thinks we'll ever have a 10-tear serving Superintendent again is pipe-smoking... uh, pipe dreaming.

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Comment on above: "What this boils down to is that with 8,900 "YES" voters determining the result, is because of such an unfriendly election date. You know, of 100,000 registered voters, parents of the 32,000 students, and employees of the MCSD (current and retired) constitute well over half the voter base. The fact that only 8900 bothered to vote "yes" means an overwhelming majority of such did not show up in support. Sad....but very revealing..

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Oh.. you question my analysis.. look at it this way.. if the MCSD/MCSB were though of as efficient and proficient, the MCSB would WANT to have SPLOST elections when more parents and employees are swept up in voting stages.

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L-E headline/story: "Officials say Urban League's report on crisis in black America reflects race issues in Columbus * Tonza Thomas, president of the local branch of the NAACP, said education is a big concern in Columbus. While the branch didn't take an official position on the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which voters recently approved with a 54 percent to 46 percent vote, Thomas said she's not convinced that another sales tax will make a difference. * "We are always promised something and they can always get us to sign on to it to make it sound good," she said." -- "we ( I can only assume she means the black vote) are always promised something and they (obviously Democrats) can always get us to sign on to it to make it sound good"? You know.. independence and freedom are not the results of being told how to vote; it takes learning about the issues and making up your own mind... but doesn't doing the same thing over and over.. like believing Democratic Part unkept campaign promises that are issued to curry the black bloc vote the real problem of not getting better educational results?

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Something is amiss here.. there's no mention of Dorothy Height Elementary on this list but it's listed on the MCSD site, and Cusseta Road Elementary is listed on this list but not on the MCSD web site.

In addition Key & Midland Elementary (with points ratings of 71.6 each) are listed as 5-Star schools, while 9 other MCSD elementary schools have 4-Star rating but higher point ratings that Key & Midland..

Also, this list says we have 33 elementary schools yet the MCSD site says we have 32.. Muscogee and Cusseta Road are listed on this list but not the MCSD list, and Dorothy Height is not on this list but included on the MCSD site.

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"Almost gets it" L-E "soundoff": "In matters of law, it has always bothered me that the method used to obtain the truth becomes a bigger issue than the truth itself." -- This is what happens with "too many laws" addressing the same facts.. Courts are barraged with appeals on the letter of the law rather than the intent.

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Jonathan Gruber extra-stupid L-E "soundoff": "Yes, this country did produce presidents like Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt, but who is alive now to tell anything bad they did back then?" -- Good grief.. our !children's history books are filled with liberal revisionist rewrites of "history"; none of them good or fair to our founding fathers...

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Jonathan Gruber extra-stupid L-E "soundoff": " If you try to do good, you have prejudiced, hateful extremists trying to make you look bad. Don’t believe me? Look at the Republicans and their friends against Obama." -- Eric Holder, Chris Mathews, or Jay Carney must have sent this in...