New Woodburn Community School

THE EASTWOOD MILEGROUND SITE REARS ITS GROTESQUE HEAD AT MORGANTOWN CITY COUNCIL

The Monongalia County School Board President, Barbara Parsons, and Superintendent Frank Devono, and City Manager Terrence Moore offered nothing but bad ideas at the Morgantown City Council meeting last evening in regard to what should be done with the several hundred thousand dollars in B & O taxes that the city will collect from the contractors who would build Eastwood Elementary on the Mileground.

The idea of the city investing so much as a single dollar of the B & O taxes at or near the Mileground site is outrageous, but a full investment there is apparently what President Parsons and Superintendent Devono want. And possibly City Manager Terrence Moore too. Mon Schools and its negligent Mileground project should get nothing. It deserves nothing. Mon Schools should pay the full cost of its stupid and negligent fiasco that is Eastwood on the Mileground.

Furthermore, the city should not open itself up to civil and criminal liability lawsuits by contributing a dime that would facilitate school operations at that dangerous and unhealthy Mileground site. The city should continue to oppose such a site and school wholesale.

President Parsons made some ludicrous suggestions about the city using the B & O taxes it would collect from construction there to pay for “bike racks” for the school and to pay for “trees” evidently on school land – where else? Superintendent Devono suggested the city could pay for “trails behind the school,” thus on school land, or that the city could pay for “sewer upgrades” there. Mon Schools should pay for its own shit, and there is plenty of it, as it wanders utterly lost on its trails through the woods. Additionally, both Parsons and Devono suggested apparently that the city could pay for an access road from Eastwood to the Mileground, with Devono repeatedly referring to the private Tramore Lane in the vicinity as “Traverse Lane” or somesuch. That would essentially be a school drive. The city is not responsible for Tramore Lane, nor does that private lane need improvement for anything but school bus use, nor is that private lane even within the city limits. Mon Schools should pay for any improvements and use of that private lane that it needs, not the city. And Mon Schools should pay for its trees, and trails, and bike racks. And last rites should be administered in advance to any bike riders in the area.

Breaking from the ludicrous for a moment was Councilwoman Jenny Selin suggesting that some of the B & O taxes could be used by the city to increase safety on the roads around the school. This idea is well intentioned but foolish twice-over. First, the city apparently maintains no roads around the would-be school. The Eastwood Mileground site is surrounded by two arterial highways: WV 705 and US 119. These are apparently state-maintained roads. And nearby Tramore Lane is private. Second, the city inserting itself into the potentially lethal mess of attempting to make these inherently dangerous roads safe is not only not clearly within its jurisdiction but could open up the city to massive lawsuits in the event a student would be seriously injured or killed in the teeth of any city involvement on these state and federal highways. Mon Schools should bear full cost and responsibility for its own negligence in siting a school in that hazardous location over the formal and written objections of the Morgantown City Council and the broad public. Any assistance in this regard should come from the state, not the city. After all, state agencies collaborated in this horrible siting with Monongalia County Schools and the state is funding part of Eastwood construction with $8.6 million in state funds. Further, the Eastwood Mileground school site is only nominally within city limits and not much effectively or functionally so. To the contrary.

Councilman Bill Byrne had the most sensible idea, apparently suggesting that the city use the B & O taxes to help purchase the to-be abandoned Woodburn schoolgrounds from Mon Schools for public use and the public good.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Devono indicated that Mon Schools would like to acquire a strip of the current Armory grounds (that the city controls) closest to the Eastwood Mileground site in a seeming desperate attempt to provide a tiny buffer zone from whatever entity the city must sell the Armory grounds to, apparently the inherently toxic Sheetz gas station. (The planned school building would extend nearly into the current armory site and future potential gas station site.) But the City, in order to obtain the 4 million dollars it needs from those 5 armory acres to build the access road to the new light industrial park and to build the industrial park itself, and to relocate the armory there in the forthcoming industrial park between the airport and I-68, needs first and foremost to get its 4 million dollars in cash, and seemingly can hardly afford to merely swap much if any land at the armory to Mon Schools for, say, land of the to-be abandoned Woodburn schoolgrounds there well within the city (and within good walking distance of all of downtown Morgantown, Whitmore Park, Marilla Park, and the Deckers Creek and Monongahela River rail trails. It would be great for the city to, in cooperation with BoParc, build a much more direct trail connecting Woodburn schoolgrounds to Marilla Park, a simple switchback trail directly down the hillside through the otherwise unused section of Whitmore park.)

