A School Story

Around eighteen months ago....over in central Georgia....Clay County came up with a major problem with it's school system in the county.  The folks who hand out a national accreditation to county school systems had announced a very unique situation.  The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) had come to evaluate the county's schools...and put them on a one-year warning episode.  They were actually going to remove their accreditation.

Typically....at the high school level....most folks never even think about this.  But in today's atmosphere, if you were to graduate from a school system without an accreditation....you can pretty much forget about attending any college system in the US.

Clay County's school board suddenly got tossed into a blender....and it became apparent that half of the problems that the county suffered....were direct causes from the school board.  Some folks left, and some folks were forced into a position where they had to get along....in order to get things accomplished.

The Atlanta school situation is starting to appear in the same fashion....chaos within the school board.  At the heart of the matter....is the head of the school board.... Khaatim Sherrer El.

Khaatim is kinda interesting.  This is a guy who is 29 years old and head of a public school board.  He's actually been on the board for six years....meaning he made when it was 23 years old.  His big comment on public affairs?  "Youth activism was always his thing."

Based on a number of newspaper comments out of Atlanta....Khaatim has major connections to a number of political figures in the Atlanta area.

I sat there pondering over this.  I seriously doubt there is a school board in America....other than the Atlanta district....which has a head of the board who is under the age of forty.  The odds of some guy who was 29 years old being able to keep a educational board and dozens of school administrators focused on the problems at hand?  Maybe one guy out of a hundred.

The outcome of this threat from SACS?  Clay County ended up getting awful serious in a hurry....ironing out their communication issues and stopping the bickering at the board level.  In this case....the 29-year old guy has to come to grips with leadership and authority....which I'm guessing several political friends are now suggesting to him to back out or leave the board.

And if SACS dumps the Atlanta schools?  You can imagine this massive jump of the brighter kids in the district as they bolt and parents dump their kids off in the counties next door.  You need the accreditation....otherwise, it's all a waste.

Even in Bama....you can't imagine a scenario like this....where the locals would find the wisdom of voting for 23 year old guy to the board, and then six years later putting him in charge.

In My Neighborhood

As most of you know....I live in the Arlington area....with DC and Maryland just a stone-throw's away.  There's always a five-star moment each week....that drives home the screwed up nature of DC.

This week....the folks over in Maryland have this Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum.  Apparently, they'd paid out $90k for these bronze statues and had them on display out in the garden area of the Museum.  Some guy came up over the weekend, and stole them.

The thief then showed up at Montgomery Scrap....and sold the bronze pieces for $150.  The more that the boss looked at the bronze pieces....the more that he thought they were unique.  So he finally called the cops.  So the cops come up....gaze over their theft records....and then admit...it was art.  Stolen art.

The Museum says this art is "damaged beyond repair".  I looked at the picture (before the theft) and kinda wonder if you couldn't take broken art, and make it twice as valuable by damaging it a bit.  So maybe it was now worth $180k as a artistic piece of broken art?  I'm guessing that being from Bama.....limits me in this area, and I'd be best not to discuss this.

I kinda looked at the picture, and eventually decided that those pieces mostly looked like bar stools....made out of bronze.  What bothers me here....is that the bronze material likely ran around $500, and the artist then pocketed around $89.5k total for this act of putting everything together.  I could walk around Bama and find a hundred guys who could have put the pieces together over a weekend and been willing to accept $1000 for the work....but they'd rather you not tell anyone that they were into artist bronze work.

We've got a problem here with too much money in our hands, and then labeling things as "art".....when any kid could make things like this.  

As for the guy who stole the items?  Well....the cops are looking for him.  I suspect he'll be caught.  If I were him....I'd challenge the artist in court...and see if the $90k amount is realistic here.

Just An Observation

Over the past two years....the National Enquirer has lost tons of money.  Because of the economy and changing times....folks have quit the subscriptions and even quit picking up a copy at the grocery.  So the guys at the National Enquirer are kinda desperate.

This week, they led off with a Governor Palin story....that her husband Todd finally got caught cheating.

After reading the entire piece twice....I came to realize that all of their information came from an e-mail source only (thepalinmorals@hotmail.com). The only piece of the story that the Enquirer has been able to confirm....is that yes, a lady was arrested in Alaska in 2010 on the charge of maintaining a house of prostitution. Her name: Shailey Tripp. That's it...they haven't confirmed much of anything else.

Oh....well....yeah, they did mention that Shailey is a massage therapist and computer technologist.  I sat there pondering ....trying to think how massage therapist work goes along with a computer technologist work.  So far, I haven't come up with a good explanation.  I'm guessing Shailey went off to some pay-for-nothing commercial college and got a certificate in computer technology....then discovered the degree was worthless for a real job and went to work as a massage therapist.

I could go along with this story if Todd had computer problems and thought that Shailey could fix his laptop, but I'm thinking Todd is smart enough to find a real technology repair shop....and not a Computer-Repair Shop/Lusty Massage Therapy shop.

I have to be honest....I'm not much of a Governor Palin fan and I'd normally be looking for more entertaining stories.  The problem in this case is that the Enquirer is drowning itself with 1-star stories without content or fact.  If I had to pick a magazine with a limited future....it's these guys.

At one point....they had fantastic weekly stories over Micheal Jackson, Anne Nichol Smith, and Bill Clinton.  Things over the past decade have kinda gone sour, and I think the team at the Enquirer is mostly looking for just about anything.  They might even be willing to accept a story or two over Senator Harry Reid.  It's sad to see how far they've fallen.