The Rewards of Wisdom
1 My son, do not forget my teaching, But let your heart keep my commandments;
2 For length of days and years of life And peace they will add to you.
3 Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 So you will find favor and good repute In the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your body And refreshment to your bones.
9 Honor the LORD from your wealth And from the first of all your produce;
10 So your barns will be filled with plenty And your vats will overflow with new wine.
11 My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD Or loathe His reproof,
12 For whom the LORD loves He reproves, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.
13 How blessed is the man who finds wisdom And the man who gains understanding.
14 For her profit is better than the profit of silver And her gain better than fine gold.
15 She is more precious than jewels; And nothing you desire compares with her.
16 Long life is in her right hand; In her left hand are riches and honor.
17 Her ways are pleasant ways And all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are all who hold her fast.
19 The LORD by wisdom founded the earth, By understanding He established the heavens.
20 By His knowledge the deeps were broken up And the skies drip with dew.
21 My son, let them not vanish from your sight; Keep sound wisdom and discretion,
22 So they will be life to your soul And adornment to your neck.
23 Then you will walk in your way securely And your foot will not stumble.
24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid; When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
25 Do not be afraid of sudden fear Nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes;
26 For the LORD will be your confidence And will keep your foot from being caught.
27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in your power to do it.
28 Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come back, And tomorrow I will give it,” When you have it with you.
29 Do not devise harm against your neighbor, While he lives securely beside you.
30 Do not contend with a man without cause, If he has done you no harm.
31 Do not envy a man of violence And do not choose any of his ways.
32 For the devious are an abomination to the LORD; But He is intimate with the upright.
33 The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, But He blesses the dwelling of the righteous.
34 Though He scoffs at the scoffers, Yet He gives grace to the afflicted.
35 The wise will inherit honor, But fools display dishonor.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
FINALLY FOUND
Economy Changes Students' Plans
College Plans Out Of Reach For Many In Recession
POSTED: 5:46 am CDT May 20, 2009
UPDATED: 6:03 pm CDT May 20, 2009
RAYTOWN, Mo. -- It's easy for adults to think that they bear the brunt of the current recession. But, in reality, young people are also facing some difficult financial decisions.
Many local high school seniors are being forced to alter their college plans, and are getting a real life lesson in their financial education.
The end of a school year for a high school senior generally leads to dreams of the future, and for many that includes plans for college. But a failing economy is forcing a change of plans for some of the best and brightest college-eligible students.
KCTV5's Carolyn Long met with five Raytown High School seniors for a roundtable discussion on their futures. Many said they have realized that their original college plans were no longer possible.
"It was not a happy day for me," said Leandra Stuckey.
Sara Mabry said she practically had her bags packed for Loyola University in Chicago. But she is now heading for Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., this fall.
"I was very upset, and I realized we're not the richest and I have a more realistic shot at somewhere else," said Mabry. "We have to be, in this time when the economy is terrible and we have to figure out some way we can actually pay for it."
"It puts a lot of stress on the family. Not only do we have stress, but parents are stressed out," said Taylor Frymire.
Frymire will also start at Truman State this fall, after plans fell through to attend the University of Nebraska.
"It was just way too much," said Frymire.
Stuckey had her heart set on the University of Missouri, but her dad's layoff has changed her plans to Longview Community College.
"We don't have the funds to send me to a more expensive college anymore," said Stuckey.
Knowing family funds were running short, Mario Pecina realized it was up to him to keep his plans on track to play football at Graceland University in Iowa.
"My dad was laid off," said Pecina. "I pushed myself even more to do better in class, to do better in sports, so I can get as much money as I can."
And it worked. Pecina applied for and earned scholarships to allow him to live his college dream.
David Marshall Jr. took a different track.
"I decided whoever gives me the most money, that's where I'm going," he said.
So, when a full-ride scholarship was offered at Claflin University in South Carolina, that decided his plans.
Raytown High School counselor, Rob Ukleya, worked extra hard this year to keep student's college dreams alive. As more money is needed, less and less is available, he said.
"There were scholarships that weren't available this year because of the economy," said Ukleya.
Ukleya said he helps his students find a plan B, and sometimes a plan C and D, in order to get them to college.
One of the options that has helped many, Ukleya said, is the A-plus program in Missouri that allows free tuition to community colleges to students who meet the guidelines.
"More and more of our families and students are looking at that opportunity because of the economy," said Ukleya.
So, now that fall plans are decided for the five students who met with Long, all are concentrating their summer plans on banking money.
"... So I can pay for my own stuff and not be banging on Dad's door, 'Hey, I need some toilet paper," said Marshall.
"I'm actually going to save this money. I usually go out and spend it, but I know I'm going to have to spend it for all those little unknown costs for college," said Mabry.
Heather Davis Richards, a financial expert with Essential Knowledge, was thrilled to hear these savings plans. She said she has found the largest financial hardship for college students is not in the known costs of tuition, it's in the unknowns.
"On average , it's $3,000 per semester on top of tuition and book expenses," she said.
Essential Knowledge offers a worksheet to help figure a student budget on their Web site. Click here to find it.
The Raytown students' stories are not unique to the metro area. In a recent nationwide poll, one in six students said economic circumstances have forced them to change their college plans.