The upshot is that the cash-starved city of Morgantown badly needs the armory cash and the B & O cash – for creating the industrial park, and for purchasing, fixing, maintaining, and revitalizing the Woodburn schoolgrounds. The city should merely scoff at Mon Schools’ outrageous attempts to persuade the city to spend city money at or along the negligent Eastwood Mileground site.

Let’s say it three times over: The city should do the right thing and not spend a dime on or around the Eastwood Mileground site. The city should use all the B & O taxes to purchase as much of the Woodburn schoolgrounds as possible. The city should invest nothing around the Eastwood Mileground site. Where would the city plausibly, let alone responsibly, invest at the Mileground site anyway? The city apparently maintains none of the roads around the Eastwood Mileground site, and no public sidewalks nor other facilities, aside from the 5 acres of the armory which it needs to sell for 4 million dollars to recoup money it has already committed.

Mon Schools made its horrible bed and will have to cough up its own funds and cajole the state to do what it can to not get any of its charges, its students, killed. The city cannot effectively help in that regard, nor should it.

Unfortunately, the City Manager, Terrence Moore, was completely irresponsible in repeatedly advocating, cryptically, that Mon Schools and the City of Morgantown come to an agreement “in perpetuity” that the city will spend B & O funds in relation to school construction projects that generate such funds for the city. City Manager Moore seems so utterly determined to have B & O funds spent at the Eastwood Mileground site or otherwise for the school district directly that he repeatedly stressed the – entirely fictitious – need to create an agreement forever, “in perpetuity,” for the city to evidently commit in writing, in advance, for always, to invest B & O funds either in the school district itself, or at and adjacent to school construction projects, or otherwise in favorable relation to the school district. Such an agreement would be entirely irresponsible, because it just so happens that the school district – a county agency – does not always act favorably or constructively in relation to the city with its projects that create these B & O revenues. The Eastwood Mileground siting is a stark example of this. In fact the school district directly opposed and trampled on the wishes of Morgantown City Council in relation to the Eastwood Mileground siting and the fate of Woodburn Elementary.

City Manager Moore wasn’t around at the time, so if he doesn’t know the history, someone should bring him up to speed fast. Read the rest of this entry »

STEALING STUDENTS’ HEALTH, SAFETY, AND EDUCATION IN MONONGALIA AND JACKSON COUNTIES

If the SBA is allowed to site Eastwood Elementary at the intersection of WV 705 and US 119 (aka Mileground Road), then precedent will have been set for new schools in West Virginia to be sited anywhere at all, no matter how hazardous, no matter how unlawful, no matter how health damaging and potentially lethal.

See the New York Times article below. Various courts are doing their job restoring funding to students. The courts in West Virginia should do their job too and protect the young students in Jackson County and Monongalia County from treacherous new school sites. (UPDATE: Also, see failure at Milton Middle.) Read the rest of this entry »

THE EMPEROR AND THE OFFICIAL LINE

The hypocrisy of Mon Schools superintendent Frank Devono is impressive. The Dominion Post reports today that

“Only six of Monongalia County’s public schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last school year [on the WESTEST]. But the top administrator said that is not a reflection of the education those schools are providing…. [Superintendent Frank Devono] said No Child Left Behind, the federal program that mandates the testing criteria, is outdated and needs to be revised. ‘This is not a true measure of the success our schools experience,’ he said. ‘This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.’

Superintendent Devono’s dismissive comments about the tests come in light of Mon Schools’ failing 2010-2011 test scores. Contrast this with what Superintendent Devono said about these tests a mere two years prior to 2010, to begin the 2008-2009 school year, in his report “CSOs, WESTEST 2 and Crossing the Digital Divide“:

“The results of cumulative assessments such as the WESTEST 2 and NAEP indicate more than student achievement of CSO’s [WV Content Standards and Objectives]. They’re also yardsticks measuring our ability to reach our students – sometimes across that digital divide – through rigorous instruction delivered with relevancy to their ‘real world’.”

No wonder that Superintendent Devono would want to play down last year’s failure of 12 of the district’s 18 schools to meet the AYP standards, a 67 percent rate, significantly worse than the state’s 52 percent rate of school test failure. Even more discreditable, Mon Schools’ Superintendent and the clueless school board, over strong popular will, decided to permanently get rid of two small schools that happen to be two of the six schools that did meet the AYP standards: Woodburn and Easton Elementaries. According to the Dominion Post:

“Twelve of Monongalia County’s 18 public schools (66.7 percent) failed to meet AYP during the 2010-’11 school year, compared to just four (22.2 percent) in the 2009-’10 school year, the state DOE said.

