Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Superintendent Candidates Revealed

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 28, 2006 in Entertainment and Politics. 17 Comments

Ask and ye shall receive.

Bob Gibson has obtained some names and background information on the superintendent candidates, to the apparent displeasure of the school board, who want the candidates to be secret. Those candidates are Orange County superintendent William Crawford, Caroline County assistant superintendent Rosa Atkins, and an unnamed New England area educator. The former two are black, the latter is a white male. Interviews with associates of the two named candidates seem to indicate that they’re qualifies and well-liked.

Gibson also reveals that school officials are visiting each applicant’s communities to investigate the candidates, which is a significant improvement over the flying-blind approach that led to the hire of Scottie Griffin.

3:05pm Update: I’m told that Crawford pulled his name from the running earlier this week, meaning that there’s just two candidates in the running now. Of course, the school board is still confirming nothing.

Cav. Daily Columnist Caught Plagiarizing

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 28, 2006 in Meta News and UVa. 7 Comments

A correction in yesterday’s Cavalier Daily indicates that a student got caught plagiarizing from another publication. No details are provided — presumably a note from the editor will be appearing before long — other than that a December 2 column “‘Browser Wars: A New Hope’ used a significant amount of ideas and conclusions without attribution from a Dec. 15 PCWorld column.” (The date different results from PC World columns being available on the website prior to publication in the magazine.) The column is not on the Cavalier Daily’s website. This is, of course, a clear violation of the honor code.

This last happened in late 2003, when two separate writers were discovered to have plagiarized from several different high-profile publications. If those two girls were ever brought before the honor committee, I can’t find any record of it. It will be interesting to find out what happens in this instance.

Superintendent Selection a Secret

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 27, 2006 in Education and Politics. 3 Comments

Today I got the latest Virginia Coalition for Open Government newsletter in the mail, and it piqued my interest on the matter of the school board. Sarah Berry reported in the Daily Progress last week that there are now just three candidates for Charlottesville superintendent, but they’re a secret. Search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates recommended found 61 candidates earlier this month, and planned to recommend a half dozen to the board. The board has rounded it down to three, and will presumably select one from there. All members of the selection committee have to sign confidentiality agreements. No information about any of the candidates has been made public.

I have to wonder if this is a good idea. One lesson from the Scottie Griffin saga was that a lack of sunshine leads to uninformed hiring decisions; Bob Gibson was able to expose Griffin’s background even though the school board didn’t discover a single one of her rich history of scandals in the hiring process. I imagine that there are benefits to the secrecy, but with a school board seen to be unresponsive and clubby, is this going to help?

(For more background, see A Brief History of C’ville Superintendents.)

Lovingston Building Designed by Jefferson

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 26, 2006 in General News. 1 Comment

The good news: Lovingston has discovered that their sheriff’s office was designed by Thomas Jefferson.
The bad news: It’s pretty ugly.

Dave McNair’s got the story in this week’s Hook.

Cav. Daily Investigates Reproductive Counselors

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 26, 2006 in General News. 2 Comments

In Wednesday’s Cavalier Daily, Leah Nylen had an excellent investigative piece into Planned Parenthood and The Pregnancy Center of Charlottesville, a result of her going to each organization, saying that she thought she might be pregnant, telling them about herself, and asking for advice. Planned Parenthood provided her with a dispassionate, fact-based counseling session in which all information provided was verifiably accurate.

The Pregnancy Center, on the other hand, turns out to be strongly anti-abortion, a fact that they don’t advertise when promoting themselves as an advisor to unwillingly-pregnant women. The literature that they provide is simply wrong, claiming that the birth control pill can cause cervical cancer, breast cancer, increased risk of AIDS, and infertility; that emergency contraception causes an abortion, rather than preventing conception; and that abortifacient RU-486 causes heart attacks, birth defects, and infertility.

Great work on the part of the Cavalier Daily. It’s always great to see investigative journalism being done in Charlottesville.

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