LET ME BEGIN BY STATING THAT I AM A GRADUATE OF RAYTOWN HIGH SCHOOL. AND LONGVIEW COMMUNITY COLLEGE. AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL MISSOURI. AND IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS I WILL BE A GRADUATE OF A FEW MORE SCHOOLS SINCE I PLAN TO GO ALL THE WAY. THOSE WHO ARE CLOSE TO ME KNOW THAT IF I DECIDE ON SOMETHING IT WILL GET DONE. COME HELL OR HIGH WATER. THAT BEING SAID, I POSTED THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE IT BROUGHT UP SO MANY EMOTIONS AND MEMORIES FOR ME. YOU ARE PROBABLY THINKING WOW THIS IS A PRETTY SIMPLE ARTICLE ABOUT THE ECONOMY AND THE SCHOOL KIDS SO WHAT GIVES?! TO ME THIS ARTICLE MEANS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. I GREW UP WITHOUT PARENTS FOR THE MOST PART. (THANK U GMA FOR TRYNA BEAT MY ASS THOSE FEW TIMES YOU CHASED ME OUTSIDE LOVE U AND MUAH) IT MUST BE SAD FOR THE "BLIND MEMBERS" OF THE MIDDLE CLASS+ TO READ ARTICLES LIKE THIS. WOW HARD TIMES ARE HITTING SOME NEW AREAS THESE DAYS...OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE OF THE WORLD! WHAT PLANET ARE YOU LIVING ON???? PRAISE GOD FOR MY EYESIGHT AND HUMBLENESS:)I AM SO THANKFUL I DID NOT END UP AS A MEMBER OF THE BLIND COMMUNITY (IF WE HAD A LIL MORE $ AND EVEN 1 STABLE PARENT I WOULD HAVE) I WANT TO MAKE A T-SHIRT THAT SAYS "THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING AND STARVING 10 MINUTES AWAY FROM YOU!" I LIVED IN RAYTOWN DURING HALF OF MY CHILDHOOD (WOULDN'T CALL IT THAT) AND ALSO ON 31ST AND LINWOOD IN A GIRL'S HOME THAT IS NOW CLOSED DUE TO BUDGET CUTS. (DON'T HAVE TIME TO GO THERE-MAYBE SOON ON ANOTHER POST) THAT HOME TAUGHT ME MORE IN 1 MONTH THAN I LEARNED IN SEVERAL YEARS OF MY LIFE IN RAYTOWN. MOST OF THE GIRLS WERE WARDS OF THE COURT. 2 GOT PREGNANT, 3 RAN AWAY, 1 GOT HIT BY THE METRO (RIP GINA LOVE U GIRL I WILL NEVER 4GET U)AND THE REST EITHER WENT TO JAIL OR DIDN'T TALK TO ME BECAUSE THEY WERE TAUGHT NOT TO TRUST WHITE PEOPLE. YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW THIS EXPERIENCE (AND MANY OTHERS FOR THAT MATTER) WOULD/COULD AFFECT A YOUNG GIRL WITH NO GUIDANCE. I WILL NEVER FORGET THE DAY I DECIDED I WAS GOING TO BE SOMEBODY. I WAS 14 SITTING ON THAT FRONT PORCH AND TOLD GOD AND MYSELF THAT I WAS DONE FEELING POOR, NEGLECTED, LOST, UNLOVED, WEAK, AND UNIMPORTANT. YES, I ADMIT I MADE THAT DECISION ON MY OWN, BUT WITHOUT A FEW STAR PLAYERS (YOU ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE OF COURSE AUNT SHARON YOU R #1 :) WHO KNOWS WHERE I'D BE RIGHT NOW. WHEN I GOT OUT I WENT BACK TO THE OTHER WORLD CALLED RAYTOWN. THE BLIND SAY IT'S FASCINATING HOW 2 WORLDS CAN BE SO CLOSE TOGETHER IN 1 CITY. THE REALISTS SAY IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. I THINK DUE TO MY EXPERIENCE "LIVING" (LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY) IN BOTH OF THESE WORLDS I BECAME THE LATTER...WHICH IS PROBABLY WHY I AM SO OUTSPOKEN AND ACCORDING TO SOME "TELL MY BUSINESS TOO MUCH" (AND I DON'T CARE BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVE LIED TO ME MY WHOLE LIFE SO WHY SHOULD I BE LIKE THEM? I APPRECIATE THE 100. REAL IS REAL LIKE IT OR NOT. SO IF U ASK ME FOR MY OPINION OR WHAT I'M DOING, ETC., YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED AT THE ANSWER...) BACK TO THE POINT:
RAYTOWN HAS A COUNSELOR AND A SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM AND STUDENTS WITH PARENTS FOR THE MOST PART. I THINK I AM GOING TO WRITE THE NEWS STATION AND ASK THEM TO COME INTERVIEW SOME OF THE KIDS FROM A KC MO SCHOOL DISTRICT. BETTER YET, MAYBE I'LL JUST DO IT MYSELF. MAYBE SOME EYES WILL OPEN IN THE BLIND COMMUNITY. I TAUGHT AT A KC SCHOOL WHICH HAD THE CRAPPIEST COUNSELOR I'VE EVER SEEN. SHE HAD THE TITLE AND MADE THE $ BUT I WAS THE DAMN COUNSELOR! SHE DIDN'T EVEN CARE TO EXPLAIN COLLEGE TO OUR KIDS. MOST OF OUR KIDS HAD 1 PARENT IF THEY WERE LUCKY. THERE WAS NO A+ PROGRAM FOR FREE TUITION AND THESE KIDS NEED IT MORE THAN ANYBODY ELSE. I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THE NEXT DIRECTION IN MY LIFE BECAUSE I AM AT A CROSSROAD RIGHT NOW. I'M SO GLAD I CAME ACROSS THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE I AM FINALLY FOUND. I PLAN TO TAKE THE LSAT 1 MORE TIME AND IF I DON'T GET INTO LAW SCHOOL THIS TIME, I'M MOVING ON. I WAS THINKING I COULD CHANGE THE SYSTEM BY TRYING TO CHANGE THE LAWS, BUT I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND A WAY TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT I WANT IF THE FIRST FEW ATTEMPTS DON'T WORK. (LSAT SCORE NOT HIGH ENOUGH AND BEING WHITE DOESN'T HELP ME OUT HERE OR I'D BE IN BY NOW-I'LL GO THERE LATER TOO-THAT'LL BE A GOOD ONE TO READ-NO WORRIES I ALWAYS STAY EDUCATED) BECAUSE I DON'T GIVE UP ON DREAMS. SOMETIMES THEY JUST NEED TO BE MODIFIED. I DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME TO WASTE AND A GREAT PURPOSE TO FULFILL. I WILL DIE TRYING TO HELP EVERY LOST ADOLESCENT I CAN. BECAUSE THAT LITTLE GIRL WITH NO GUIDANCE USED TO BE ME. AND I HAVE SO MUCH LOVE IN MY HEART FOR HER. PZ.
College Plans Out Of Reach For Many In Recession
POSTED: 5:46 am CDT May 20, 2009
UPDATED: 6:03 pm CDT May 20, 2009
RAYTOWN, Mo. -- It's easy for adults to think that they bear the brunt of the current recession. But, in reality, young people are also facing some difficult financial decisions.
Many local high school seniors are being forced to alter their college plans, and are getting a real life lesson in their financial education.
The end of a school year for a high school senior generally leads to dreams of the future, and for many that includes plans for college. But a failing economy is forcing a change of plans for some of the best and brightest college-eligible students.
KCTV5's Carolyn Long met with five Raytown High School seniors for a roundtable discussion on their futures. Many said they have realized that their original college plans were no longer possible.
"It was not a happy day for me," said Leandra Stuckey.
Sara Mabry said she practically had her bags packed for Loyola University in Chicago. But she is now heading for Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., this fall.
"I was very upset, and I realized we're not the richest and I have a more realistic shot at somewhere else," said Mabry. "We have to be, in this time when the economy is terrible and we have to figure out some way we can actually pay for it."
"It puts a lot of stress on the family. Not only do we have stress, but parents are stressed out," said Taylor Frymire.
Frymire will also start at Truman State this fall, after plans fell through to attend the University of Nebraska.
"It was just way too much," said Frymire.
Stuckey had her heart set on the University of Missouri, but her dad's layoff has changed her plans to Longview Community College.
"We don't have the funds to send me to a more expensive college anymore," said Stuckey.
Knowing family funds were running short, Mario Pecina realized it was up to him to keep his plans on track to play football at Graceland University in Iowa.
"My dad was laid off," said Pecina. "I pushed myself even more to do better in class, to do better in sports, so I can get as much money as I can."
And it worked. Pecina applied for and earned scholarships to allow him to live his college dream.
David Marshall Jr. took a different track.
"I decided whoever gives me the most money, that's where I'm going," he said.
So, when a full-ride scholarship was offered at Claflin University in South Carolina, that decided his plans.
Raytown High School counselor, Rob Ukleya, worked extra hard this year to keep student's college dreams alive. As more money is needed, less and less is available, he said.
"There were scholarships that weren't available this year because of the economy," said Ukleya.
Ukleya said he helps his students find a plan B, and sometimes a plan C and D, in order to get them to college.
One of the options that has helped many, Ukleya said, is the A-plus program in Missouri that allows free tuition to community colleges to students who meet the guidelines.
"More and more of our families and students are looking at that opportunity because of the economy," said Ukleya.
So, now that fall plans are decided for the five students who met with Long, all are concentrating their summer plans on banking money.
"... So I can pay for my own stuff and not be banging on Dad's door, 'Hey, I need some toilet paper," said Marshall.
"I'm actually going to save this money. I usually go out and spend it, but I know I'm going to have to spend it for all those little unknown costs for college," said Mabry.
Heather Davis Richards, a financial expert with Essential Knowledge, was thrilled to hear these savings plans. She said she has found the largest financial hardship for college students is not in the known costs of tuition, it's in the unknowns.
"On average , it's $3,000 per semester on top of tuition and book expenses," she said.
Essential Knowledge offers a worksheet to help figure a student budget on their Web site. Click here to find it.
The Raytown students' stories are not unique to the metro area. In a recent nationwide poll, one in six students said economic circumstances have forced them to change their college plans.
