Back in October of 2004 when the intelligent design debate was first heating up Wired Magazine wrote a feature article looking at the issues. The article is long, but it's a good read and still relevant three years later.

One of the main points of the article is the ID proponents look for debate and discussion since this creates an equal standing on the issue, but that's the issue.

"I'm not a PhD in biology," says board member Michael Cochran. "But when I have X number of PhD experts telling me this, and X number telling me the opposite, the answer is probably somewhere between the two."

An exasperated Krauss claims that a truly representative debate would have had 10,000 pro-evolution scientists against two Discovery executives. "What these people want is for there to be a debate," says Krauss. "People in the audience say, Hey, these people sound reasonable. They argue, 'People have different opinions, we should present those opinions in school.' That is nonsense. Some people have opinions that the Holocaust never happened, but we don't teach that in history."

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Ted Hoffman over at the Polk County News Blog has a great 'column' on the intelligent design debate. He even gets in a mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Wikipedia). Ted specifically calls out Kay Fields, Tim Harris, Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers on their stance regarding ID.

For their bold vision in saying they reject a proposed science curriculum that teaches evolution as a unifying and broadly accepted theory, and instead advocating one that gives intelligent design equal weight in textbooks, classrooms and hungry young minds, I nominate Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers for Science Educators Of The Year.

The year 1633, to be precise.

Surely people as profoundly knowledgeable as Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers can tell you that 1633 was the year Galileo went on trial for heresy. Had Fie-Har-Lof-Sel been on the heresy panel, they’d have voted to censure and excommunicate Galileo for his shocking support of heliocentrism—the mad idea that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

For For their bold vision in saying they reject a proposed science curriculum that teaches evolution as a unifying and broadly accepted theory, and instead advocating one that gives intelligent design equal weight in textbooks, classrooms and hungry young minds, I nominate Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers for Science Educators Of The Year.

The year 1633, to be precise.

Surely people as profoundly knowledgeable as Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers can tell you that 1633 was the year Galileo went on trial for heresy. Had Fie-Har-Lof-Sel been on the heresy panel, they’d have voted to censure and excommunicate Galileo for his shocking support of heliocentrism—the mad idea that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

For Kay Fields, Tim Harris, Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers I have two questions:

1. How old is the Earth?
2. When did 'man' first roam the earth?

Granted both of these questions have answers based on scientific evidence, but that's not what's important, remember we need to teach 'alternative' theories as well :-)

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Back in June I noted that Polk County School Board member Tim Harris had created a blog. Tim hasn't been blogging much (three total posts), but he does have a new one up. It's concerning Hooter's sponsorship of the Lakeland High School football program.

I certainly agree with his view that the brand image that Hooters has created and continues to market is not what a school district needs to allow to be promoted on its campuses nor at its events.

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A friend from Osceola County sent along a press release that touted some new podcasting that will be going on in Polk County Schools:

Press Release

August 14, 2007 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dana Schafer, Director of Community Relations - Osceola School District - 407-870-4007 or 407-908-8811 (cell)

Some Of The Hottest Technology For The 2007-2008 School Year Will Be Podcasting In Osceola and Polk County School Districts

Thanks to a $1.1 million federal grant, 200 teachers in Osceola and Polk Counties went to camp this summer at Florida Southern College in Lakeland to learn best practices for integrating technology in the classroom and encouraging other teachers to utilize 21st Century tools. Throughout the upcoming school year, teachers will be experimenting with podcasting, digital imaging, digital video, online collaborative tools, and emerging technologies to better enhance the learning environment for today’s digital natives.

I e-mailed PCSB Tech Assistant Superintendent Abdu Tugari a week or two ago to find out if any schools were doing this, but never received a response.

Do you know of any schools taking advantage of this?

