Karen Carson Knox County School Board Member appeared on Sound-Off this morning. Sound-Off is a local public affairs talk radio show. A caller asked about the $20.0 million dollars that Governor Phillip Bredesen has budgeted to educate the illegal immigrant’s living here in Tennessee.
Carson non-answered the callers concern. Why, you ask is the title of the post “Carson Doesn’t Walk The Talk”? Good question. This week letters went to every parent of students in Knox County Schools (from the Board of Education which Carson is a member of) encouraging parents to contact the legislators and the Governor about the need for more money. So, you would think that Carson would say on the radio what the letter said, which is we need more money and contact those people in Nashville (the state capital) for more money to be used at the locals discretion.
Instead, Carson advocated on air that people contact the County Mayor and County Commissioners to fund the 18 new positions in elementary schools for a pilot foreign language instruction program. The callers point was that Bredesen should not fund $20.0 million for educating illegal’s. The School Board Member should have encouraged the listeners to contact Bredesen and get that money moved from teaching illegal’s to funding elementary foreign language.
The point most “school boarders” (school board members) don’t understand is that the county budget is already strained with funding the state’s shortfall from the BEP funding and asking the county for more money isn’t realistic….While demanding the Governor and Lana Seviers, the Governor’s Education Commissioner to get their priorities in order is appropriate.