LET ME BEGIN BY STATING THAT I AM A GRADUATE OF RAYTOWN HIGH SCHOOL. AND LONGVIEW COMMUNITY COLLEGE. AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL MISSOURI. AND IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS I WILL BE A GRADUATE OF A FEW MORE SCHOOLS SINCE I PLAN TO GO ALL THE WAY. THOSE WHO ARE CLOSE TO ME KNOW THAT IF I DECIDE ON SOMETHING IT WILL GET DONE. COME HELL OR HIGH WATER. THAT BEING SAID, I POSTED THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE IT BROUGHT UP SO MANY EMOTIONS AND MEMORIES FOR ME. YOU ARE PROBABLY THINKING WOW THIS IS A PRETTY SIMPLE ARTICLE ABOUT THE ECONOMY AND THE SCHOOL KIDS SO WHAT GIVES?! TO ME THIS ARTICLE MEANS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. I GREW UP WITHOUT PARENTS FOR THE MOST PART. (THANK U GMA FOR TRYNA BEAT MY ASS THOSE FEW TIMES YOU CHASED ME OUTSIDE LOVE U AND MUAH) IT MUST BE SAD FOR THE "BLIND MEMBERS" OF THE MIDDLE CLASS+ TO READ ARTICLES LIKE THIS. WOW HARD TIMES ARE HITTING SOME NEW AREAS THESE DAYS...OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE OF THE WORLD! WHAT PLANET ARE YOU LIVING ON???? PRAISE GOD FOR MY EYESIGHT AND HUMBLENESS:)I AM SO THANKFUL I DID NOT END UP AS A MEMBER OF THE BLIND COMMUNITY (IF WE HAD A LIL MORE $ AND EVEN 1 STABLE PARENT I WOULD HAVE) I WANT TO MAKE A T-SHIRT THAT SAYS "THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING AND STARVING 10 MINUTES AWAY FROM YOU!" I LIVED IN RAYTOWN DURING HALF OF MY CHILDHOOD (WOULDN'T CALL IT THAT) AND ALSO ON 31ST AND LINWOOD IN A GIRL'S HOME THAT IS NOW CLOSED DUE TO BUDGET CUTS. (DON'T HAVE TIME TO GO THERE-MAYBE SOON ON ANOTHER POST) THAT HOME TAUGHT ME MORE IN 1 MONTH THAN I LEARNED IN SEVERAL YEARS OF MY LIFE IN RAYTOWN. MOST OF THE GIRLS WERE WARDS OF THE COURT. 2 GOT PREGNANT, 3 RAN AWAY, 1 GOT HIT BY THE METRO (RIP GINA LOVE U GIRL I WILL NEVER 4GET U)AND THE REST EITHER WENT TO JAIL OR DIDN'T TALK TO ME BECAUSE THEY WERE TAUGHT NOT TO TRUST WHITE PEOPLE. YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW THIS EXPERIENCE (AND MANY OTHERS FOR THAT MATTER) WOULD/COULD AFFECT A YOUNG GIRL WITH NO GUIDANCE. I WILL NEVER FORGET THE DAY I DECIDED I WAS GOING TO BE SOMEBODY. I WAS 14 SITTING ON THAT FRONT PORCH AND TOLD GOD AND MYSELF THAT I WAS DONE FEELING POOR, NEGLECTED, LOST, UNLOVED, WEAK, AND UNIMPORTANT. YES, I ADMIT I MADE THAT DECISION ON MY OWN, BUT WITHOUT A FEW STAR PLAYERS (YOU ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE OF COURSE AUNT SHARON YOU R #1 :) WHO KNOWS WHERE I'D BE RIGHT NOW. WHEN I GOT OUT I WENT BACK TO THE OTHER WORLD CALLED RAYTOWN. THE BLIND SAY IT'S FASCINATING HOW 2 WORLDS CAN BE SO CLOSE TOGETHER IN 1 CITY. THE REALISTS SAY IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. I THINK DUE TO MY EXPERIENCE "LIVING" (LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY) IN BOTH OF THESE WORLDS I BECAME THE LATTER...WHICH IS PROBABLY WHY I AM SO OUTSPOKEN AND ACCORDING TO SOME "TELL MY BUSINESS TOO MUCH" (AND I DON'T CARE BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVE LIED TO ME MY WHOLE LIFE SO WHY SHOULD I BE LIKE THEM? I APPRECIATE THE 100. REAL IS REAL LIKE IT OR NOT. SO IF U ASK ME FOR MY OPINION OR WHAT I'M DOING, ETC., YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED AT THE ANSWER...) BACK TO THE POINT:
RAYTOWN HAS A COUNSELOR AND A SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM AND STUDENTS WITH PARENTS FOR THE MOST PART. I THINK I AM GOING TO WRITE THE NEWS STATION AND ASK THEM TO COME INTERVIEW SOME OF THE KIDS FROM A KC MO SCHOOL DISTRICT. BETTER YET, MAYBE I'LL JUST DO IT MYSELF. MAYBE SOME EYES WILL OPEN IN THE BLIND COMMUNITY. I TAUGHT AT A KC SCHOOL WHICH HAD THE CRAPPIEST COUNSELOR I'VE EVER SEEN. SHE HAD THE TITLE AND MADE THE $ BUT I WAS THE DAMN COUNSELOR! SHE DIDN'T EVEN CARE TO EXPLAIN COLLEGE TO OUR KIDS. MOST OF OUR KIDS HAD 1 PARENT IF THEY WERE LUCKY. THERE WAS NO A+ PROGRAM FOR FREE TUITION AND THESE KIDS NEED IT MORE THAN ANYBODY ELSE. I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THE NEXT DIRECTION IN MY LIFE BECAUSE I AM AT A CROSSROAD RIGHT NOW. I'M SO GLAD I CAME ACROSS THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE I AM FINALLY FOUND. I PLAN TO TAKE THE LSAT 1 MORE TIME AND IF I DON'T GET INTO LAW SCHOOL THIS TIME, I'M MOVING ON. I WAS THINKING I COULD CHANGE THE SYSTEM BY TRYING TO CHANGE THE LAWS, BUT I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND A WAY TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT I WANT IF THE FIRST FEW ATTEMPTS DON'T WORK. (LSAT SCORE NOT HIGH ENOUGH AND BEING WHITE DOESN'T HELP ME OUT HERE OR I'D BE IN BY NOW-I'LL GO THERE LATER TOO-THAT'LL BE A GOOD ONE TO READ-NO WORRIES I ALWAYS STAY EDUCATED) BECAUSE I DON'T GIVE UP ON DREAMS. SOMETIMES THEY JUST NEED TO BE MODIFIED. I DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME TO WASTE AND A GREAT PURPOSE TO FULFILL. I WILL DIE TRYING TO HELP EVERY LOST ADOLESCENT I CAN. BECAUSE THAT LITTLE GIRL WITH NO GUIDANCE USED TO BE ME. AND I HAVE SO MUCH LOVE IN MY HEART FOR HER. PZ.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
STARTING TO SELL OUT...
Lessons from arrest of Harvard scholar
The discussion surrounding Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. should provide a “dos” and “don’ts” list for police and citizens.
On July 16 Gates returned home from a week in China, where he was filming a PBS documentary, “Faces of America.” Finding the front door of his rented home jammed, he asked his driver, another black man, for help.
Do: A woman seeing two men with backpacks trying to force their way into the house called police. Everyone concerned about break-ins would applaud the passer-by’s action.
Do: Cambridge, Mass., police arrived quickly and found Gates inside the house. He had entered through the back door and turned off the alarm.
Don’t: Gates, 58, had a heated exchange with Sgt. James Crowley. Gates loudly accused Crowley of racial bias and refused to calm down. Crowley and Gates sought identification from each other. The tension escalated unnecessarily.
Do: Provide identification. Gates provided photo IDs to verify that he lived in the house. The officer says he also provided his name and badge number, but Gates disputes that.