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The Orlando Sentinel notes that 95,000 students will be back in Polk County Schools on Monday. That's the population of Kiribati, a small island nation in the Pacific. Looking at population numbers on Wikipedia, the Polk County School System has more 'inhabitants' than:

- Bermuda, 65,000
- Cayman Islands, 47,000
- Liechtenstein, 35,000

Just a few more students and we'll pass Tongo, with 100,000.

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Tim Harris, Polk County School Board member from District 7 has a blog. There is only one post up right now. It's dated June 22nd, 2007 and discusses School Concurrency.

According to the PCSB web site, District 7 includes the following schools: Auburndale Senior, Caldwell Elementary, Combee Elementary, Doris A Sanders Learning Center, Lake Gibson Middle, Lake Gibson Senior, Lena Vista Elementary, Polk City Elementary, Stambaugh Middle and Wendell Watson Elementary.

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This supposed Lakeland High School Student has a rather long and somewhat humorous look at school. Much of it is 'inside baseball' but I wonder how much is true.

You know you're a Dreadnaught if...

1. A police officer searching your bag is an every day thing.

2. The football team gets treated better than everyone else.

The list goes on to 80.

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This morning I ran into Colleen Burton with Polk Vision, we talked briefly about where PV's been and the ongoing support/promotion of the program.

We talked for a little over 17 minutes, but my recorder died at 16:35, so you don't miss much at the very end. You can download/listen to the MP3 file by clicking here: PolkVision.MP3.

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Ponte Vedra-based realtor Krista Fracke has a Google-maps display of FCAT scores for all of the counties in Florida. When you visit the FCAT scores page, click on Polk to get a closer look. The image below is almost all of Polk County.

The standard Google-maps interface is there. You can zoom in, pan-around, etc. The image below is a close-up of the Winter Haven area.

Clicking on one of the pins will give you the details about that particular school, including previous FCAT scores. Shown below are the details for Wahneta Elementary.

Thanks to Joey at Urban Jacksonville for the tip.

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Billy Townsend over at the Tampa Tribune has an in-depth article looking at Winter Haven's Inwood Elementary.

Inwood Elementary School may have been Florida's best.

Year after year, the pretty red-brick campus welcomed the children of a multiracial, working-poor neighborhood, fed them into a stable, finely honed teaching system and produced an army of achievers.....

....And then came the 2005-2006 school year, the first of the post-Buckner era. The results were brutal. Scores in math and reading plunged, and that same state equation dropped Inwood to dead last among Polk's more than 65 standard or magnet elementary schools.

The article looks at all the issues related to schools in the community and is worth the read. Billy promises to post a longer version on his blog.

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This probably isn't the headline that the Polk County School Board wanted to read this morning: Polk's Schools Run Out of Classroom Space on 1st Day.

Polk County schools had another record-breaking school start Monday when 81,168 students in kindergarten through 12th grade showed up for the first day of class.

That's a 3.5 percent increase -- 2,725 more students than the first day last year.

Did somebody say growth?

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The kids are back in school. So what does that mean? Plenty of angst-ridden MySpace posts about Polk County Schools :-)

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Orange County, FL (Orlando) is looking to switch from an appointed school superintendent to an elected one. Polk County recently made the opposite move, and allowed the school board to choose the superintendent (currently Gail McKinzie).

What do you think? Good idea? Bad Idea? Over at the How Shall We Grow blog they're asking that question. Perhaps some Polk County folks can share their views on how the elected/appointed thing has worked out here.

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Earlier this week on the How Shall We Grow? blog I posted an item about planning for growth in Polk County. The first meeting in the process is being held by myregion.org at the Lakeland Center from 6pm till 8:30pm this evening. The initial kick-off meeting on Tuesday was cancelled due to T.S. Alberto.

Just because this meeting is being held in Lakeland doesn't mean it's a 'Lakeland' event. No matter where you are in the county, you need to attend. Gotta make the drive from Winter Haven or Lake Wales? Do it.

One of the issues I fear is that we'll see little participation/input from folks in the Four Corners area, which happens to be the fastest growing part of the county.