“The schools that did not meet AYP are Brookhaven Elementary, Ridgedale Elementary, North Elementary, Mountainview Elementary, Mason-Dixon Elementary, Mylan Park Elementary, Mountaineer Middle, Westwood Middle, South Middle, Clay-Battelle High, Morgantown High and University High. Those that did meet AYP are Easton Elementary, Suncrest Primary, Woodburn Elementary, Cheat Lake Elementary, Skyview Elementary, and Suncrest Middle.

“Statewide, 363 of 692 schools (52.46 percent) failed to meet AYP in the m recent school year, compared to 128 of 694 schools (18.44 percent) in the prior year.”

And so it is that, basically, according to Superintendent Devono, the tests mattered in the past but not anymore, not given these latest results, which show exactly what we reviewed here yesterday: the value of small neighborhood schools. Mon Schools’ three smallest elementaries account for half of all the schools in the district that met AYP standards: Suncrest, Easton, and Woodburn, the latter two to be closed permanently and consolidated into Eastwood elementary on the Mileground next year – an unpopular, anti-educational, and unsafe move. Meanwhile, little Suncrest Elementary has repeatedly been threatened with closure. It’s as if Mon Schools delights in being obstinately anti-educational.

Let’s take a closer look at the data, which is quite revealing. Of the schools that passed the AYP tests:

1) three are the smallest schools in the district (Woodburn, Easton, Suncrest);

2) two of these small schools have the most impoverished students (Woodburn & Easton); these two schools did well presumably in significant part because they are small, since low-income correlates inversely with academic success, nationwide; and

3) the schools with the most affluent students (Cheat Lake Elementary, Suncrest Elementary & Suncrest Middle) did well presumably in significant part because wealth correlates with academic success, nationwide.

Finally, Skyview Elementary also met standards and would appear to be the sole outlier to schools having a small student body or relatively affluent students as factors that account for academic achievement.

This sample size is of course not large enough to have any scientific meaning, but it is suggestive and in line with the best knowledge of careful professional research.

But according to the Superintendent who has been pushing for and building big consolidated schools over the past half dozen years:  these tests that he lauded a few short years ago are “not a true measure of the success our schools experience.” They can’t be, otherwise his policies and views would be shown to be pathetically and outrageously wrong. “This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.” Whether or not the tests have as much value as they ostensibly do is not the point. The point is the hypocrisy toward the tests by the top administrator of Mon Schools, the existence of which calls into serious question once again both his competence and any minimal level of professionalism.

And the school board not only turns a blind eye, it echoes the Superintendent, applauds him, and pays him top dollar with big multi-year raises. One incompetent and unprofessional hand feeds the other. It’s as if the Superintendent gets paid to defy and oppose with the maximum amount of manipulation the public for which he is supposed to work.

Such is the typical sorry state of officialdom where no organized public exists to enact the popular will.

Only three years ago: “The results of cumulative assessments such as the WESTEST 2 and NAEP indicate more than student achievement of CSO’s. They’re also yardsticks measuring our ability to reach our students – sometimes across that digital divide – through rigorous instruction delivered with relevancy to their ‘real world’.”

Today:  “This is not a true measure of the success our schools experience… This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.”

So no problem then to get rid of the proficient small schools, such as Woodburn and Easton. And to repeatedly threaten Suncrest.

The Emperor wears no clothes. Yet again. Read the rest of this entry »

TO HELL WITH EXCELLENCE; LET’S BUILD A CONCENTRATION CAMP ON THE MILEGROUND

They don’t care.

Either that or they are monstrously incompetent.

When deciding to close and consolidate Woodburn Elementary and Easton Elementary into the polluted and dangerously sited consolidated Eastwood Elementary (on the smash-and-crash racetrack that is the Mileground road in Morgantown), Superintendent Frank Devono and the Monongalia County school board ignored studies showing that small neighborhood schools are of exceptional educational benefit to students of low income, who make up very many of the children of the affected schools. Board President, at the time and current board member, Nancy Walker even doubted that the mass of research was accurate. These school officials seemed wholly unconcerned and entirely proud of their ignorance and anti-educational action. What wonderful qualities to have in ostensible leaders of education.

UPDATE: And now is the news that the Dominion Post reports about the results of testing in the county next door to Monongalia: “Only Preston County’s three smallest schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year.” And virtually the same results held in Monongalia County.

