August 19, 2008
are you better off 9 years later?
The Richmond Crusade for Voters held a public forum for the candidates for city council Tuesday night at the Military Retiree’s Club at 2220 Sledd Street. Recurring issues among the 18 candidates running for the 9 seats were economic development and affordable housing, with public safety and education coming up as well. From their comments at the forum, the two candidates for the 7th District seat might be living in 2 different neighborhoods…
Challenger Clarence Kenney paints the picture that the 7th district is stagnating and that a change needs to be made. Asking “are you better off 9 years later?”, Kenney says that “crime is as bad as it ever was” and that “people the are being duped out of their homes”. His approach is that education will take care of the social ills of the city’s neighborhoods, but that “we have a lot of schools that have a lot of problems” and “the kids are being miseducated”. On a positive note, Kenney said that “more people need to come off the sidelines and get involved”. He called for a need to weed out juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, the ABC store on 25th Street, and the corner stores that sell alcohol.
The incumbent Delores McQuinn says that “Richmond has the greatest of potential to be a destination city” but that there is much work to be done. Speaking on the schools in the district, she says that “my commitment has always been there” and reiterated her awareness of the need to advocate for and encourage the young people. McQunn described positive public safety changes, saying that the streets are safer and more full of people, 25th Street improvement is ongoing, and the schools in the district have shown notable improvement while she has been in office.
The Richmond Crusade for Voters was founded in 1956. The organization grew out of the Council to Save Public Schools, itself initially formed to fight a January 1956 law which allowed cities in Virginia the option of closing public schools rather than integrate them.
While I like McQuinn on a personal level, I think she has been in office too long.
McQuinn never saw a corporate welfare project in the past 9 years that she did not say, “Well in this particular case….we need to invest the money”.
I urge voters in the district to consider alternatives.
I was about to make this comment on the “Watching new restaurants” page when the parking issue came up and what responsibility our City Council member has to help small business in CH. While our Council member hasn’t been involved in any titillating controversy, she has been a long standing cog in a very inefficient machine. I think it’s time for a total turnover in City Council, ousting old musty members for some new, fresh perspectives.
The only problem is there hasn’t been many options in the past. I’m thinking anyone who doesn’t have a friggin’ REV. in front of their name. That’s just a red flag for BS artist to me.
I don’t see how an elementary school with the 2nd highest rate of suspensions has improved any to be considered a top contender.
Crystal, what is the context of your comment? I could not find a school mentioned in the above blurb.
http://crankytaxpayer.org/Suspensions/suspensions.html
Tiny,
paste this in your browser if you want an eye-popping experience.
I am not surprised to see certain schools rate high on this list. I would like to see some actual numbers (rather than percentages) to put this in context. Also, I would like to know if the same students have had multiple suspensions that affect the rate (ie, one student suspended 5 times versus 5 different students suspended). Do you know where I might find these statistics?
Why are you not surprised? I am certain that there is a great deal of recidivism reflected in these numbers.
Even so, the numbers are stunning.
I suggest you ask someone at RPS or check out the Virginia Department of Education website.
When Mrs. McQuinn became our City Councilperson this district was in bad condition. Please don’t talk about 25 Street. Look a round you, this took 9 years of hand work. She has done her job well. She had Town Meeting,in which very little people showed up. You had chance to
A school with a high suspension rate also means they aren’t doing much to correct the underlying problem.
Kids are smart and know they only have to keep doing the same thing that gets them suspended time and time again in order to get out of school.
Statistics without context can be misleading. I am not saying I have no concerns, I am just saying it is not possible to draw an accurate conclusion without more data. For example, I would like to know what types of offenses did the suspend students commit. Without know whether the suspensions were the applied to a few “bad” kids or were unjustly applied to many students, or the severity of the infraction (talking in class versus bringing weapons in school), I really feel I cannot accurately analyze the situation.
I know of two out-of-school suspensions that were given to two of my son’s classmates. In the first example, the child was really basically a good child, but he made a very bad decision. He brought a knife to school and while showing it off, he acted like he was going to stick a student. The student told and he received a two-day suspension. I think the punishment was appropriate because the offense was very serious. And, being a basically good kid, I think he learned his lesson.
The other example involved a fight with several people. I am not sure what happened to all the participants, but the one who throw a desk at the teacher was suspended. I also think that this was appropriate.
Now, in a class of approximately 40 kids, 2 suspensions (that I know of) represent a fairly high rate of suspension (please don’t ask me to do the math), but I feel that when each incident is examined, the suspensions were warranted. Now, since I do not know the details for any other school, I do not know whether the suspensions were capricious or justified.
I browsed the site and, honestly, I felt it was a bit overstated, written in a propagandistic (is this a word?) style to appeal to our emotions rather than our sense of reason. I am not saying this issue should not be investigated, only that we need to find out more before we jump to conclusions.
edg,
No one on this side of the monitor has jumped to any conclusion whatsoever.
Tiny simply said she didn’t have the information.
I did a quick google search and came up with the CrankyTaxpayer website and posted the link.
No conclusions, no attitude.
Did you go to the Virginia Department of Education website? I beleive there are numbers there.
*ooops … believe
I think it was the phrases “eye popping” and “stunning”. Without context, this statistics are neither are not dramatic, and the inclusion of the link led me to believe you subscribe to the authors seemingly radical views. As with most extreme views, the answer tends to lie somewhere in between the extremes.
You do not need to correct your grammar. I understand the people make typos - I do it all the time.