Kathy at Domestic Psychology is not sure about new Knox County Superintendent Jim McIntyre's choice of residence and school district. Hey, we're all just trying to help Dr. McIntyre fit in.

In related news, Brian Hornback also has advice for Dr. McIntyre, and says the School Board needs an intervention before he arrives.

The new Montessori Middle School in Louisville (the Blount Co. TN Louisville) is hosting their 1st Annual Farm Festival on Saturday, May 10, 2008 from 11AM to 4PM at the school, which is located at 3725 Louisville Rd (map). The event is open to the public and there is no charge for admission.

According to Nicole DeBurton, head of the school, Montessori Middle School is a unique and innovative program in that it is located in a farm setting, with plans to include gardening, building, and animal husbandry as part of the curriculum. This is the first school of its kind in the Southeast, and only three other such farm-based Montessori Middle Schools exist in the entire country.

Click read more for a press release with more details...

Yesterday, Factchecker brought our attention to Rep. Jimmy Duncan's remarks regarding "abstinence only" education and "elitist" health professionals interfering with parenting.

Also yesterday, the Crone Speaks about the Congressional hearings on whether "abstinence only" education works, and offers some disturbing facts suggesting it doesn't.

Today, Katie Allison Granju over at Knoxville Talks discusses Duncan's remarks and the distinction between parenting and public health strategy.

Coincidentally, just last night the Mrs. and I attended the FYI: Framing Choice graduation party and photo exhibit hosted by the local Planned Parenthood organization.

While I am out of town visiting relatives, I am keeping up with news from home via the Internet. With some consternation, I read that the Knox County School Board is asking for a $400 million budget, some $39 million more than the last one.

As a Knoxville/Knox County property owner, I see this increase with a jaded eye.

My two children are products of the Knox County School system. One, now 34, is a Certified Financial Planner and Certified Estate Planner, while the other, 32, is a BSN/RN with a clinical focus on cardiac/cardio-surgical intensive care. Obviously, I completely understand how important our public school system is to the well-being of those families unable to afford private schools for their children.

I also understand how important it is to keep property taxes low. I now live on a fixed income and would *not* like to see my property taxes rise.

The yearly jaunt to cart (at last accounting) $5700 to Blount County to the Dancing Bear Lodge and the recent gala luncheon lauding our deserving teachers are in that budget somewhere. I do not pretend to be an accountant and can certainly *not* understand the intricate details and vagaries of their budget, but I know this much - taking our tax money to Blount County for their annual retreat is not fair to business and property owners in Knox County.

What really stymies me is that I have offered this information to more than one major *and* minor news outlet in our area, and no one seems to be brave enough to follow up on this story. Can it be that they are somehow afraid of the Board, or do our area journalists simply think this is unimportant?

I do not have all my files here with me, but I was apprised of these facts via Russ Oaks, the Board's communications guy.

In light of the recent hiring of the Boston fellow at an exorbitant salary, perhaps now is a good time to bring some sunshine to the KCSB budget in the same manner applied to the KC Mayor's office.

Hopefully someone reading this will be concerned enough to follow through on this.

The Knox Co. School Board has narrowly approved the contract for new superintendent Dr. Jim McIntyre, who will start in July.

First, welcome to East Tennessee Dr. McIntyre. Now, for some free friendly advice...

BOWL FOR KIDS’ SAKE 2008 – visit BigBrothersBigSistersETN.org
Coming to an Alley Near You!
Have fun with coworkers, friends or family while also helping children. Bowl For Kids’ Sake benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee. Every dollar raised goes toward uniting at-risk children with caring adult mentors. It is a FUNtastic way to spend time together and help our community.

More details after the break...

KNS reports that U.T. has a new interim Chief Information Officer, Jesse Poore. He sounds like a smart and accomplished guy. With a background in scientific and engineering computing, though, I'm not sure he's the kind of person they need.

It reminds me of back when the industry was desperate for programmers trained in business, accounting, and COBOL, and U.T. only taught FORTRAN.

A major IT department is a huge and complicated business within a business, especially at a university where it's hard to imagine a more diverse set of applications and users. Running it has to be one of the toughest corporate type jobs there is, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

From a systems management standpoint, the scientific and engineering applications seem like only a small part, used mostly by uber-geeks who do their own thing but probably can't balance their own checkbook much less put out a payroll for ten thousand employees every two weeks.

