Ash’s Letter to the Editor in The Wilson Post on Wed, Sept 3, 2008

Commissioner Bernie Ash wrote a letter to The Wilson Post, which was published under the title of “Commissioner sets record straight on schools budget”. Unfortunately The Wilson Post did not publish the letter online so we could link to it, so we will have to provide you some quotes out of it.

“I have seen an email sent to teachers stating that if they want workbooks or textbooks they should call their county commissioner and ask for a 34-cent tax hike for the schools.” – Ash

Another instance of the School Board using time and resources to politically force the County Commission to pass their budget. This is not the School Board’s role, they are not a Political Action Committee and the server space and bandwidth they used for political reasons is unethical. All should be censured, Hall and Davis should be reprimanded.

“One letter stated that we have added 2,800 students in the past seven years with no increase in funding from the county. She is right, there has not been an increase in the tax rate, but let’s look at some real numbers. In 2001 the school budget was $57,949,789, and the portion that came from the property tax was $12,929, 189. In 2008 the school budget was $114,822,951. The portion that came from the property tax was $23,271,294. That is almost 100 percent in new, real dollars during the past seven years.”

What a great comeback. Davis and Hall have been lying to the public, to the teachers, to the County Commission, and to the media. What is disturbing is that the teachers believe the lies without checking the numbers for themselves.

2,800 new students is not a 100% increase in students, more like a 25% increase, and yet the school board’s overall budget and portion of the budget from property taxes increased by nearly 100%. In fact, Ash points out that the growth money equates to $12,385 per new student.

“When Mr. Mike Davis, Wilson County Schools director, was asked by a commissioner what the schools have done to save costs, he replied that they have cancelled some magazine subscriptions and eliminated some travel. That’s pretty weak.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Ash called him out. Davis is a fool. Canceling magazines and some travel???? What a paper tiger of a leader. “Weak” leader Davis. I bet as of the day Davis was asked that he had not eliminated all the boondoggle trips he has permission to go on.

Ash is correct, time to stop scaring teachers. Mr. Ash, great letter. Now, ask yourself this question: Why have none of the personnel cuts proposed by the Home Office been of personnel in the Home Office? Cutting a bloated administrative staff at Stumpy Lane will be less impactful on the students than cuts in the classrooms. Davis and Hall are protecting their staffs and throwing the school staffs to the wolves. It’s politics.

It’s also time for teachers to learn to think for themselves and not blindly follow Davis and Hall’s pathetic leadership in terms of budgeting. How can we expect them to teach our children to think for themselves when they do not know how to think for themselves?

We are watching, and reading.

Unspoken Institutionalized Discrimination?

We’ve heard several times certified teachers ask “What do I have to do to get hired on in Wilson County?”

Well, the standard answer is to know someone who works for the school board, and growing up in Wilson County also helps. The good old boy network reaches far and wide in this county.

Historically Wilson County has been lily white, with the blacks confined to the public housing ghettos in Lebanon or in their own secluded communities such as Africa Road. Thankfully progress is being made, much to the chagrin of the good old boy network, and blacks are moving into new middle class neighborhoods and developments popping up all over Wilson County. White and Black children are playing with each other in the neighborhoods.

One area where progress seems to be slow in integration is our school system. Yes, we do have our “token” blacks in positions of administrative leadership at two Elementary schools. However, out of 12 Elementary schools in the Wilson County Board of Education, we only counted 6 blacks, 2 of whom were in Administrative positions.

The survey was done in the simplest of manners, we looked at photographs of teachers at the schools in the system where photos were posted. If a photo was missing, it was classified as “unknown”. Mistakes may have been made where a white person looked black, or a black person looked white. It was an imperfect survey.

If a school still used the old “teacherweb” system, not enough photos were available to draw conclusions and that will be noted below.

The breakdown:

West Elemenatry – 43 Whites, 3 Blacks, 1 Unknown – 91.5%, 6.4%, 2%

Elzie Patterson – 35 Whites, 1 Black, 7 Unknowns – 81.4%, 2.3%, 16.3%

Gladeville – 42 Whites, 1 Black, 4 Unknowns – 89.4%, 2.1%, 8.5%

Southside – 61 Whites, 1 Black, 2 Unknowns – 95.3%, 1.6%, 3.1%

Carroll-Oakland – 54 Whites, 0 Blacks, 4 Unknowns – 93.1%, 0%, 6.9%

Tuckers Crossroads – 42 Whites, 0 Blacks, 2 Unknowns – 95.5%, 0%, 4.5%

Rutland – 46 Whites, 0 Blacks, 0 Unknowns – 100%, 0%, 0%

Lakeview – 52 Whites, 0 Blacks, 0 Unknowns – 100%, 0%, 0%

Watertown Elem, Stoner Creek, W.A. Wright, and Mt Juliet Elem uses TeacherWeb and pictures of the teachers were not available. So they were excluded from the Elementary School portion of the survey.

All told, the 8 Elementary Schools surveyed reveal that there are 375 Whites, 6 Blacks, and 23 Unknowns. That is a percentage of 92.8% White, 1.5% Black, 5.7% Unknown.

Based on the known ration of Whites to Blacks, then statistically the odds are great that of the 23 Unknowns (no pictures available) that only 0.3 of them are Black. In other words statistically all of them are probably White as well, which would push the percentage of Whites up to 98.5%.

At the Middle School level no data could be drawn due to both Mt Juliet Mid and West Wilson Mid not having any teachers pictures up.