Monongalia County and neighboring Preston County combined have 30 public schools. In those two counties combined last year, the 6 smallest public schools passed the AYP tests. Only two other schools passed, which means that 22 of the larger schools failed. To recap: the 6 smallest schools passed, 22 of the larger schools failed, 2 other schools passed. Next year, Mon Schools intends to close two of its smallest passing schools to combine them into a larger school (Eastwood), against the public will and best knowledge. It’s anti-educational, just as we have been saying for years now. And it’s otherwise stupid, lousy, and dangerously wrong.

For a long long time we have pointed out that:

an overwhelming body of research shows that small neighborhood schools offer superior education and experience. Small neighborhood schools:

improve student learning…reduce the achievement gap between poor and affluent students and minority students and whites…cultivate better student attitudes…cultivate better teacher attitudes…reduce discipline problems, truancy, and drop-out rates…better engage parents in their children’s learning and foster closer parent-teacher relationships…encourage walking to school and this improves children’s health and active engagement in learning… (Save Our Neighborhood Schools: Lawrence, Kansas)

In 2009, University of Virginia researchers noted, in accord with the large body of research, “large schools no longer are regarded as the panacea for America’s educational challenges. Many of the problems of public education, from low student achievement to high dropout rates, are being traced to large schools….”

In defiance of best knowledge and practice, the Monongalia County School District has pursued consolidation, and by stealth. No notice about possible school closing went home to parents through their schoolchildren until long after the SBA consolidated school grant had already been awarded. Many parents remained unsure of what was going on. While everyone agrees that new schools at good locations are necessary for both Easton and Woodburn elementaries, the overwhelming majority of those who publicly expressed opinion have been opposed to the consolidation.

And now the pathetic tragi-comedy that is the school board and administration of Monongalia County Schools comes full circle for a family with a child at Mountainview Elementary, “So My Daughter Can Leave Mountainview Elementary To Go Where?“:

This weekend, my family received a letter. The letter told us that Mountainview Elementary [one of the largest elementary schools in the state] was considered a failing school. This conclusion was reached as a result of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB is a stupid piece of legislation that replaces learning to think with learning to regurgitate rehearsed answers that will satisfy standardized tests. Still, Mountainview is failing to achieve even that.

Part of NCLB allows us to send our daughter somewhere else if openings are available, and in this case, we were offered two schools that are succeeding in preparing students for standardized tests: Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary. At this point, you’re probably saying that those two schools sound familiar to you, and they should: our school board voted to close both as soon as possible. So, to recap:

-My daughter’s consolidated elementary school apparently sucks.
-Our options for other, more successful schools that she could attend and which are better at satisfying national education policy are going to be closed to create more consolidated schools that are precisely like Mountainview Elementary.

Which brings us back to the non-controversy that was the closure of Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary. Sure, parents in both neighborhoods stood opposed to such a decision, but that didn’t stop our current Board of Education from voting [unanimously] to close both schools, despite the apparent fact that both are doing a better job than their larger, consolidated counterparts. That didn’t stop them because the MCBoE doesn’t care about communities in our around Morgantown, they don’t care about children, and they certainly don’t care about education.

It’s long since time for the entire school board and the top administration at Monongalia County Schools to be entirely replaced, for many reasons, including the fact that best educational knowledge continues to fall on their deaf ears. Read the rest of this entry »

MAY 2012 – TWO SEATS UP FOR ELECTION

Including one seat in the Western district and one seat in the Eastern district.

No seats are up for election in the Central district, unfortunately, which includes Woodburn and South Park.

Suncrest should field a good candidate to vie for the seat in the Eastern district.

And in the Western district?

The school board should be controlled by the neighborhoods and communities in general. Currently the board is controlled by the “Town Fathers” or their think-alikes. Sad to say. The Town Fathers and think-alikes treat the public schools like schools for the poor, undeserving of serious money, and unwelcoming of serious public involvement. The board and administration often treat the workers, and that includes teachers, like serfs or like children to be herded. The board and the administration have a concentration camp mentality toward the schools. They completely lack a neighborhood and community mentality. It shows: in the buildings, the buses, the facilities, the activities, the campuses, the funding, the public perception, the community and social relations, the professional relations. It shows badly.

The current school board and administration have proved incapable of producing quality websites for the school district and schools, one of the very main public faces and interfaces in this day and age.

And they have proved incapable of even a simple yet profound measure of public outreach and information: providing online podcasts of the board meetings. They are incompetent. Or worse.