Don’t: The officer arrested Gates, a leading authority on black history, and handcuffed him on his front porch. A mostly academic issue for Gates suddenly became very real and very personal.
Do: Prosecutors dropped a disorderly conduct charge against Gates on Tuesday.
Do: Turn the incident into a “teachable moment,” as President Obama suggested Friday when he wisely backed away from an earlier judgment that the “Cambridge police acted stupidly.” The president invited Crowley and Gates to discuss the incident over a beer at the White House — an excellent suggestion.
“There’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.... race remains a factor in the society,” Obama correctly said earlier this week.
To change the way things have always been, citizens and officers nationwide should stick with the “dos” and dump the “don’ts.” Everyone will be better off.
OK MR. PREZ, I DEFINITELY UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE THE BLACK COMMUNITY EXPECTING YOU TO ADDRESS ISSUES THAT ALL THE OTHER WHITE PRESIDENTS WERE ABLE TO EASILY IGNORE; HOWEVER, THAT IS WHAT YOU SIGNED UP FOR AND I KNOW YOU ARE CAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING. I AM EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU FOR "TONING DOWN" YOUR COMMENT ABOUT THE POLICE ACTION THAT OCCURRED. YOU KNOW BETTER. THIS IS NOT A "LEARNING EXPERIENCE," THIS IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF RACIAL PROFILING. I WILL PRAY FOR YOU AND I HOPE THAT YOU DO NOT CONTINUE TO COMPROMISE FOR THE PURPOSE OF RETAINING A BROAD RANGE OF SUPPORTERS. REMEMBER THAT NO ONE WILL EVER LIKE EVERYTHING YOU SAY OR DO, BUT IF YOU STAND STRONG IN YOUR BELIEFS THEN AT LEAST THEY WILL RESPECT YOU.
The discussion surrounding Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. should provide a “dos” and “don’ts” list for police and citizens.
On July 16 Gates returned home from a week in China, where he was filming a PBS documentary, “Faces of America.” Finding the front door of his rented home jammed, he asked his driver, another black man, for help.
Do: A woman seeing two men with backpacks trying to force their way into the house called police. Everyone concerned about break-ins would applaud the passer-by’s action.
Do: Cambridge, Mass., police arrived quickly and found Gates inside the house. He had entered through the back door and turned off the alarm.
Don’t: Gates, 58, had a heated exchange with Sgt. James Crowley. Gates loudly accused Crowley of racial bias and refused to calm down. Crowley and Gates sought identification from each other. The tension escalated unnecessarily.
Do: Provide identification. Gates provided photo IDs to verify that he lived in the house. The officer says he also provided his name and badge number, but Gates disputes that.
Don’t: The officer arrested Gates, a leading authority on black history, and handcuffed him on his front porch. A mostly academic issue for Gates suddenly became very real and very personal.
Do: Prosecutors dropped a disorderly conduct charge against Gates on Tuesday.
Do: Turn the incident into a “teachable moment,” as President Obama suggested Friday when he wisely backed away from an earlier judgment that the “Cambridge police acted stupidly.” The president invited Crowley and Gates to discuss the incident over a beer at the White House — an excellent suggestion.
“There’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.... race remains a factor in the society,” Obama correctly said earlier this week.
To change the way things have always been, citizens and officers nationwide should stick with the “dos” and dump the “don’ts.” Everyone will be better off.
OK MR. PREZ, I DEFINITELY UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE THE BLACK COMMUNITY EXPECTING YOU TO ADDRESS ISSUES THAT ALL THE OTHER WHITE PRESIDENTS WERE ABLE TO EASILY IGNORE; HOWEVER, THAT IS WHAT YOU SIGNED UP FOR AND I KNOW YOU ARE CAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING. I AM EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU FOR "TONING DOWN" YOUR COMMENT ABOUT THE POLICE ACTION THAT OCCURRED. YOU KNOW BETTER. THIS IS NOT A "LEARNING EXPERIENCE," THIS IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF RACIAL PROFILING. I WILL PRAY FOR YOU AND I HOPE THAT YOU DO NOT CONTINUE TO COMPROMISE FOR THE PURPOSE OF RETAINING A BROAD RANGE OF SUPPORTERS. REMEMBER THAT NO ONE WILL EVER LIKE EVERYTHING YOU SAY OR DO, BUT IF YOU STAND STRONG IN YOUR BELIEFS THEN AT LEAST THEY WILL RESPECT YOU.
Friday, July 17, 2009
EDUCATION IS A BUSINESS???
Imagine Renaissance Academy Of Environmental Science And Math-Wallace Campus
414 Wallace Ave
Kansas City, MO 64125
Phone: (816) 241-9381
Website: Information not found (?)
Business Categories
Private elementary and secondary schools in Kansas City, MO
Elementary/Secondary School
Imagine Renaissance Academy Of Environmental Science And Math-Wallace Campus Business InformationIs this your company?Imagine Renaissance Academy Of Environmental Science And Math-Wallace Campus is a private company categorized under Private elementary and secondary schools and located in Kansas City, MO. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $1,600,000 and employs a staff of approximately 60.
Also Does Business As
Information not found (?)
HQ, Branch or Single Location
Single Location
Annual Sales (Estimated)
$1,600,000
Employees (Estimated)
60
SIC Code and Description
8211, Elementary and Secondary Schools
NAICS Code and Description
611110, Elementary and Secondary Schools Products, Services and Brands
Information not found (?)
State of Incorporation
Information not found
Years in Business
Information not found
Company Contacts
Contact Name Gender
Geoff Alderman, Principal — Is this your company?
OK YALL, WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS IN EVERY AREA OF LIFE...BUT EDUCATION IS NOW MORE THAN EVER BEING TURNED INTO A BUSINESS. IMAGINE RENAISSANCE ACADEMY IS A CHARTER SCHOOL I USED TO TEACH AT HERE IN GOOD OLD KC, MO. MY STUDENTS USED TO STEAL MARKERS FOR ME...WE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE ENOUGH BOOKS TO LET STUDENTS TAKE THEM HOME. IT IS DISHEARTENING TO SEE THAT MANY OF OUR NATION'S MINORITY CHILDREN ARE BEING EXPLOITED BY RICH WHITE BUSINESSMEN. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME THEN DO SOME RESEARCH. CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE WHAT THE REPUBLICANS CLAIM TO BE THE ANSWER TO THE FAILED URBAN SCHOOLS. OF COURSE THEY SAY THAT BECAUSE THE CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE BASICALLY TAX SHELTERS FOR THEM TO KEEP MAKING MORE MONEY, ALL AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CHILDREN, PARENTS AND COMMUNITY. LOOK AT IMAGINE SCHOOLS.COM AND YOU WILL SEE THEY ARE TAKING OVER THE NATION'S FAILED PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENT POPULATION. THIS MEANS THEY GET GOV'T $$$$ YEP THAT'S RIGHT. AND GUESS WHAT? THEY DON'T HAVE CURRICULUM REQUIREMENTS LIKE THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS DO. AND THEY CLAIM TO HAVE CERTIFIED TEACHERS. THAT IS TRUE, BUT PARENTS DON'T BE MISLEAD...THEY HAVE A PERCENTAGE OF CERTIFIED TEACHERS. I WAS ONE OF THEM AMONG MANY WHO HAD NO IDEA HOW TO EVEN CREATE A LESSON PLAN MUCH LESS A UNIT PLAN OR EXAMS THAT MEET STATE STANDARDS.
414 Wallace Ave
Kansas City, MO 64125
Phone: (816) 241-9381
Website: Information not found (?)
