[oh8eleven]

The real story you're not hearing about the Atlanta Ice Down
I watched cBS news and I heard alot about the GOP governor and the head of the state emergency system (GEMA) apologizing.
But not a single word about or from the DEM mayor. Hmmm, I wonder why ....

[RightOnTheBorder]

Ol’ Mohammet was in Switzerland partying it up with a bunch of global warming frauds and could not be reached for comment. I swear you can’t even satarize these people, they will just find a way to sink lower than the satire.

[ExNewsExSpook]

My favorite part of Mayor Reed’s speech was his “plan” for preventing massive gridlock in the future. Apparently, he’s been watching Barry O and believes he can simply “will” the public to obey his staggered release plan. By decree, Kasim Reed will tell schools, local government and local businesses when they can dismiss on a snow day.

Just for laughs, let’s say Reed decides to “dismiss” local schools at 12 noon. For starters, he doesn’t have the authority (that lies with school superintendents). And if he could, how can he prevent thousands of workers at private firms and government offices from leaving their office early to get their kids? It will be absolute gridlock all over again, and Mayor Reed and his friends in the press will be looking for someone else to blame.

The solution is simple: when the National Weather Service issued a winter weather warning for metro Atlanta at 3:39 Tuesday morning, a decision to close the schools should have followed immediately. That automatically takes students, school employees and buses off the road, along with thousands of parents who will stay home to take care of their kids.

I’ve been told that several rural districts (just outside the metro area) mmade the decision to close when the weather warning was issued. Why didn’t they follow suit in Fulton and DeKalb Counties? From my own experience as a reformed educator, I know that school administrators want to keep classes going until early afternoon for a couple of reasons. First, if most of the school day is completed, they won’t have to make it up later in the year.

Secondly, many school districts receive much of their funding based on the number of students who participate in the school lunch program. The feds keep tabs on the number of kids who are served each day and if you close early, or cancel classes for a couple of days, the number of meals served is reduced, and that can impact future funding. And if you don’t spend all of the allocated money, that can impact the revenue stream as well.

I once taught at a school where instruction was halted a 8:45 each morning so all of the students could go to breakfast (the district was extremely poor, and every student at our middle school qualified for the lunch program). Stopping class ensured maximum participation, full expenditure of funds, and more money the next year.

Was school lunch money a factor in the decision to keep Atlanta schools open? Maybe not the over-riding concern, but it was a factor that entered the equation. Roughly 50% of all students in metro Atlanta participate in the lunch program and in some GA districts, the figure is over 70%.

[Iron Munro]

"not a single word about or from the DEM mayor. Hmmm, I wonder why ....

CHOCOLATE CITY REDUX

[Hoodat]

For a Democrat, Reed has actually been a pretty good mayor, especially considering the corruption of the six or so mayors preceding him. But you are right, the bias of the press has been on full display here. In a press conference where the mayor and governor have both given statements, the press only went after the governor. It got really interesting when the governor reminded them of the forecasts of their own weather bureaus. And that's when the lying began. The press pointed out how their noon forecasts were accurate (while ignoring how wrong every other forecast they gave was).

I'm not a fan of our governor at all, but I will say that he came out looking better after all of this than he did going in. And he has the arrogance of the press to thank for it.