And somebody has to deal with the thousands of mortals trying to install the latest virus protection updates on their bloated and broken Windows boxes lest the latest round of infected "ten reasons dogs are better companions than men" email forwards crash The Matrix. Come to think of it, that might actually be a bigger challenge than aiming a neutron beam at a specific electron and hitting it or whatever it is those uber-geeks do.

Anyway, see the previous discussion with a lot of free advice here.

At the risk of being accused of self-promotion, Where in the World is Smokey? is one of the more interesting and enjoyable projects I've worked on at UT. We're mailing T-shirts to students, staff, faculty, and alumni and asking them to take photos of themselves wearing the T-Shirt during their travels. Since launching the site in October we've received photos from 17 states and 20 countries, and we're expecting to get a photo from Antarctica in the next week or two, which will give us posts from all 7 continents.

The promotion is a bit gimmicky, maybe, but it's been a fun way to raise awareness of the university's Ready for the World initiative.

Did you know the Knox County Schools only has one person working about half of their time working on grant proposals? A grant writer can generally bring in 15 to 20 times their salary.

If our 19 Commissioners were to surrender 50% of their Discretionary Fund, we could fund another full-time grant writer, probably bringing in another $1 million in for school programs.

Or maybe we could just add it to this round of the budget?

(Link...)

The KNS has an in-depth article about Knoxville College today. Can a school with 66 enrollees, $7 million in debt and millions more in maintenance backlogs survive? It sure sounds like they're trying.

Hey, parents: The Society of Professional Journalists is sponsoring a national essay contest for high school students to write about "Why free news media are important."

The contest is open to all students enrolled in grades 9-12 in public, private and home schools. Students must submit original work and have a sponsoring teacher sign the contest entry form. Essays should be 300-500 words. Entries may be typed or handwritten but must be double-spaced.

The first place award is a $1,000 scholarship. Second place will receive a $500 scholarship, and third place will receive a $300 scholarship. Entries must be postmarked by March 1, 2008.

Larry Van Guilder is the contest chair for the local SPJ chapter. Entries may be mailed to him at:

Larry Van Guilder
820 Black Rock Circle
Knoxville, TN 37934

For more information and official rules, see the SPJ website contest page, or contact Larry by email at lvgknox@mindspring.com.

(Just as an observation, local kids have some pretty great subject matter to draw from for an essay on this topic!)

An interesting new report from the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) looks at how various tax incentives skew BEP education funding:

When a local government earmarks local sales tax revenues for a sports facility, for example, it has voluntarily diverted school revenues to another purpose. A TIF is a voluntary diversion of property tax revenues to a development project. A property tax abatement results when a public entity voluntarily grants a private entity the use of publicly-owned tax-exempt property.

When property is removed from the county and municipal tax rolls, this diminishes the property tax base, lowers tax capacity, and, in effect, rewards local governments that have voluntarily relinquished revenues that would have gone to public schools had the abatement not been granted. While abatements effected through leases are legal under Tennessee law, officials in counties that have utilized (or over-utilized) them should not be subsidized by excluding the values of abated parcels from their property tax bases.

In 2002, tax abatements were estimated to have cost counties and municipalities approximately $104.3 million in forgone revenues. The loss to county school systems was at least $33 million. The actual total revenue loss was undoubtedly much higher because of under-reporting. The fact is that no one knows the total amount of school revenues that are diverted or abated, and no one knows to what extent the economic benefits of abatements compensate for those losses.

If I read all this correctly, the concern (other than diverting local funds from education) is that counties that use such tax incentives understate their tax base and revenue generating capacity, thus getting a bigger piece of the BEP pie for education than they might otherwise be entitled to.

In their report, which is a follow up to a 2004 report regarding the effects of tax incentives and school funding, TACIR recommends a number of steps to address these concerns. They include improved reporting and oversight of tax incentives, accountability for cost/benefit analysis, and maintaining up to date records used in analyzing the tax base with the goal of leveling the playing field based on comparable information.

I had an interesting discussion at the Candidate Expo with Mr. Victor Jernigan, a well-known developer in Knox County. We discussed growth issues, impact fees, etc. I had mentioned that it would be helpful to look at other areas that have similar geography to Knoxville but have already gone through growth phases, to see what they did, what worked, and what didn't work. I mentioned one area with similar geography is Portland, OR, where they are dramatically limited in the growth of roadways, more so than us. He mentioned that he had read that Oregon had the worst schools in the country and a terrible growth policy.

