[Durham INC] Literacy, not 751, is the crucial issue facing County Commissioners.

Sun Jun 10 10:35:42 EDT 2012

I was trying to figure out why Dick brought up literacy when the Board of County Commissioners only deals with that problem indirectly, through the budget for the school board.  Then I saw this:http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/10/2125946/reading-bill-modeled-after-florida.htmland thought that "literacy" must be a new Republican talking point.
Literacy is only one corner of a general problem -- reading, math, general attachment to school, my sense that all the work at bringing in better ideas for dealing with behavior issues is, at best, barely keeping up with the level and number of behavior issues the students are bringing into the schools.
BTW, I think the Republican idea of not letting students graduate into 4th grade if they fail the end-of-grades is way behind the current "state of the art."  I've substituted for teachers in early grades who are doing "testing" and how I think it works is they have a program they use to work with each child individually to assess how they are reading -- so you aren't testing whether an 8-year-old can sit through 2 or more hours of marking circles and has learned picky things some education "expert" has decided they should know (is the piece informational, entertaining, persuasive or just about moods for example), and are testing the fluency with which the child reads and the ability to express the key ideas in the piece.  What I've heard is that the parents and teachers work together to assess how much good being retained will do for the child -- for example, is the child learning English so quickly that the literacy issue is likely to disappear by the end of 4th grade?  Also my observation is that there is huge change in kids between 3rd and 4th grades -- 4th grade is when you get intentional and defiant bad behavior.  A few retained kids might be OK in a good school, but having a lot of retained kids in an already challenged school is going to reduce the learning in 3rd grade by a lot.  Just my opinion.
Regards, pat
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:21:50 -0700
From: mmr121570 at yahoo.com
To: rbford at aim.com; inc-list at rtpnet.org
Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Literacy, not 751,	is the crucial issue facing County Commissioners.

Both are clearly important issues. We've been trying to tackle literacy for decades.
Perhaps if Durham uses the money it plans to use for the sewer line for 751 to start another 'more at four' program, we could start actually doing something proactive in this regard. Of course, it would have been even better if they could have combined this with all the funds that would have been saved had they just done an independent survey of Jordan Lake in the first place.
I am VERY active in Durham Public Schools, and I can tell you that until we address the inequality in kids' educations BEFORE they enter kindergarten, we're going to be banging our head against this literacy wall. Of course, there are a lot of other initiatives that will need to be taken as
 well.
Melissa

        From: Richard Ford <rbford at aim.com>
 To: INC <inc-list at rtpnet.org> 
 Sent: Saturday, 9 June 2012 8:18 PM
 Subject: [Durham INC] Literacy, not 751, is the crucial issue facing County Commissioners.

This article from tomorrow's Durham News illustrates the important issue - literacy - that should be driving the Commissioner's race, not an obsession with the development of a troublesome
 parcel. 
Have any of the Commissioner candidates or the PAC's laser-focused on literacy as our number one issue?  Are we wiling to let social issues or opposition to a particular development obscure what really needs to be done in Durham, while thousands cannot read sufficiently??.
44% of Durham school kids failed their reading tests  Will the County Commissioners pass theirs??

Child literacy should be Durham’s Job 1!!
http://www.thedurhamnews.com/2012/06/09/212243/child-literacy-should-be-durhams.html
Dick
On Jun 9, 2012, at 3:31 PM, Richard Ford wrote:751 is a big issue but using it as a
 litmus test may not produce the best Commissioners who after all will make hundreds of decisions over the next four years. 
Character, ability to move an agenda, integrity etc can mean more than a particular stand on a single issue.
Dick

Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 9, 2012, at 12:33 PM, TheOcean1 at aol.com wrote:

Only 
scanned that article, but I thought it said he was holding off being "for or 
against", until he has endorsements.

Seemed 
backwards to me, since I thought endorsements were based on a candidate's 
positions on the issues at hand.

In essence 
he's saying, "Endorse me and I'll vote which ever way your group 
wishes!"

To heck 
with what's best for Durham County, he needs some endorsements. That's a great 
way to make decisions about Durham's future, or more accurately, place the 
decisions in the hands of those who've endorse him.

Bill Anderson

In a message dated 6/9/2012 7:25:22 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
kjj1bg at yahoo.com writes:

  Ridiculous. In today's paper NHL says he's "neutral" on 751 and trying to 
  "do his homework" and "make an informed decision." That homework--on the most 
  divisive issue on the ballot--should have been done before he got into the 
  race. It doesn't speak well to his political thought processes to say that 
  now. 

  Just MHO. 
  Kelly

Sent from my iPhone. Take typos and autocorrect errors 
  lightly please. 

On Jun 8, 2012, at 9:59 AM, Carl Kenney <revcwkii at hotmail.com> 
  wrote:

    Omar Beasley has received the 7,500 signatures needed to be placed 
    on the ballot to run for the Board of County Commissioners.  Read what 
    the Rev-elution has to say regarding how Beasley being placed on the ballot 
    will shake up the endorsement process.

http://rev-elution.blogspot.com/2012/06/omar-beasley-gets-7500-signatures-to.html 

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