Business Categories
Private elementary and secondary schools in Kansas City, MO
Elementary/Secondary School
Imagine Renaissance Academy Of Environmental Science And Math-Wallace Campus Business InformationIs this your company?Imagine Renaissance Academy Of Environmental Science And Math-Wallace Campus is a private company categorized under Private elementary and secondary schools and located in Kansas City, MO. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $1,600,000 and employs a staff of approximately 60.
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Single Location
Annual Sales (Estimated)
$1,600,000
Employees (Estimated)
60
SIC Code and Description
8211, Elementary and Secondary Schools
NAICS Code and Description
611110, Elementary and Secondary Schools Products, Services and Brands
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Geoff Alderman, Principal — Is this your company?
OK YALL, WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS IN EVERY AREA OF LIFE...BUT EDUCATION IS NOW MORE THAN EVER BEING TURNED INTO A BUSINESS. IMAGINE RENAISSANCE ACADEMY IS A CHARTER SCHOOL I USED TO TEACH AT HERE IN GOOD OLD KC, MO. MY STUDENTS USED TO STEAL MARKERS FOR ME...WE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE ENOUGH BOOKS TO LET STUDENTS TAKE THEM HOME. IT IS DISHEARTENING TO SEE THAT MANY OF OUR NATION'S MINORITY CHILDREN ARE BEING EXPLOITED BY RICH WHITE BUSINESSMEN. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME THEN DO SOME RESEARCH. CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE WHAT THE REPUBLICANS CLAIM TO BE THE ANSWER TO THE FAILED URBAN SCHOOLS. OF COURSE THEY SAY THAT BECAUSE THE CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE BASICALLY TAX SHELTERS FOR THEM TO KEEP MAKING MORE MONEY, ALL AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CHILDREN, PARENTS AND COMMUNITY. LOOK AT IMAGINE SCHOOLS.COM AND YOU WILL SEE THEY ARE TAKING OVER THE NATION'S FAILED PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENT POPULATION. THIS MEANS THEY GET GOV'T $$$$ YEP THAT'S RIGHT. AND GUESS WHAT? THEY DON'T HAVE CURRICULUM REQUIREMENTS LIKE THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS DO. AND THEY CLAIM TO HAVE CERTIFIED TEACHERS. THAT IS TRUE, BUT PARENTS DON'T BE MISLEAD...THEY HAVE A PERCENTAGE OF CERTIFIED TEACHERS. I WAS ONE OF THEM AMONG MANY WHO HAD NO IDEA HOW TO EVEN CREATE A LESSON PLAN MUCH LESS A UNIT PLAN OR EXAMS THAT MEET STATE STANDARDS.
GO WYANDOTTE!
Wyandotte County to negotiate with Legends, Nebraska Furniture Mart over unpaid taxes
By MARK WIEBE
The Kansas City Star
Unified Government Mayor Joe Reardon has asked Wyandotte County’s top administrator to “re-engage” in negotiations with two of the county’s largest retailers, which have refused to pay their property tax bills.
Speaking at the beginning of a budget workshop Thursday at City Hall, Reardon said that Nebraska Furniture Mart and The Legends shopping center were “good community partners.”
But, he added, his job required him to “protect and uphold the interests of our taxpayers and the public.”
Although he said he was optimistic that the government and the retailers could reach an agreement suitable to all parties, Reardon did not offer a specific solution.
Nebraska Furniture Mart and The Legends are disputing the values at which the county has appraised their properties. Both have unpaid property tax bills. Nebraska Furniture Mart owes $6.2 million, and The Legends owes $5.1 million.
Reardon said the government was obliged to make sure “that we are being good stewards of the taxes paid for local government,” and it had to be “accountable and fair.”
A spokesman for the Unified Government and a Nebraska Furniture Mart executive exchanged heated words Tuesday, a day after County Administrator Dennis Hays called out the furniture giant and The Legends for failing to pay their taxes.
Nebraska Furniture Mart said it has never failed to pay an obligation. Company vice president Bob Batt said the Unified Government was bullying the company and argued that the Unified Government had overvalued Nebraska Furniture Mart’s property.
BS!!!!!! WHY IS ANYONE NEGOTIATING? SURE, LET'S CUT THESE COMPANIES A DEAL ON THEIR TAXES AND TELL THE PUBLIC HOW MUCH MONEY WE TOOK OFF THEIR BILL AND THEN ASK THE PARENTS AND TEACHERS IN WYANDOTTE IF THEY THINK THEY COULD'VE USED THAT AMOUNT FOR WYANDOTTE'S RUN DOWN SCHOOLS...LET'S NOT FORGET THAT WYANDOTTE'S RESIDENTS PAY SOME OF THE HIGHEST PROPERTY TAXES AROUND THE AREA (WHY DON'T THEY GET A DEAL TOO???) OR BETTER YET, LET'S COMPARE THE NUMBER OF PARKS AND CHILDREN THAT LIVE IN KCK...GET THEM FOR ALL THEY'RE WORTH...OOOOHHHH I WISH I WORKED FOR THE CITY....HMMMMMMM:)
By MARK WIEBE
The Kansas City Star
Unified Government Mayor Joe Reardon has asked Wyandotte County’s top administrator to “re-engage” in negotiations with two of the county’s largest retailers, which have refused to pay their property tax bills.
Speaking at the beginning of a budget workshop Thursday at City Hall, Reardon said that Nebraska Furniture Mart and The Legends shopping center were “good community partners.”
But, he added, his job required him to “protect and uphold the interests of our taxpayers and the public.”
Although he said he was optimistic that the government and the retailers could reach an agreement suitable to all parties, Reardon did not offer a specific solution.
Nebraska Furniture Mart and The Legends are disputing the values at which the county has appraised their properties. Both have unpaid property tax bills. Nebraska Furniture Mart owes $6.2 million, and The Legends owes $5.1 million.
Reardon said the government was obliged to make sure “that we are being good stewards of the taxes paid for local government,” and it had to be “accountable and fair.”
A spokesman for the Unified Government and a Nebraska Furniture Mart executive exchanged heated words Tuesday, a day after County Administrator Dennis Hays called out the furniture giant and The Legends for failing to pay their taxes.
Nebraska Furniture Mart said it has never failed to pay an obligation. Company vice president Bob Batt said the Unified Government was bullying the company and argued that the Unified Government had overvalued Nebraska Furniture Mart’s property.
BS!!!!!! WHY IS ANYONE NEGOTIATING? SURE, LET'S CUT THESE COMPANIES A DEAL ON THEIR TAXES AND TELL THE PUBLIC HOW MUCH MONEY WE TOOK OFF THEIR BILL AND THEN ASK THE PARENTS AND TEACHERS IN WYANDOTTE IF THEY THINK THEY COULD'VE USED THAT AMOUNT FOR WYANDOTTE'S RUN DOWN SCHOOLS...LET'S NOT FORGET THAT WYANDOTTE'S RESIDENTS PAY SOME OF THE HIGHEST PROPERTY TAXES AROUND THE AREA (WHY DON'T THEY GET A DEAL TOO???) OR BETTER YET, LET'S COMPARE THE NUMBER OF PARKS AND CHILDREN THAT LIVE IN KCK...GET THEM FOR ALL THEY'RE WORTH...OOOOHHHH I WISH I WORKED FOR THE CITY....HMMMMMMM:)
I AM 1 OF THE VICTIMS...
University of Central Missouri police sergeant and wife arrested in identity theft scheme
By MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMS
The Kansas City Star
A University of Central Missouri police sergeant and his wife have been arrested in an identity theft involving the stolen Social Security numbers for 7,000 students and alumni.
James and Amanda Drake have been charged with fraud, forgery, illegal credit card use and filing a false police report.
The FBI and university police are continuing their investigation.
“There may be other arrests connected with the investigation forthcoming,” said Bob Ahring, chief of the university’s Department of Public Safety.
“It appears that about a dozen individuals may have had their personal information used for fraudulent purposes,” said Jeff Murphy, spokesman for the school.