That was a bit surprising. Portland?

State Rep. Mike Turner, a Democrat from Old Hickory (Davidson Co.), introduced a couple of bills last week that, given recent controversy in Knox Co., might be of local interest.

HB2524 allows student to attend the school closest to the student's residence, if the student so desires.

HB2525 prohibits construction of high schools with a student capacity of greater than 1,200.

Teaching secondary education must be so frustrating. There are obviously educators who care. How can they compete? How can they educate our children? What's the next step? Will we work to educate our children or will we defend their right to be cool with all the cool toys?

By far the problem with our schools is not inadequate funding. It's not poor teacher training or competence. It's not a lack of technology or deficiencies with the curriculum or standards. And, above all, it has nothing to do with whether the school year should start in early August or September, an inane concern at best.

No, the reason huge majorities of our kids graduate with poor reading skills, fourth-grade math competence and are unable to name any of the participants in World War II - much less the century in which it occurred - is because of laziness, apathy and boredom.

Between Shakespeare and an iPod, guess which wins? Between the quadratic formula and a cell phone, take a wild guess which a kid is more preoccupied with. Between Jeffersonian Democracy and MySpace - uh, I think you get the point.

Many thanks to W.M. Howard for his "Citizens Voice" article in the KNS.

Parents who say their child was denied the right to conduct Bible study classes during recess are suing Knox County Schools for damages.

How much should they get? Do they even have a case?

(And is anyone else annoyed by the Crime Beat Cub Reporter writing in this article? Makes it kinda hard to follow.)

Three teenagers in the Cincinnati school system posted an entry on Facebook with the face and last name of a teacher and referred to him as a member of a notorious national association that advocates sex between men and boys.

The students were suspended for 90 days. Now they are suing school officials over the length of the suspensions.

"They're not saying it's true, they're saying it's just parody," the students' attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday.

Free speech is coming into play.

Geez! If the Facebook entry is not true, I hope the teacher is suing the students and their families for something. I can't imagine why the students' parents think the students should not receive a strong punishment. They are lucky they are getting a criminal record, IMO.

Philip Morris USA, in cooperation with Philip Morris International, provided $445,000 to establish the Center for Tobacco Grower Research within UT's Institute of Agriculture.

It's the only center of its kind in the country.
...
Green said production information - including the amount of tobacco grown, harvested and sold, location of growers and conditions affecting tobacco growth - is necessary for the long-term sustainability of the nation's tobacco production.

The University should be proud. When so many around the country and world are trying to assist people with quitting smoking, the University accepts money to increase tobacco production. What can you say? The more grants, the more research, the better the university. Never mind the students, faculty, community, society.

"It's a legal commodity," he said. "As long as there's a demand for the product, someone's going to be growing tobacco. This center is in support of agriculture, and tobacco is an important part of Tennessee agriculture. "

I say, Bull$*&@!

Wired interviews Dr. Bill Bass of the UT Forensic Anthropology Center. Now accepting donations!

An update to the update at TennViews...

The plaintiffs claim the only way to protect their child from Christian proselytizing at the school was to withdraw him from Lakewood and school him at home.

Isn't it usually the other way around?

Just a quick progress report. I talked today to Dr. Linda Byrd-Johnson regarding the failure to renew UT's TRIO funding for the McNair Scholars program. She reports being flooded with Tennessee e-mails, but still refuses to see her job more broadly and to exercise reason and good sense (to save the program).

She reported that both her superiors, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Auer Jones, so far refuse to act. So I hope you kept a copy of the initial note (if not, a version below) and will send a note to Jones at diane.jones@ed.gov.

Many thanks to those on this site who acted. I encourage you to keep up the pressure. I'm about to unleash a second wave of various methods to reverse this bad decision.

----
UT's McNair Scholars program is a superb resource. It takes kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who have made it to college and helps them prepare for graduate education. It is one of the most successful McNair programs in the country, and each year it also does a regional conference of other similar programs.

Now the program may lose its federal money (called the TRIO program) because its 2008 application was three minutes late. UT's Office of Research Administration blames a slow link in the grants.gov site. Sadly, so far all attempts to correct have fallen on deaf ears.

