Saturday, December 27, 2008

Condescension and Hypocrisy

Honestly, I'm not sure what aggravates me more...condescension or hypocrisy. Linard McCloud, the renowned band director for the incredible Burke High School band, served as the moderator for Dr. McGinley's District 20 Community meeting at Burke High School. This was the same man who served under Dr. Goodloe as a "moderator" for the A Plus Program at the Rhett campus as Rivers' students were abruptly moved to Burke without even hot water in the cafeteria at the start of the school year. It was a joke, yet McCloud stood by the administration in full support of the fiasco. We threw McCloud's comrade (and former Burke English teacher) Andrew HaLevi under the bus, yet McCloud remains a shining star.

So, who is Linard McCloud? McCloud is our neighbor. As McCloud told us to support Dr. Goodloe moving the Rivers' students to the Rhett campus, his own child remained in Mt. Pleasant schools. Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of choosing the best educational path for your child, but don't pretend these options are good enough for our children and grandchildren when they're not good enough for your own.

McCloud moderating that meeting stinks as much as Thuane Fielding's attempt at telling us it was all about the children knowing her child is at Buist Academy. Cut the crap and give us some credit. I even heard another District 20 board member Ivy Ascue has her child at James Island Charter High School, yet she and Ms. Fielding think we should send our children to these low-performing schools. We see right through you. People like you keep our community separated and it's time to call you out on it. By the way, Ms. Fielding, I'd love to know YOUR opinion on closing Charleston Progressive so we can EXPAND a school for cheaters.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does the whole school cheat? Just curious.

Anonymous said...

Seems like with the new residency requirements at Buist the past couple of years,and the "no moving or leave the school" decision starting this year, that the past couple of years and future applicants at Buist are or will be legit.... You would think you would want to expand the school knowing that- but no- you just have to trash on it some more... You're so biased against Buist that it clouds your thinking and makes your hatred towards the school pathetic.

Underdog said...

Let's get this straight. There's no "new" residency requirement. The CCSD ridiculous board of trustees is simply saying they'll be enforcing a residency policy they should have been enforcing the past 20 years. Kick out the cheaters. The end. Yet Meyers and his buddies will have none of that. As always, any "bashing of Buist" brings out the bloggers. I'm done trying to make peace with people who pretend we don't have some serious problems at Buist. CCSD wants to close our schools which they've never properly funded and I'm supposed to be grateful? Give me a break. Hatred towards Buist? Never. Disgust towards parents pretending to be District 20 residents and those who turn a blind eye to them? As I've stated time and time again...YOU BET.
Merge Charleston Progressive and Buist as Arthur Lawrence suggested in last week's Chronicle, IF the Charleston Progressive parents will have them. Expanding Buist as it is? No TRUE District 20 resident who knows the facts would ever agree with such nonsense. We don't stand a chance of making peace until we're done with Ballard AND the cheaters.

Anonymous said...

The residency requirement IS new because it has been expanded and is much stricter now! The fact is- going forward- there is literly no way for someone to get into Buist without proper residency verification-- You throw out the stupid remark of expanding a school full of cheaters-- Well, all the new students from expansion would not be cheaters-so why are you against it!! MAKE THE PEACE... you're the one joking- no matter what the subject- whether it has something to do with Buist or not- you throw in some stupid comment putting Buist down in you blog... You're losing it-- even your supporters turned on you with your riduculous rant on the parent "hero" You can't make a point without trying to mention Buist knowing it will get posters... Your pathetic..

Anonymous said...

Buist is full of bad apples. It got that way when the administration decided to look the other way over both the cheaters who are continuing to exploit their position and the principal who for years covered for them.

How absurd for anyone to think that simply closing CPA (a K-8 magnet school with more than 90% African-American enrollment) and giving its campus to Buist (a K-8 magnet school with less than 20% African-American enrollment) can be justified as a financial issue. Try telling that to the generation of African-American students who saw their schools closed, sold and forgotten almost as punishment for the Brown v. Board decision and the Civil Right movement.

If CCSD wants the mother of all Office of Civil Rights (OCR) complaints, then go ahead. Close CPA and give their large and relatively modern campus to an exclusive magnet school. Then ship CPA students to the "reconstituted" failing schools. Just don't let them enter Buist.

If Nancy McGinley and Gregg Meyers see themselves as enlightened defenders of the underclass, they must be fooling themselves. These two hypocrites are no better than the worst racists of the 1950's. If it was only about the money we would be cutting the administrative fat. If it was for the children, Lincoln wouldn't be shrinking and would be well on its way to being be an excellent rated school.

Buist admissions polies contintue to be a sham. The recent history of the school is not a model worth following and its leadership is fundamentally corrupt. Do you want your children brought up in this destructive environment? It looks like a large number of D20 parents are looking elsewhere. They aren't even bothering to sign up to "win the lottery" as one parent reportedly said in a letter to the P&C editor in Friday's paper. Even if they did "win" a seat after penning such a suck-up letter, what's it really worth in terms of a quality and moral education?

Magnet schools are so "9-10". Give us a real choice that will educate the next generation for the real world. The next president gets it. The next education secretary gets it. Lots of Republican legislators get it. Opra gets it with her gift to the Ron Clark Academy charter school gets it. Even the national board of the NAACP gets it. So why doesn't our school board get it?

Parent choice, genuine parent choice, must be the greatest fear of those like McGinley and Meyers who are fighting change in Charleston County. Closing schools isn't change. As someone said before, it's circling the wagons and fighting to the bitter end. Only in this case, it's the community and the children who will be paying the price for McGinley's career motivated mistakes.

Anonymous said...

Your Buist bloggers speak volumes when they don't speak at all, Underdog.