During an unrelated investigation of Amanda Drake, 30, on warrants involving passing bad checks from Johnson and Henry counties, police recovered stolen computer printouts with the names, addresses, telephone and Social Security numbers for students from the summers of 2005 and 2006.
James Drake, 45, was arrested by Warrensburg police on June 19 and charged with fraud, use of a credit device and filing a false police report. His wife, who was not employed at the university, is charged with forgery.
The printouts, produced by the Student Affairs Office, were stolen from the university campus, but officials declined to say which office. Neither Drake has been charged with the theft of the printouts, Ahring said.
University officials said there did not appear to be any breach of the university computer system. The information in the printouts is only given to certain offices and “used for a variety of reasons,” Murphy said.
He said the 12 victims were contacted by police. Neither police nor the university could say how much money was involved in the fraud. Murphy said the university contacted all other people listed on the printout by mail and e-mail.
For more information, the university has provided a 24-hour toll-free phone number, 866-223-1695, and Web site, www.ucmo.edu/identityprotection.
And this week UCM offered enrollment in Experian Triple Alert, a 12-month program on identity theft protection, and credit monitoring. UCM will pay the cost of enrollment for anyone who could be affected by the recent theft.
WOW THANKS GUYS I GUESS I'LL SIGN UP FOR MY FREE CREDIT MONITORING SERVICE NOW. IT'D BE COOL WITH ME IF YOU'D JUST WRITE OFF MY PERKINS LOAN :)
By MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMS
The Kansas City Star
A University of Central Missouri police sergeant and his wife have been arrested in an identity theft involving the stolen Social Security numbers for 7,000 students and alumni.
James and Amanda Drake have been charged with fraud, forgery, illegal credit card use and filing a false police report.
The FBI and university police are continuing their investigation.
“There may be other arrests connected with the investigation forthcoming,” said Bob Ahring, chief of the university’s Department of Public Safety.
“It appears that about a dozen individuals may have had their personal information used for fraudulent purposes,” said Jeff Murphy, spokesman for the school.
During an unrelated investigation of Amanda Drake, 30, on warrants involving passing bad checks from Johnson and Henry counties, police recovered stolen computer printouts with the names, addresses, telephone and Social Security numbers for students from the summers of 2005 and 2006.
James Drake, 45, was arrested by Warrensburg police on June 19 and charged with fraud, use of a credit device and filing a false police report. His wife, who was not employed at the university, is charged with forgery.
The printouts, produced by the Student Affairs Office, were stolen from the university campus, but officials declined to say which office. Neither Drake has been charged with the theft of the printouts, Ahring said.
University officials said there did not appear to be any breach of the university computer system. The information in the printouts is only given to certain offices and “used for a variety of reasons,” Murphy said.
He said the 12 victims were contacted by police. Neither police nor the university could say how much money was involved in the fraud. Murphy said the university contacted all other people listed on the printout by mail and e-mail.
For more information, the university has provided a 24-hour toll-free phone number, 866-223-1695, and Web site, www.ucmo.edu/identityprotection.
And this week UCM offered enrollment in Experian Triple Alert, a 12-month program on identity theft protection, and credit monitoring. UCM will pay the cost of enrollment for anyone who could be affected by the recent theft.
WOW THANKS GUYS I GUESS I'LL SIGN UP FOR MY FREE CREDIT MONITORING SERVICE NOW. IT'D BE COOL WITH ME IF YOU'D JUST WRITE OFF MY PERKINS LOAN :)
KCMOSD'S NEW SUPERINTENDENT
KC’s new superintendent is a whirlwind who gets results
Posted: 05/07/2009 12:27 AM
More Front Page >> <<> Next >>
PUEBLO, Colo. One meeting done. Another one waiting.
John Covington pauses for a moment to answer a question about his past.
Does he know how people remember him from his days as a prison guard in southern Alabama?
Covington, the man chosen to be Kansas City’s next school superintendent, smiles at first, listening.
His uniform was always immaculate, the story went. All creased. All spick-and-span. It was more than just the pride he took in himself, they said. It was as if he wanted to show himself as a role model to those men behind bars.
But now a storm rises in the 50-year-old superintendent’s eyes.
He had to pull prisoners’ records as part of that job, he says. He saw scores on aptitude tests that showed many of the men had academic ability.
“Those kids were in school someplace,” he says, leaning forward. “The system failed them miserably.
“That’s heinous.”
• • •
Know this about John Covington, said Kathy West, his associate superintendent in Pueblo City Schools:
“He’s impatient. … He’s going to turn your community upside down.”
He came to Pueblo a rising star. He had lifted Alabama’s tiny Lowndes County school district above its impoverished resources and expectations in his first superintendent job.
He rolled into Pueblo, a steelworking town along the southern Rocky Mountains, three years ago with a mantra that Pueblo schools would compete against the world. He would leverage federal dollars. Intensify training. The community would drive a vast strategic plan, and everyone would be held accountable.
Keep in mind, says Andrew Lang, a community leader recruited to help guide the planning, that “people in Pueblo are pretty fixed.”
The population isn’t transient, he said. Outsiders stand out.
Many teachers feared he might be a union breaker, said Carole Partin, president of the Pueblo Education Association. He was coming from Alabama, a right-to-work state that doesn’t allow compulsory union membership.
A seven-year steelworker strike that ended five years ago still pervades the city’s psyche, said West, who has been with Pueblo schools more than 37 years. “Some of that anger is still out there,” she said.
Covington’s accomplishments couldn’t have happened, she said, if he hadn’t brought the community in, if he hadn’t worked with the teachers.
Even his detractors seem to agree that Pueblo schools are surging forward and that the plan is a success.
His negotiations with the teachers union have been contentious, Partin said, but agreements have been reached and she sees no threat to the union.
Is he after the union?
“No,” Covington said. “I’m not a union breaker. I don’t have time for foolishness.”
• • •
Hazel Covington, at 82, has been through four hip surgeries. But she still gets around on her own in the house she built near where her father labored as an Alabama sharecropper.
“I know if I can make one step,” she said, “the Lord will make two.”
Her children are her greatest success, she says, and that includes “Johnny,” the third of four whom she raised alone after a divorce when Johnny was in the third grade.
“I didn’t have a penny saved to help him,” she said. “He went off to college with one good pair of blue jeans and one with the knees out. I know he was determined. He’s been determined all his little life.”
His fraternity brothers at Alabama State University in the late 1970s sensed an unusual drive in Covington, said Donald Dotson, who would join up with Covington several years later working for Montgomery, Ala., schools.
They knew Covington had come from Enterprise, Ala., a rural and mostly poor community. But his manner, especially the way he talked, fit somewhere beyond small towns or even college frat houses.
“He wouldn’t use slang,” Dotson said. “That stood out. It was like he wanted to make sure his diction was perfect … like he was preparing himself.”
“Sometimes,” said his mentor, C.C. Baker, “I thought he was a little too serious.”
Baker, 79, Covington’s uncle and the former assistant state school superintendent of Alabama, watched his nephew come out of college.
He saw the way Covington carried himself when he worked at the Draper Correctional Facility.
“I knew he wouldn’t be staying a prison guard,” Baker said. “Johnny was watching. Johnny was asking questions.”
Soon he was following Baker’s footsteps, earning a master’s, earning a Ph.D.
Hazel Covington knows her son kept a hard pace. His girlfriend — his future wife, Wilanie — would knock on his door and push him on to class when he worked odd night hours, his mother recalled.
He never had much. His mother said that if she had $15 left at the end of the month from her job as head cook at a hospital, “I’d send him half of it.”
Teaching jobs led to principal jobs. And then came the day in the mid-1990s that Dotson saw his college brother again, now as an assistant superintendent for Montgomery Public Schools.