I'll be there, will you? If you can't make it, check out the How Shall We Grow? blog late tonight for my report.

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The Ledger is reporting that Polk County Schools will be closed on Tuesday due to Hurricane Alberto.

I am in Rhode Island trying to make my way back to Orlando tonight. We'll see if my flight is delayed/cancelled due to weather.

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For the past few weeks I have been assisting myregion.org with a blog project for the How Shall We Grow? initiative.

The purpose of these community involvement meetings is to start discussion about how Central Florida as a region should grow over the next 50 years. Here in Polk County we know that growth is a major issue, but of course we are not alone. Growth is a regional issue. A large number of Polk County residents in the Four Corners area work outside of Polk County. The same goes for Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. We can't continue to take an isolationist's view of growth.

In the next few weeks there will be a series of How Shall We Grow? meetings in Polk County. I encourage you to attend at least one, if not all of them. Click the links below to learn more about the event, and to RSVP online. See you there.

Part One - June 13th: 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM at Polk Community College
Part Two - June 15th: 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM at The Lakeland Center
Part Two - June 22nd: 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM at Polk Community College

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The Ledger has an article about the first day on the job for new USF Lakeland head Marshall Goodman:

On Monday, Marshall Goodman's first day as the University of South Florida Lakeland's new chief, he already had 179 meetings and appointments scheduled.

One of those meetings is a luncheon speech to EMERGE Lakeland:

Join us for lunch at Grasslands Golf & Country Club featuring Dr. Marshall Goodman, the new CEO of the University of South Florida-Lakeland Campus, on Wednesday, May 31st at 11:30am. EMERGE will be one of the first community groups to meet with Dr. Goodman.

The cost for EMERGE Lakeland members is $15, guests can register for $20.

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The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that a new bill in Tallahassee will force the start of the school year to be later:

The school year in Florida could start no earlier than two weeks before Labor Day, under a bill approved Thursday afternoon by the Legislature and headed for Gov. Jeb Bush’s desk.

The later start date would go into effect for the 2007-08 school year.

Over the past few years the start of the school year has been slowly creeping forward to the complaint of many parents. (and kids). In Polk County the 2006/2007 school year is scheduled to start on August 7th...ouch!

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Sometimes you just have to love our small towns in Polk County. According to a News Chief article:

The Eagle Lake City Commission decided not to "declare war" on Lake Region High School, according to a Polk County school district employee. The commissioners voted Monday against a resolution asking for Lake Region High School's name to be changed to Eagle Lake High School.

The fact that this was even on the agenda and came up for a vote says something. Of course there is another alternative. We can change the name of Eagle Lake to Lake Region :-)

Since that motion didn't pass the next effort was to question the school's tower:

The commission did decide to question Lake Region High's unauthorized antenna. "The school board is exempt from most city building codes and permits because they answer to a higher code," said City Planner Augie Fragala. "But they are not exempt from zoning requirements," and the microwave tower on top of Lake Region High was quite possibly against Eagle Lake zoning.

Hey Eagle Lake....remember that wifi network you wanted to create? That 'big' tower might just be the perfect place for a Wimax antenna.

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This evening I stumbled across newszap.com a web site that features local content from smaller communities around the country, one of which is Frostproof.

One recent story, FMSHS Yearbook Jeopardized, discusses the problems that Frostproof Middle Senior High School is having producing their yearbook this year. From the article:

For the first time in the FHS school history, the yearbook may not make budget. Although the all-student staff has produced the pages, books and advertising space have not been purchased.

To produce the Frostproof Middle Senior High School, the yearbook staff must raise a minimum of $22,000 in advertising and book sales, with $18,000 as the initial deposit to begin production. At this point, the yearbook staff needs $7000 to pay the remainder of the deposit, and a grand total of $11,000 to pay for the entire book.

Yearbook ads aren't that expensive, so contact the high school and buy one.