At the High School level, only two school had pictures up – Wilson Central and Watertown. Lebanon and Mt Juliet High had no pictures up.

Wilson Central – 92 Whites, 4 Blacks, 20 Unknowns – 79.3%, 3.4%, 17.3%

Watertown High – 25 Whites, 0 Blacks, 3 Unknowns – 89.3%, 0%, 10.7%

We are not going to draw conclusions about the racial hiring preferences at the High School level with only 50% of the schools being surveyed.

At the Elementary level, 66% of the schools were surveyed and only 1.5% of the teachers/administrators are presumed to be black.

Is either conscious or subconscious discrimination is going on by the Principals of the All-White Elementary Schools? Kind of makes you wonder.

WIth qualified black candidates graduating each year from MTSU, Cumberland, and TSU and sending in their applications to Wilson County, you would think some would make the cut in Wilson County.

We are not advocating Affirmative Action hiring practices, we believe that only serves as reverse discrimination. We only want equal opportunity for all, a colorblind hiring practice. And the numbers do not bear that out.

What would be great to know is how many of the staff in the office at Stumpy Lane are Black and in a position of leadership and on a salary? Hall and Davis should explain the lack of diversity in teaching positions at the Elementary School level.

Is there spoken, documented racism going on? Absolutely Not.

Is there unspoken good old boy favoritism going on? We reported the numbers, you decide.

Davis Shows His True Colors

Don Franklin had the best question for Mike “I failed Math” Davis, at the County Commission meeting last night.

He correctly pointed out that Davidson County spends $3000 more per pupil than Wilson County, and Davidson County is under State Supervision for No Child Left Behind. He asked Davis to explain that.

Franklin’s point was probably a variation of the old adage that throwing more money at a problem isn’t going to solve that problem.

Davis showed his true colors when he responded “Davidson County needs every penny they are getting and more.”

MORE? MORE MONEY INTO A FAILING SYSTEM ALREADY AWASH WITH TAX MONEY? MORE? Are you that much of a fiscal liberal Mr. Davis.

Davis obviously believes that more and more and more money is the solution. Well Mr. Davis, answer these questions truthfully: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? WHEN DOES IT STOP?  It’s not that you can’t answer them, it’s that you will not answer them because you know you would lose your job by telling the truth about your real political beliefs.

In Saturday’s paper if you read between the lines you will see that Davis would like to see a 5cent raise every year. At what point does it stop?

Davis, you incompetent math failure, that is not the problem. A lack of real competition and a lack of real accountability of the principals, teachers, and administration is the problem.

Washington DC has a huge per pupil spending rate, and it is a failure in public education. Do we want to spend as much as DC?

Did you look at that list of positions of people in danger of being laid off by Davis? Did you see one position from BOE Headquarters? Of course not. They will make the children suffer for political gain before they consider cuts in home office departments.

At least we have Commissioners that are not as stupid as Davis and Hall would like to think they are. Thank you Don Franklin, you have my vote for County Mayor in 2010 even if I have to write it in myself.

Davis has shown his true colors. We are watching, and learning. Strong Leadership will solve our problems, and Davis is not a strong leader. Hall and Davis are dragging us down the road to financial ruin as a county. Taxing our county into prosperity will never work.

A tentative Thumbs-Up for the new Budget Committee establishment

One great thing came out of the County Commission meeting last night. A Budget Committee resolution was passed, and a small step towards bringing ethics was taken.

Currently the Finance Committee voted on the Budget for the county. Some County Commissioners are on the Finance Committee, as well as the County Mayor, the County Roads Superintendent, and our math challenged School Director, Mike Davis.

We found out through reporting on the Lebanon Democrat that Davis, the County Mayor, and the Road Super were voting as a bloc against budget cuts for each others departments. And rather than abstaining on the votes for their individual departments, they were voting. Big ethics problem.

Now Mike Davis is going to lose his vote on his budget, and budgets for the rest of the county departments. Best thing to happen last night. No longer will a publicly unaccountable individual have a vote to try to force an increase on our tax base. We did not elect Davis, we elected those who appointed him. And none of them will take responsibility for his fiscal irresponsibility and for his misleading the public when they are up for re-election.

We are watching and we are glad to see some progress away from the good-old-boy politics that Hall and Davis are so deft at playing.

This new Budget Committee can be good, or it can be real bad, depending on which 4 Commissioners get the appointment, and how much good old boy influence the 5^th Committee Member (the County Mayor) has on the 4 Commissioners.

ETHICS 101

Thou shalt not use BOE money to wage a public campaign against County Commissioners.

We have no problems when Unions do a get out the vote with their members to pack the Commission meeting for pay wages. That is what union members pay their unions to do. Whether they deserve the pay increase is another debate.

We do have problems when the BOE wages a “pack the commission meeting” with parents using public money. Carroll-Oakland sent home a newsletter with the request to attend the meeting on Aug 25^th, and the School Board has produced a file to enlighten us about how under funded they are.

http://www.wcschools.com/coe/newsletters/08_25_08.pdf

and

http://www.wcschools.com/coe/newsletters/the_perilous_state_of_wilson_county_schools.pdf

Again, public money is being used to wage this campaign. That is unethical.

“Hey County Commission give us more money so we can use it to demand more money.”

Add another ethics complaint to the Davis/Hall led BOE.

1. Taping a 6^th Grader’s mouth shut at a local middle school by a substitute teacher.
2. Principal asking teachers to change grades at the same middle school.
3. Using Union tactics on parents and public resources to campaign for more money.

When is this going to stop?