I recommend politeness but persistence, and spreading the word to other internet sites so we can magnify the message so it will not be ignored. --Mark Harmon

Knox Co. Mayor Mike Ragsdale has launched a workforce development initiative that would get local business leaders more involved in education.

Citing "demand [for] a workforce more skilled and capable than ever before," the Mayor called on the business community to:

• Develop 1,000 volunteers to tutor high school students in algebra, calculus, chemistry, and physics.

• Support expanded apprenticeship programs in high schools in order to help meet skilled labor needs.

• Contribute financially to K-12 programs in the same manner they contribute to their universities.

Ragsdale commended Knox County Schools for above average ACT scores and for the system-wide literary initiative. He also called for expanding Birth to Kindergarten, Pre-K, and the Teacher Advancement Program.

You can read his remarks to the Chamber here, and the press release here.

Your help is needed to create an internet howl of protest sufficient to reverse a decision that will be a blow to UT and a setback for a quality education.

UT's McNair Scholars program is a superb resource. It takes kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who have made it to college and helps them prepare for graduate education. It is one of the most successful McNair programs in the country, and each year it also does a regional conference of other similar programs. I have volunteered as a McNair mentor to a young scholar five times, and found it to be a phenomenal program.

Now the program may lose its federal money (called the TRIO program) because its 2008 application was three minutes late. UT's Office of Research Administration blames a slow link in the grants.gov site. Sadly, so far all attempts to correct have fallen on deaf ears.

Today I visited the local offices of Congressman Duncan, and Senators Alexander and Corker. All shake their heads, but seem resigned to accept the pronouncements of low-level employees who merely cite procedure, or who claim the money is already distributed (when they really mean they don't want to change their allocation formula).

You can call these offices, too. However, I recommend the direct approach, making an appeal for reason and human judgment. You can make that appeal to the program administrator, Dr. Linda Byrd-Johnson (Linda.byrd-johnson@ed.gov, phone 202-502-7729). I recommend politeness but persistence, and spreading the word to other internet sites so we can magnify the message so it will not be ignored. --Mark Harmon

Recent statistics about the amount of children in TN now in special education programs have raised eyebrows and worried parents.

Link...

"According to a recent report on the state's schools, one in six students received special education services in the 2006-2007 school year.

Officials say that number should be more like one in 10 or 12."

A bad law is usually exposed by looking at how many people are making extra efforts to get around it.

No Child Left Behind needs to be thrown out, Assessment is important, but not the way Bush wants to utilize it.

Tennessee's special education numbers need to be carefully scrutinized. No matter what the reason for these statistics, they are very alarming.

Tennessee libraries are becoming more dependent on foundations and local funding:

June Pinkston, assistant state librarian for planning and development with the Tennessee State Library and Archive Office in Nashville, said Tennessee "is in the bottom five states in overall funding for public libraries."

Andrew Hunt, Cleveland/Bradley County library director, said less than 2 percent of his $1.1 million budget comes from the state.

"For comparison, about 6 percent of our budget ... is derived from fines," he said.

According to the article, rural libraries receive less local funding, and state funding comes only through regional library offices.

Social work is apparentlly a communist plot.

Meeting Announcement

The upcoming meeting dates for the Knoxville Asperger Support Group are:

• Novemeber 19, 2007
• December 17, 2007

The support group has a Yahoo Group which can be found on http://groups.yahoo.com/ by searching for Knoxville_Aspie_Support. It meets the third Monday of every month unless there is a conflict or holiday at the West Branch of the Knoxville Public Library (map) at 100 Golfclub Rd from 6pm to 7:30pm.

The Knoxville Asperger Support Group is a no charge, open discussion on the subject of Asperger Syndrome. Typically attendees are caregivers of children teens, and adults although folks with Asperger's often attend to provide input, ask questions, or seek out others with Asperger's. All are welcome!

Potential Special Topic

Dr. Dan Murphy of the School Board has proposed turning KAEC into a middle school to serve the Sequoyah Hills areas. He is making the rounds to several PTOs (will be at Rocky Hill Elementary on Dec 10 at 6:30pm) to garnish support for his proposal. When asked directly as to what would become of the KAEC students, Dr. Murphy gave an ambiguous answer. In my mind that means they either have no plan or will bus the children to Karns. As a parent of a child with Asperger's, you stand a chance that your child will spend some time at KAEC. This is a topic that needs to be discussed immediately.