Of course, well known to visitors of this site is the notorious situation of the heinous Eastwood Elementary siting and expense, a calamity in the making. And there is the recent UHS monstrosity, and the fairly recent siting of Skyview Elementary above an industrial park, and consequently now Marcellus Shale gas wells, which produce high amounts of air pollution. There exists state policy that prohibits these abominations, and plenty of research that shows the all-around hideousness to health, safety, and education. But the board and administration have shown time and again that THEY DON’T CARE. If they did care, these abominations would not exist. Read the rest of this entry »

WHY COURT DISASTER, MON SCHOOLS? WHY?

Another vehicle smash-up on the Mileground today by the impending Eastwood Elementary site. How many collisions will it take before Mon Schools is forced to its senses?

Mon Schools doesn’t know what it has gotten itself into in shoving a school into that disaster zone.

Mon Schools should start planning and calculating for criminal liability, prison terms for school officials, and massive civil liability expenses – taxpayer money by the millions – due to any students that may be injured, seriously injured, or killed in that danger zone.

Personal injury lawyers would drop like a bomb in court the state policy that bans new schools not “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as…arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion…[and/or] situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment” among other banned hazards that Eastwood students would be exposed to on the Mileground. Read the rest of this entry »

700 Block McKinley Avenue (behind Monongalia Avenue)

This Saturday, August 27, 4:30-7:30 p.m.

Bring a dish to share and a chair to sit in.

BoParc Bounce house will be there until 7 p.m.  Games and other fun activities!

NO WAY AROUND IT – NEED TO RAISE THE PAY, IMPROVE CONDITIONS

It’s a failure of funding and workplace conditions. Note to Mon Schools, address them both and you’ll get your drivers.

Driving young children to school is an important job, it’s extremely valuable, a vital service, and here are the kickers: it’s difficult and poorly paid.

The job pays like crap. That’s the main problem. The conditions are trying and the hours are awkward, split up as they are.

It’s a tricky job. These aren’t half-empty Mountain Line buses carrying self-sufficient adults and navigating main roads. School buses in Monongalia County are loaded with needy children navigating narrow and steep twisting back roads. Not easy. Hugely important.

So Mon Schools not only should but ever more obviously needs to pay the drivers well and needs to listen to them and act on their needs, and ought to stop making useless excuses for why these difficult positions can’t get staffed.

The answer is to pass big-time levies (a property tax), which Mon Schools seems not only reluctant but loathe to do.

Now why would that be?

Because Mon Schools treats parents and the public so piss-poor, so often, that naturally a lot of support may not exist for an increased tax on property. But wait, a huge number of students and their families in the public schools are impoverished and don’t own much if any property that would be taxed. And the vast majority of the other students and their families are hardly huge property owning moguls.

It just so happens that the big shots who own much of the county would rather not pay much at all for the public schools, but instead much more greatly prefer to pump their money into sports facilities (which they can get their names on) rather than adequately fund the schools, classrooms, and busing. Thanks.

Amazingly enough public support matters if the public schools are to function well. That is why it is important that the board and the Superintendent stop acting so asinine and irresponsibly in one way after another. Because it severely impacts their ability to even minimally get the job done.

Sure the state is to blame too. It urinates and defecates on the public seemingly at will. And it fails to tax big coal and gas and other industries enough (a scandal of extreme proportion), and it sets the regular school tax that Mon Schools must abide by…but the state does not control the levy rate. Nor can the state be held responsible for the local spitting on the public that Mon Schools is renowned for.

Why does Mon Schools continue to refuse to broadcast its school board meetings on the internet? Afraid of what the public will see?

Mon Schools has a busing problem, for sure, and many other problems. And many of those problems are not only the responsibility but also the fault of the whiny state-blaming school board, the superintendent, and other administration.

Read the rest of this entry »

PRAISE FOR $6 MILLION FOOTBALL EXPENSE PLUS OUTRAGE AT $.8 MILLION FOOD EXPENSE IS BS

Monongalia County Schools has left uncollected $809 thousand in payments for food (lunch and breakfast) from 2005-2010.

Maybe if the schools improved the quality of the food and the conditions in the schools people would actually be willing to pay on time. Or maybe not, and rightly so. It’s appalling that students, who are more-or-less forced to attend school everyday, and who are then served minimal quality food, are forced to pay for it – payment on top of school taxes, amazingly enough.