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The University of South Florida has announced that Dr. Marshall Goodman will be the new vice president and campus executive officer for USF Lakeland. From the press release:

Goodman, 49, comes to USF Lakeland from San Jose State University, where he has served as provost and vice president for academic affairs. He currently serves SJSU as special assistant to the president and professor of political science.

Genshaft’s announcement concludes an extensive national search, much of which was conducted by an advisory committee composed of USF faculty, staff and community members.

“Dr. Goodman is considered ‘a rising star’ in higher education, and as USF continues its climb toward the top 50 public research universities in the U.S., his leadership on the Lakeland campus is a perfect fit,” she said. “He brings energy and vision and very specific experience with the technology and public sectors that will play a crucial role in the growth of USF Lakeland and the USF System as a whole.”

Here is a headshot of Dr. Goodman from the San Jose State University web site.

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At Tuesday's Polk County School Board meeting Superintendent Gail McKinzie announced that the schools would block (and have been blocking) all access to MySpace.com from the district's network. I can understand the PCSB not wanting to see all their bandwidth used by kids checking their MySpace profiles (not to mention the distraction it provides) but framing it as a 'safety issue' is way off base. From the Ledger article:

McKinzie said the ban is about student safety.

"This is a site that many young people access on their home computers," she said. "And it's been a cause of concern on the part of educators and parents because of the possibility that adults may contact children by obtaining personal information on the site."

So how will blocking access at school stop any of this? Just because they can't use the site from school grounds isn't going to make them stop using it. They'll just go home and continue to use it, or go to any location that has wifi. MySpace adds 65,000 new users every single day. It IS the social network for the majority of kids. Perhaps the next quote sheds some light on the issue:

"If the student wants to do it, and they want to do it under their parent supervision, that's fine," McKinzie said. "But we don't want that liability."

Yep, liability. The PCSB wants to shift the responsibility to the parents, which once again sounds good, but how many parents 'supervise' their child's MySpace usage?

I know the PCSB has good intentions, but it won't work. Kids will find a way around it.

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This Sunday's edition of The Ledger features a multi-story feature on growth in Polk County. The series of articles is a must-read for residents, but alas, those that really need to read it, probably won't. Here is the complete list of articles:

• The Lure of Polk
• As the County Grows in Population, the Only Constant is Change
• Polk Needs More Classrooms, Teachers
• Lack of Water Could Make Development Plans Dry Up
• Ever More Vehicles Crowd and Slow Polk's Not-So-Open Roadways
• More Jobs, More Business, and More People Who Miss the Old Days

Unfortunately it's illegal (sort of a poll-tax) but everybody that plans to vote in the county commission race should be required to read this.

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The Discovery Educator Network was recently in Polk County doing some training for the Polk County School Board.

This Wednesday, the three of us had the pleasure to visit the Polk County Public Schools and witness their extraordinary efforts to roll out unitedstreaming, providing nine full-day workshops to teachers across the district. Kay Teehan and Peggy Koren have done an incredible job informing and inspiring teachers on ways digital media can enrich teaching and learning.

In one of those six-degrees things, I was in Jackie Huba's session at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Conference last month and there was a member of the DEN there.

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Following up on his earlier post about charter schools (in which he referenced the Lake Wales Charter School System), Leesburg City Manager Ron Stock provides a Q&A on charter schools. It's interesting reading.

You can also review LWCSS Q&A for parents and teachers.

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The City of Leesburg, FL is possibly going to be funding a study on options for a charter school system. In his blog, leesburgflorida.blogspot.com, City Manager Ron Stock talks about the pros and cons of a municipal charter system. Ron references the Lake Wales Charter School System since you can draw some comparisons between Lake Wales and Leesburg from a population perspective:

Polk County was experiencing significant growth and the citizens of Lake Wales believed that the resources of the County were being used elsewhere. They wanted to insure that the resources generated locally were spent locally. They sought to convert the high school and all of the feeder schools (4 elementary and 1 middle school) into a charter school system. Five of the schools voted for conversion, but (on facts peculiar to their situation) the middle school did not vote to convert. [The middle school Principal was only 2 years away from retiring and did not want to be bothered with a conversion.]