“In the back of my mind,” Dotson said, “I thought: ‘It’s come to fruition.’ ”
• • •
Lowndes County Schools, with a mere 2,000 students, was the kind of district that might take a chance on a rookie superintendent.
In Covington, Lowndes school board president Steve Foster said, the board saw “a large talent” they believed could manage classrooms, schools and finances.
“It was evident he had a vision where we could be and a plan how we could reach that level,” he said.
Covington took over a district where some schools still used coal-fired furnaces and some lacked air-conditioning. In his third year, he sparked a campaign to put a property tax referendum before voters and it passed, Foster said. “And that’s a rare thing in Alabama.”
Schools were modernized, said Daniel Boyd, the assistant superintendent who would take over after Covington. He put high-tech distance learning centers in the high schools. He involved the community in a plan that would foretell the work he would do in Pueblo.
“We knew,” Foster said, “that his ultimate goal would be in a larger district serving more people.”
After six years in Lowndes County, the timing seemed right in 2006 to take on the Pueblo job. John and Wilanie Covington’s two sons, whom they had adopted after serving as their foster parents, were grown and well into successful careers. Their daughter had started college.
Wilanie Covington, who is an assistant school principal, wanted to continue her career in Montgomery, near Lowndes County, so the couple for the first time managed a long-distance relationship.
Wilanie came with John when he interviewed for the Kansas City job and met the community last week. But they still have to decide, John said, whether Wilanie will move too.
• • •
Progress, say some of Covington’s current and former staff members, has come at some cost.
They hint — or say outright — that it is hard working for him.
One said Covington demanded that his top staff keep their cell phones on day and night. If he called, they’d work, even if they were sitting down to Christmas dinner.
And many teachers have been uncomfortable with the way he has pushed some ideas, including increased classroom observation and the possibility of using student performance scores in teacher evaluations.
“It’s like a whirlwind at times,” said Robert Vise, Pueblo’s director of assessment and technology. He showed a chart with 22 initiatives across six departments, all launched during Covington’s tenure. But the district also has increased training for staff and teachers, Vise said. He believes the plan is working.
Covington is the “cheerleader behind (Pueblo’s plan),” Vise said. “When he gets excited, he sounds like a Southern Baptist preacher.”
He’s not kidding.
Here’s how Covington showed off the alcove where six file cabinets house all the records tracking the six pillars of the plan.
Here’s the flow chart. “The community is at the top,” he says. Here are the six principles: individual education plans for each student, international standards, highly qualified teachers, strong character building, modernized schools, sound financial planning.
“You better not be caught doing anything not designed to meet the goals of this plan,” he says. “This is the Gospel. This is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in this district.”
• • •
If Kansas City lets it happen, said Baker the mentor, Covington is going to get results that have been a long time coming.
Pueblo’s elementary schools were already performing well when Covington arrived, and reading scores released last week show they’ve gotten stronger. Middle and high school scores won’t come out until summer, but most everyone seems to believe the plan is leading Pueblo where it wants to go.
Kansas City presents a greater challenge. Baker knows it. Like everyone entwined in Covington’s career, he’s read about the community’s struggle to free itself of a gloomy history of board and superintendent conflicts. “He’s going to demand much of himself and everyone under his watch,” Baker said. “He’s going to step on some toes. And anytime he steps on a toe, that toe can’t kick him out.”
This is the kind of job Covington imagined when he was accepted in 2008 into the Broad Foundation’s Superintendents Academy to train for the nation’s most challenged urban school districts.
He believes, he said, in the Broad mission that has no patience when children are not learning.
He couldn’t stand it with those young Alabama prisoners years ago.
You can be sure, Baker said, he won’t stand for it in Kansas City.
THIS IS WONDERFUL AND I HOPE HE CAN TURN THE DISTRICT AROUND. IN ANOTHER ARTICLE I READ HE IS PLANNING TO "GET RID OF" TEACHERS WHO AREN'T MEANT TO BE IN THE CLASSROOM. I AGREE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. I WAS BORN TO TEACH AND IT IS A SKILL THAT CAN BE LEARNED BUT THE BEST TEACHERS ARE BORN WITH THE HEART OF A TEACHER. AND EVEN THESE PEOPLE CANNOT SUCCEED WITHOUT THE ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT AND SUPPLIES THEY NEED. JOHN, I HOPE YOU PLAN TO HOLD EVERY SINGLE PRINCIPAL JUST AS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR PERFORMANCE AS YOU DO THE TEACHERS. OTHERWISE YOUR PLAN WILL NOT BE SUCCESSFUL. AND OH YEAH, I KNOW YOU HAVE A LIMITED BUDGET TO WORK WITH BUT YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO CONSIDER FIGURING OUT A WAY TO INCREASE THE STARTING TEACHER SALARY SINCE IT IS CURRENTLY AT 32,900 WHICH IS THE LOWEST IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA. I SUGGEST ASKING THE POLICE CHIEF TO SELL ALL THE PATROL CARS HE JUST SPENT OUR TAX MONEY ON SO THEY COULD SIT AT KCI FOR A YEAR WHILE WE ALSO FOOT THE BILL FOR THE STORAGE FEE.
Posted: 05/07/2009 12:27 AM
More Front Page >> <<> Next >>
PUEBLO, Colo. One meeting done. Another one waiting.
John Covington pauses for a moment to answer a question about his past.
Does he know how people remember him from his days as a prison guard in southern Alabama?
Covington, the man chosen to be Kansas City’s next school superintendent, smiles at first, listening.
His uniform was always immaculate, the story went. All creased. All spick-and-span. It was more than just the pride he took in himself, they said. It was as if he wanted to show himself as a role model to those men behind bars.
But now a storm rises in the 50-year-old superintendent’s eyes.
He had to pull prisoners’ records as part of that job, he says. He saw scores on aptitude tests that showed many of the men had academic ability.
“Those kids were in school someplace,” he says, leaning forward. “The system failed them miserably.
“That’s heinous.”
• • •
Know this about John Covington, said Kathy West, his associate superintendent in Pueblo City Schools:
“He’s impatient. … He’s going to turn your community upside down.”
He came to Pueblo a rising star. He had lifted Alabama’s tiny Lowndes County school district above its impoverished resources and expectations in his first superintendent job.
He rolled into Pueblo, a steelworking town along the southern Rocky Mountains, three years ago with a mantra that Pueblo schools would compete against the world. He would leverage federal dollars. Intensify training. The community would drive a vast strategic plan, and everyone would be held accountable.
Keep in mind, says Andrew Lang, a community leader recruited to help guide the planning, that “people in Pueblo are pretty fixed.”
The population isn’t transient, he said. Outsiders stand out.
Many teachers feared he might be a union breaker, said Carole Partin, president of the Pueblo Education Association. He was coming from Alabama, a right-to-work state that doesn’t allow compulsory union membership.
A seven-year steelworker strike that ended five years ago still pervades the city’s psyche, said West, who has been with Pueblo schools more than 37 years. “Some of that anger is still out there,” she said.
Covington’s accomplishments couldn’t have happened, she said, if he hadn’t brought the community in, if he hadn’t worked with the teachers.
Even his detractors seem to agree that Pueblo schools are surging forward and that the plan is a success.
His negotiations with the teachers union have been contentious, Partin said, but agreements have been reached and she sees no threat to the union.
Is he after the union?
“No,” Covington said. “I’m not a union breaker. I don’t have time for foolishness.”
• • •
Hazel Covington, at 82, has been through four hip surgeries. But she still gets around on her own in the house she built near where her father labored as an Alabama sharecropper.
“I know if I can make one step,” she said, “the Lord will make two.”
Her children are her greatest success, she says, and that includes “Johnny,” the third of four whom she raised alone after a divorce when Johnny was in the third grade.
“I didn’t have a penny saved to help him,” she said. “He went off to college with one good pair of blue jeans and one with the knees out. I know he was determined. He’s been determined all his little life.”