At minimum, the schools should pay for the students’ food, and the food should be paid for through taxes, unless the schools dramatically improve the quality of the food, also the lunchrooms…. Probably even then the schools should pay. The US is rich (contrary to the official lies) and the rich are getting richer (as the impoverished die and die early). The children should at least get good and free food during their time in the public schools!

The schools provide the voluntary athletes a $6 million football field, but will not pay for the compulsory schooled students’ meals during school. It makes no sense.

The media praise and any other praise for the football field payment and the outrage at the food expense is completely backwards. One is celebrated, the other is decried. It’s bullshit. All children need to eat, and eat well. None need to play football, let alone get banged up. The dollars should go the other way… Read the rest of this entry »

LISTENS TO THE PUBLIC, TO THE PARENTS, TO REASON, AND ACTS ACCORDINGLY

Good for Superintendent Larry Parsons for doing the right thing upon public protest in Preston County. He changed course, as he very well should have. Everyone wins.

But not in Monongalia County with the Eastwood Elementary siting disaster. With the Eastwood Elementary siting on the polluted, dangerous, congested Mileground, everyone loses.

Everyone loses because Monongalia County Superintendent Frank Devono (and the Board) failed and refused to listen to the public, to the parents, to the voices of reason. In Monongalia County the Superintendent failed and refused to act accordingly. Unlike in Preston County, we all lose, the child students not least.

As Superintendent Parsons said recently, “A wise man changes his ways; a fool never does.” Read the rest of this entry »

NO THANKS, NO MONEY FOR US, PLEASE – WE’RE ALL SET HERE IN WEST VIRGINIA

We’ve no use for additional federal funding, because we have no desire for better roads, wider roads, better public transportation, more public transportation, better schools, more schools, better teacher pay, more teachers, better child care, more child care, better health centers, more health centers, better health coverage, more health coverage. We’ve no use for better wages, more jobs, better jobs, better housing, better parks, better public services, and more of all. We’ve no use for cleaner air and water. What the hell do bankers and corporate moguls take us for – civilized? We’ve got no use for money here in the mountaintop-removed plateau state. Who does? So, please, no stimulus, no aid for West Virginia or for any other state, but especially not for West Virginia. After all, we may not be number one in everything, but we do come close most ways, that is if you take the barrel and flip it bottom-side up:

West Virginia’s Health Ranking and Well-Being and Quality of Life Indicators out of 50 States:

• 28 – lack of health insurance
• 32 – infant mortality*
• 33 – primary care physicians
• 40 – preterm birth
• 41 – overall poverty
• 41 – child poverty
• 43 – starting teacher salary
• 43 – overall health ranking
• 43 – immunization coverage
• 43 – on job deaths
• 44 – per capita personal income
• 45 – air pollution
• 45 – low birth weight
• 45 – obesity
• 46 – cardiovascular deaths
• 46 – poor mental health days
• 46 – median household income
• 47 – stroke
• 47 – premature death
• 47 – child care salaries
• 47 – all health and well-being outcomes
• 48 – average teacher salary
• 48 – broadband internet availability
• 48 – recent dental visit
• 48 – daily vegetables and fruits
• 48 – overweight or obese children
• 49 – cancer deaths
• 49 – poor physical health days
• 50 – smoking
• 50 – physical activity
• 50 – high blood pressure
• 50 – diabetes
• 50 – heart attacks
• 50 – cardiac heart disease
• 50 – preventable hospitalizations
• 50 – health status
• 50 – foreign-born residents
• 50 – language other than English at home
• 50 – residents with bachelor’s degree
• 50 – disadvantaged students’ education quality
• 50 – health insurance coverage for women
• 50 – proportion of high school graduates
• 50 – median income
• 50 – emotional health
• 50 – overall well-being

* Given that the US ranks 31st among all countries in maternal and child health, and dead last among industrialized nations, the West Virginia rank of 32 out of 50 US states is that much more serious. The US has low or last place rankings in many of these other categories also. In other words, on average, the people in many countries have significantly better health, well-being, and quality of life than do people in West Virginia (and the US), and they somehow have these better conditions in countries with far less wealth, and far fewer natural resources and other advantages. There is no mystery about the logistics of why this is so. They have more equitable societies: they spread the wealth more evenly.

