The Clay County Education Association is planning a community rally at Orange Park High School on Friday, March 27 4-7 p.m.  The keynote speakers will be Florida Education Association President Andy Ford.  Invited guests include: Clay County School District Superintendent Ben Wortham and School Board members, local state legislators, and Clay County commissioners.  

Everyone is invited to wear red and show your support for public education. Parents, students, and community members are encouraged to bring signs and posters to rally for support from our leaders in Tallahassee.  There will be informational booths, letter/postcard writing stations, sign making, and much more!

For additional information on the Clay County Education Association Community Rally for Education, contact Lea Rhoden lea.rhoden@gmail.com or Jennifer Wood jwood272@yahoo.com with education rally in the subject line and visit clayeducation.blogspot.com.

In an editorial today, the Miami Herald blasts the idea of a 1-cent sales tax hike as regressive. According to the Herald: “As to K-12 funding, legislative leaders have said they will consider everything put on the table. So far they have been lukewarm to: raising the tax on tobacco products; lifting any sales tax exemptions; imposing sales taxes on Internet purchases.”

To read the rest of the editorial, go to: 

This is a note sent from Liz Crane, president of the Clay County Education Association, the negotiating arm for the Clay County teachers:

 Liz Crane and Lea Rhoden made the trek to Tallahassee yesterday with three bins of pennies. Thank you to the schools that participated and donated pennies. 

The display of pennies were originally to be placed on the Capitol steps however there was a ’concern’ that the weight of the pennies would be too much and the display was moved to a Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, has a proposal in the Legislature for a constitutional amendment to raise the state sales tax by a penny, from 6 percent to 7 percent, to fund education.

The idea is to let state residents decide by vote whether they want to tax themselves an additional penny to pay for the shortcomings in education. It would better if the Legislature would tackle the issue head on and try to bring the state education funding out of last place in the U.S. but that is probably not going to happen any time soon.

I am OK with a vote on an increase in sales tax — especially if the increase can be specifically directed to education spending. We have seen what the folks in Tallahassee can do when they get their hands on money intended for other uses, aka the Lottery. If Floridians truly want the improvements in education funding that they say the do, then the amendment should pass with flying colors. Don’t look for it to be a slam dunk in Clay County, however, where a local option sales tax increase has gone down in flames in the past, albeit under difficult circumstances.

In a brief comment on the subject, Rep. Jennifer Carroll, R- Green Cove Springs, said that as long as school districts were top-heavy with administrators she didn’t see much relief coming. She couldn’t have been referring to Clay County because the local district has reduced its administrative positions significantly over the last few years. Is there room for more administrative cuts in Clay? Possibly, but not to the extent that cutting more vice principals would make a dent in its huge budget shortfall.

Carroll also said she was not in favor of raising taxes.

I don’t sense there is any interest in Tallahassee in doing anything about education funding this year. Or maybe any year for that matter. There just seems to be a disconnect between Tallahassee and some of the desperate needs in Clay County. 

By Stephen Sawchuk

Courtesy of Edweek.org.

The recently enacted economic-stimulus bill requires every state to take steps to improve teacher effectiveness, as well as to tackle one of the most pervasive problems in K-12 education: inequities in access to top teaching talent for poor and minority children.

In those two provisions, which governors must address to get their cuts of $53.6 billion in state fiscal-stabilization aid, some experts see glimpses into the future of federal teacher-quality policy.

“We have a lot of evidence that this administration is very interested in making effective teaching a priority,” said Sabrina W.M. Laine, the director of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality at Learning Point Associates, a federally financed technical-assistance center in Naperville, Ill. “The stimulus bill is wide open for interpretation, but it provides the proverbial shot in the arm for equitable distribution and for discussions to move a reauthorization bill [on education] forward.”

To read more of this discussion, you have to signup at edweek.org.

Ronnie Winter of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus performs in Alabama in December.

I see where the red-hot band The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is planning a benefit concert to help raise money for band uniforms for Middleburg High School, which many of the group’s members attended.

This is an exciting idea on several levels. It benefits the school, it gives exposure to a worthy cause and it could be the catalyst for other home-grown celebrities to come to the aid of the cash-strapped education system in Clay County.

Consider the possibilities.

1. Country music legend Tim McGraw’s family was living in Middleburg when he was born. Do you think he could sell out the Clay County fairgrounds arena Read the rest of this entry »

Lamar Thames

Just a few random thoughts this week about topics in general. I am recovering from a dastardly chest cold that has short-circuited my brain cells, so there is really not much of a creative effort going on up there this week (as if there ever is.) That accounts for the lack of new content on the site, which is a definite handicap for a one-person operation.

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I have a favor to ask of you. If you are so inclined, go to

http://GoGreenCove.com/pages/Photo_Contest 

and cast a vote for a photo I posted (seen here) of Rusty the wonder beagle. I took the photo at Christmas and as you can plainly see, Rusty wasn’t very fond of the antler horns. I could never get a photo of him

Please vote for Rusty the wonder beagle. See details in story.

 actually wearing the horns but his expression is just too priceless. So, vote if your can or will and I will gladly share with you a portion of the winnings (a $25 gift card). Depending on how many of you take me up on it, we could be talking of no more than a stick of gum apiece.

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Speaking of cheap, did you hear about the price of a share of CitiGroup the other day? Around $1. Boy, was I tempted to pull our money out of the safety and security of my investment portfolio (talk about an oxymoron) and buy some of that cheap paper. Then I decided, no, I would just buy a Coke instead, since that is about all that was left after last year’s roller-coaster ride in the stock market. I am going to leave it to smarter people than me to figure out how to handle this mess, but I guarantee you I am not throwing good money after bad (if you get my drift, President Obama). 

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I am glad to see that saner heads have prevailed in some of the school-based decisions on which teachers to cut after the Read the rest of this entry »

OK, Clay County, here is your opportunity to show how much you care about the public education system. 

From 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, March 7, 2009, residents are encouraged to line the streets at the corner of Kingsley Avenue and Blanding Boulevard in Orange Park to show support for our school system and voice our displeasure with the funding shortfall that is expected out of the Legislature again this year.

A large majority of the residents who have moved to Clay County in the last 1 5to 20  years have done so because of the quality of the school district. It is now time for those newcomers, as well as all of you who have been here for decades, Read the rest of this entry »

Lamar Thames

The worldwide economic crisis is wreaking havoc with families, banking, finance, construction, infrastructure and probably more areas that we can even imagine at this time. As I have said before, I am not sure that all of the changes that may come about because of the financial chaos will be bad. There are benefits to a leaner, meaner economy, the least of which is greater efficiencies and more conservation in many areas.

Look at what has happened in the oil industry. Prices went through the roof in the U.S., motorists reduced their driving by billions of miles and prices came down, thus producing a benefit to the environment. (I know gas prices have rebounded against all odds, but there are other reasons for that.) You can see similar results in water usage and prices for all manner of Read the rest of this entry »