SUPERINTENDENT TO FIX EDUCATION BY GIVING OUT AWARDS
With his country music debut reheating the Hootie & the Blowfish brand, South Carolina native Darius Rucker has given to new life to himself and his band mates. So naturally, education superintendent Jim Rex is trying to cash in on that success in an attempt to smokescreen his complete failure in office.
From TheDigitel:
Rex will join Grammy-winning rockers Hootie & the Blowfish in Charleston on Friday, August 15, during the final stop of the band’s Homegrown Tour to name the musical group a Palmetto Ambassador for Education.
The band will be the first-ever recipient of the new recognition, created by Rex to recognize groups or individuals who make extraordinary contributions to South Carolina’s public schools. [...]
“Hootie & the Blowfish continues to shine a light on the inadequacies and inequities in our public schools through their work in economically disadvantaged communities across the state,” Rex said. “I know they join me in recognizing that the time has come to address these challenges with a new system of funding our schools.”
In 2003, when the band learned about budget cuts taking place in education, they established an annual concert in their hometown of Charleston as a way to raise awareness about the needs of local schoolchildren. The band asked ticketholders to bring school supplies, and the response was overwhelming. Since then, the band has expanded the initiative to other markets across the country. In total, the band has gathered enough school supplies to fill 40 buses, with a value of more than $250,000.
I’m a big fan of Hootie & the Blowfish and think they’ve been great ambassadors for our state, but based purely on musical talent, this award should have gone to the Beaufort County School District for their inspiring performance of “A Tooty-Ta.” I mean, “I Only Wanna Be with You” was a great song, but where were the swinging arms, shaking hips and embarrassed grins? Plus, the four-foot-tall munchkin on Adderall is a much better front man than Rucker.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Executive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Fiddle, fiddle, while the state’s education system burns. State takeover is no solution, as most of the state’s problems seem to come from the Rutledge Building. Electing the supt of ed dooms the state to a a dismal future. The wealthy will cotinue to send their children to private schools (and push for vouchers to make sure you and I pay for it).The legislature continues to be hoodwinked by the edcational establishment(State Dept of Education, ETV, local school boards).If it takes wifi over the entire state and finding out what works esleswhere, do it. Those ETV frequencies should bring in some substantial monies, but I suspect they will go down favored ratholes.
Yep JohnDozier, 100 % in agreement. Why is my church supporting a single school district? I’m not in disagreement with that but wonder why in the world the state can’t fund the schools. The state used to fund the schools.
But it’s like everything else in SC. The Republicans are draining all the funds, stuffing them into campaign coffers and off we go into Republican Elite Rule where the working class is trash, only to be “governed” and not to be ” listened to”.
Only the citizens of this state can change this. Wake up and vote for some new people. Get the trash out of our system.
First, why we ever elected this guy is beyond all sensibility. Second, Hootie and the Blowfish…a has-been band. The local stations even refuse to play there worn out music. Ambassadors of our State…you’re kidding right Rex? But, we do live in State that has idiots like Knotts, our gay Lt. Govenor Andre, and of course, Sanford as elected officials.
You go Rex! Maybe, you can play with Hootie and the has-been band.