In these vital measures of life, West Virginia suffers badly by comparison, at home and abroad, despite the fact that West Virginia’s economy (Gross Domestic Product) if considered as a country would be nearly the 60th largest economy. Given that West Virginia has a very small population compared to the size of its economy, where does all the money go? It’s common knowledge: many of the poorest most distressed people in West Virginia live in the counties with the greatest coal production. That’s why the coal companies broadcast their propaganda day and night, to try to cover for the fact that they are robbing the people of their wealth and their lives. Of course it’s not just the companies that mine coal that plunder and pillage. A similar situation exists across the US but the conquest of health and the looting of wealth is more extreme in West Virginia.

West Virginia and much of Appalachia is the epicenter of poor white America. The Four Corners region (intersection of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona is the epicenter of poor red (Native) America. The swatch of deep South from the lower Mississippi through several states to the east is the epicenter of poor black America. And the South Texas/Mexico border is the epicenter of poor brown America. These four big regions all have about the same income, health, and well-being indicators: rock bottom. The white, the red, the black, and the brown. Quite a collage, a quilt of Les Misérables: time to crack open again Victor Hugo’s unparalleled classic novel, especially when one considers the unmatched wealth disparity and prison population and expense on militarism of the USA. The poverty and distress of the four most impoverished regions in the US are matched only in the numerous urban pockets and swaths of hard times around the country where all four colors hole up unto themselves or ever more frequently mix and match, which is one positive at least. Hey, we can all get along, dollar-fleeced and trodden over together!

Charleston Gazette: “West Virginia ranks last in the nation for the well-being of its residents, and near the bottom in education, health and income, according to a new report from the American Human Development Project.” Read the rest of this entry »

WHITHER NORTH ELEMENTARY? AND MON SCHOOLS?

The Daily Mail reports today that the state is considering selling the WVNET property in Morgantown, possibly to next-door Mylan Pharmaceuticals, possibly for $10.5 million.

Which causes one to wonder: if the state can get $10.5 million from Mylan for WVNET’s small site and small building, what might Mon Schools get for North Elementary’s large campus and large building, which also sits immediately next-door to Mylan, directly behind WVNET, uphill from route 705?

The North Elementary building is big and relatively modern, and the North Elementary campus consists of about 13 acres, much larger than WVNET. In other words, if WVNET would get $10.5 million for its modest facility and grounds, why wouldn’t Mon Schools get tens of millions from the pharmaceutical giant for its much larger facility and grounds?

And why wouldn’t Mon Schools want to sell and move the school and campus? After all, what is a pharmaceutical plant? It’s a chemical factory.

Proximity to industrial facilities is not exactly child friendly. And axing WVNET is not job and people friendly.

What on Earth are young children doing going to school directly beside the many vents of a massive chemical factory? Has anyone ever tested the air between the drug factory and the elementary school? Have the school campus air and grounds been tested, and if not, why not?

North Elementary is dangerously close to the heavily-traveled and congested route 705. It’s not nearly as close to the highway as Eastwood Elementary on the Mileground is planned to be, but it’s too close nevertheless for the sake of health and safety. Plus the school and campus are immediately adjacent, practically on top of the the chemical factory that is Mylan Pharmaceuticals. In fact the school has a lovely, close-up view of many of the behemoth factory’s vents and a parking lot, which should make every parent’s stomach queasy.

The school should never have been built there in the first place (1978) and should have been long since relocated, away from the chemical plant and the dangerous road. Also, there is only one way in and one way out of North, risking entrapment, in addition to the lousy bottleneck and congestion.

What might Mylan develop on the WVNET site in front of and partly surrounding North Elementary? Mylan Pharmaceuticals is a transnational, transcontinental industry that answers to no local board of directors.

• Mylan’s revenue in 2010 was $5.4 billion.
• Mylan’s net income in 2010 was $345 million.
• Mylan’s pay package to its CEO in 2010 was $23 million.

Now is the time, long since, for Mon Schools to move toward its own deal with Mylan, to negotiate a sale of North Elementary School and campus. Such a sale should more than pay for not only the relocation of the school but for a major improvement of a new school or, much better, two new schools. Mylan needs to be made to feel its responsibility to the local schoolchildren. It’s not as if Mylan would get little in such a deal – very far from it. The smart heads as Mylan could think how to make out well off such a deal with Mon Schools, even as they see that Mon Schools gets all the funds it needs and everything the schoolchildren deserve for the property. Now is the time, now more than ever.

Mon Schools, what are you waiting for? Read the rest of this entry »

THE USUAL SUSPECTS VERSUS THE HEALTH OF THE PUBLIC

WVU’s Board of Governors hired Mike Garrison to be President of WVU, then never asked him to resign during the WVU/Heather Bresch eMBA scandal. Now he is working as attorney for Enrout Properties, the owners of the Morgantown Industrial Park, suing the City of Morgantown over the Marcellus Shale gas wells located in the Industrial Park near the city’s water intake.