His fraternity brothers at Alabama State University in the late 1970s sensed an unusual drive in Covington, said Donald Dotson, who would join up with Covington several years later working for Montgomery, Ala., schools.
They knew Covington had come from Enterprise, Ala., a rural and mostly poor community. But his manner, especially the way he talked, fit somewhere beyond small towns or even college frat houses.
“He wouldn’t use slang,” Dotson said. “That stood out. It was like he wanted to make sure his diction was perfect … like he was preparing himself.”
“Sometimes,” said his mentor, C.C. Baker, “I thought he was a little too serious.”
Baker, 79, Covington’s uncle and the former assistant state school superintendent of Alabama, watched his nephew come out of college.
He saw the way Covington carried himself when he worked at the Draper Correctional Facility.
“I knew he wouldn’t be staying a prison guard,” Baker said. “Johnny was watching. Johnny was asking questions.”
Soon he was following Baker’s footsteps, earning a master’s, earning a Ph.D.
Hazel Covington knows her son kept a hard pace. His girlfriend — his future wife, Wilanie — would knock on his door and push him on to class when he worked odd night hours, his mother recalled.
He never had much. His mother said that if she had $15 left at the end of the month from her job as head cook at a hospital, “I’d send him half of it.”
Teaching jobs led to principal jobs. And then came the day in the mid-1990s that Dotson saw his college brother again, now as an assistant superintendent for Montgomery Public Schools.
“In the back of my mind,” Dotson said, “I thought: ‘It’s come to fruition.’ ”
• • •
Lowndes County Schools, with a mere 2,000 students, was the kind of district that might take a chance on a rookie superintendent.
In Covington, Lowndes school board president Steve Foster said, the board saw “a large talent” they believed could manage classrooms, schools and finances.
“It was evident he had a vision where we could be and a plan how we could reach that level,” he said.
Covington took over a district where some schools still used coal-fired furnaces and some lacked air-conditioning. In his third year, he sparked a campaign to put a property tax referendum before voters and it passed, Foster said. “And that’s a rare thing in Alabama.”
Schools were modernized, said Daniel Boyd, the assistant superintendent who would take over after Covington. He put high-tech distance learning centers in the high schools. He involved the community in a plan that would foretell the work he would do in Pueblo.
“We knew,” Foster said, “that his ultimate goal would be in a larger district serving more people.”
After six years in Lowndes County, the timing seemed right in 2006 to take on the Pueblo job. John and Wilanie Covington’s two sons, whom they had adopted after serving as their foster parents, were grown and well into successful careers. Their daughter had started college.
Wilanie Covington, who is an assistant school principal, wanted to continue her career in Montgomery, near Lowndes County, so the couple for the first time managed a long-distance relationship.
Wilanie came with John when he interviewed for the Kansas City job and met the community last week. But they still have to decide, John said, whether Wilanie will move too.
• • •
Progress, say some of Covington’s current and former staff members, has come at some cost.
They hint — or say outright — that it is hard working for him.
One said Covington demanded that his top staff keep their cell phones on day and night. If he called, they’d work, even if they were sitting down to Christmas dinner.
And many teachers have been uncomfortable with the way he has pushed some ideas, including increased classroom observation and the possibility of using student performance scores in teacher evaluations.
“It’s like a whirlwind at times,” said Robert Vise, Pueblo’s director of assessment and technology. He showed a chart with 22 initiatives across six departments, all launched during Covington’s tenure. But the district also has increased training for staff and teachers, Vise said. He believes the plan is working.
Covington is the “cheerleader behind (Pueblo’s plan),” Vise said. “When he gets excited, he sounds like a Southern Baptist preacher.”
He’s not kidding.
Here’s how Covington showed off the alcove where six file cabinets house all the records tracking the six pillars of the plan.
Here’s the flow chart. “The community is at the top,” he says. Here are the six principles: individual education plans for each student, international standards, highly qualified teachers, strong character building, modernized schools, sound financial planning.
“You better not be caught doing anything not designed to meet the goals of this plan,” he says. “This is the Gospel. This is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in this district.”
• • •
If Kansas City lets it happen, said Baker the mentor, Covington is going to get results that have been a long time coming.
Pueblo’s elementary schools were already performing well when Covington arrived, and reading scores released last week show they’ve gotten stronger. Middle and high school scores won’t come out until summer, but most everyone seems to believe the plan is leading Pueblo where it wants to go.
Kansas City presents a greater challenge. Baker knows it. Like everyone entwined in Covington’s career, he’s read about the community’s struggle to free itself of a gloomy history of board and superintendent conflicts. “He’s going to demand much of himself and everyone under his watch,” Baker said. “He’s going to step on some toes. And anytime he steps on a toe, that toe can’t kick him out.”
This is the kind of job Covington imagined when he was accepted in 2008 into the Broad Foundation’s Superintendents Academy to train for the nation’s most challenged urban school districts.
He believes, he said, in the Broad mission that has no patience when children are not learning.
He couldn’t stand it with those young Alabama prisoners years ago.
You can be sure, Baker said, he won’t stand for it in Kansas City.
THIS IS WONDERFUL AND I HOPE HE CAN TURN THE DISTRICT AROUND. IN ANOTHER ARTICLE I READ HE IS PLANNING TO "GET RID OF" TEACHERS WHO AREN'T MEANT TO BE IN THE CLASSROOM. I AGREE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. I WAS BORN TO TEACH AND IT IS A SKILL THAT CAN BE LEARNED BUT THE BEST TEACHERS ARE BORN WITH THE HEART OF A TEACHER. AND EVEN THESE PEOPLE CANNOT SUCCEED WITHOUT THE ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT AND SUPPLIES THEY NEED. JOHN, I HOPE YOU PLAN TO HOLD EVERY SINGLE PRINCIPAL JUST AS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR PERFORMANCE AS YOU DO THE TEACHERS. OTHERWISE YOUR PLAN WILL NOT BE SUCCESSFUL. AND OH YEAH, I KNOW YOU HAVE A LIMITED BUDGET TO WORK WITH BUT YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO CONSIDER FIGURING OUT A WAY TO INCREASE THE STARTING TEACHER SALARY SINCE IT IS CURRENTLY AT 32,900 WHICH IS THE LOWEST IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA. I SUGGEST ASKING THE POLICE CHIEF TO SELL ALL THE PATROL CARS HE JUST SPENT OUR TAX MONEY ON SO THEY COULD SIT AT KCI FOR A YEAR WHILE WE ALSO FOOT THE BILL FOR THE STORAGE FEE.
HATERS and FAITH
why is it that every time i try to do something good in my life there is so much opposition???? i asked my boyfriend this question and he told me that i must not forget the world gets filled with evil more each day and i should not be surprised because i have a good spririt. wow! duh. guess i just needed to hear that. i have dealt with haters my whole life and have overcome their opposition almost every time. right now i can honestly say i am being faced with more challenges than i have ever dealt with before in my life. i just lost my job. i have an amazing career opportunity overseas that i may not be able to accept because my son's father is still refusing to sign our son's passport and i cannot leave the country without his permission or until i have sole custody awarded by the court. (i thought about just forging it and leaving but i know better) (tempting tho) i am so frustrated but i know God sees me and i think he is preparing me for something much bigger than these types of problems. i can tell with so much opposition i have an awesome purpose on this earth. like ti said, "if your heart is filled with faith then you can't fear." and i have fears but i wash them away with glasses of faith on a regular basis. God is healing me and he is rebuilding me and restoring me and now i am more powerful than i have ever been. i was already a soldier, but now he is making me into a warrior:) and when i truly know my purpose-whatever it is, things will all fall into place like they did when i had my son and i asked him to allow me to finish college since that was my dream. i am realizing that my dream is over and now i think he is trying to show me that it is his turn.
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