Via The Record – “New Plaintiff Added in Morgantown Drilling Ban Suit“:

Enrout Properties claims the city’s ordinance is arbitrary and capricious in that it attempts to extend the city’s jurisdiction over land use beyond its municipal corporate limits. The plaintiffs are seeking for the court to declare the Morgantown ordinance to be in violation of the Constitutions of both West Virginia and the United States of America; award Northeast just compensation in an amount to be determined at trial; and to grant such further relief as the Court deems just and proper. It is being represented by James A. Walls, Michael S. Garrison and Tamara B. Williamson.

Next thing we know, ex-WVU President Garrison will be litigating against Monongalia County Schools for the right to operate air polluting wells near Skyview Elementary.

Oh, wait, Mon Schools hasn’t moved against the wells, no suit on the horizon. That’s right, Mon Schools lawyers-up to make sure it can put a school, such as Eastwood Elementary, smack into the middle of horrendous traffic vortex and air pollution hazards, Just like WVU. But to protect schoolchildren from air pollution? You’ll have to hold your breath. Read the rest of this entry »

AND SKYVIEW “INDUSTRIAL PARK” ELEMENTARY

“Susquehanna Named Most Endangered River in the Nation” (via American Rivers):

American Rivers, which every year names the 10 most endangered rivers in the country, put the Susquehanna at the top of this year’s list, citing the rush to develop the enormous natural gas reserves in the region without considering the risk to clean water, rivers and human health. The most endangered river of 2010 was the Upper Delaware, which is similarly threatened by natural gas extraction.

The Susquehanna, one of the longest rivers in the nation, flows over the Marcellus Shale region, a rock formation underlying large swaths of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, and containing vast reserves of natural gas.  As part of the fracking process used to extract natural gas, massive amounts of water are withdrawn from rivers and streams, mixed with sand and toxic chemicals and pumped underground to fracture the shale under extreme pressure.  There are currently limited facilities for treating the highly toxic wastewater that results from the extraction process and few government regulations to prevent it from seeping into rivers like the Susquehanna, which provides drinking water for more than six million people.

“Natural gas drilling poses one of the greatest risks our nation’s rivers have faced in decades,” says Andrew Fahlund, senior vice president for conservation at American Rivers.  “Without strong regulations, public health and drinking water will be threatened by the toxic, cancer-causing pollution that results from hydraulic fracturing.”

“The Susquehanna is one of the most ancient rivers on Earth. In its current state, it is a far cry from the pristine and primeval watershed that existed only a few centuries ago. The threat posed by the natural gas industry and horizontal hydrofracturing will eclipse the environmental legacy of the lumber and coal-mining industries combined, and as a long-time advocate for the protection of the Susquehanna, I believe we must call for an immediate moratorium on all water withdrawals and all natural gas drilling until the technology and legislation catches up with the desire and need to exploit these fossil-fuel resources,” said Don Williams, Susquehanna River Sentinel.

“Recent problems caused by poorly-regulated gas drilling in Pennsylvania include: ground water pollution in Susquehanna County resulting in loss of a community’s drinking water, a blowout in Bradford County that went uncontrolled, allowing toxic fracking chemicals to flow into the Susquehanna, deadly accidents at a gas well site as well as chemical spills, explosions and fires.  We call on the Susquehanna River Basin Commission to immediately impose a moratorium on any new drilling in the Susquehanna River Basin, as was done by the Delaware River Basin Commission,” said Jeff Schmidt, Director of the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter.  “Until Pennsylvania, the SRBC and the federal government adopt new laws and regulations to fully protect public health and the environment from the dangers of Marcellus Shale gas drilling, no new drilling should be allowed,” Schmidt continued.

The next river in the crosshairs: the Monongahela, and the city of Morgantown:

A natural gas drilling company is challenging the constitutionality of a West Virginia town’s recent ban on natural gas drilling that involves hydraulic fracturing within a mile outside city limits. On June 21, the Morgantown City Council voted 6-1 to ban drilling at a site along the Monongahela River. Shortly thereafter, Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) filed a lawsuit against the city of Morgantown in Monongalia County Circuit Court requesting a temporary injunction to prevent the city’s ordinance from becoming effective, reported the Associated Press. A judge denied the order without ruling on the plaintiff’s larger arguments. Read the rest of this entry »