We've found that Principals are, among other things, leaders. If a Principal is vehemently opposed to conversion, it is very difficult to get a majority of the faculty to vote in favor of conversion.

Although we liked the all-inclusive nature of the Lake Wales approach, we did not like their governance model. They essentially duplicated a failed system. They hired a Superintendent and went about re-creating the Polk County central administration in miniature. This created a $550,000/year cost for overhead, and took away from the classroom valuable resources.

Of course, the only reason for doing this, if we do it at all, is because we want to do something different. If there is no change and if we do not or cannot improve education, we shouldn't move forward with this.

The administrative overhead Ron references is something that Break The Charter often complains about. Ron has promised to blog more about the specific questions he has been receiving about the charter system. His responses should be interesting to read.

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Today I had the opportunity to attend one of the luncheons with the prospective USF-Lakeland VP/CEO candidates. These meetings allow local business and community leaders to meet the four candidates and provide feedback to USF, but perhaps more importantly give the candidates the ability to meet the locals.

Today's lunch was with Ted Batchman and was attended by 12 representatives from the community. Dr. Batchman is currently the Dean of the College of Engineering at University of Nevada-Reno. Having only met one candidate in person, I can't provide any comparison between his views/ideas and the other candidates.

One of the big underlying issues will be the ability of the new hire to implement their ideas. Lakeland and the USF-Lakeland campus both offer huge growth opportunities for the university, but we must always remember that the school is Tampa-based.

One interesting tid-bit that I can't verify: There are more USF alumni in Polk County than any other school, i.e. UF, FSU, etc.

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Last week I created a new content category on the blog: Image. The purpose is to categorize items that deal with how Polk County is perceived, both internally and externally. Our 'image problem' is nothing new, but I have often said that it cuts both ways. Too often individuals and organizations do business with companies outside the county because they feel a company inside the county doesn't have what it takes.

One of the primary reasons this blog was created is because our external image is almost completely created by the media coverage of our region. Those that live here know the benefits of our communities, we need to start sharing that information.

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Be sure to pick up a print copy of The Ledger this morning. One of the inserts is the 2005 Polk County Annual Report. The report documents all the major accomplishments of the Polk County government this past year. Remember of course that the 31 page report is only a snapshot of the work done.

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Back in May of 2005, a group called Break the Charter created a web site to protest against Lake Wales Charter Schools. When the story first broke I wasn't impressed with Clint Wright's response to the criticism. The big question of course was how long would the site last?

As of today, it's still around, with the most recent update coming on January 6, 2006. It's been interesting to watch the commentary, but since the authors are still anonymous it does lack some credibility. I think the site's creators were looking for a way to discuss some issues that weren't being picked up by the press and thus by the general public.

The idea of an entire city leaving the Polk County School System is something that I figured Lakeland would have done first. I have heard from individuals that when Lake Wales moved forward, some in Lakeland wanted to sit back and see how it went.

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The Ledger reports that FOX News commentator Sean Hannity is limiting press access to his speech at Southeastern University this Friday. Why?

In this day and age everybody is the press (yes I use the term loosely). What happens when a Southeastern University student writes about the speech on their MySpace or Facebook account? Or if a local resident blogs about it? Might want to ask Eason Jordan about that.

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The Orlando Sentinel has an article about the Polk County School Board building two new schools in the Poinciana area. According to the article:

The first of the two schools -- the Poinciana School -- is scheduled to open by August as an elementary school on Laurel Avenue, which initially will exist primarily with portables, school-district officials said.

Relying on portables -- or modular classrooms -- is the fastest way to build and open a school, said district planner Karen Collins.

School officials also have plans to build Lake Marion Creek School, which will be designed as a middle school but will likely open as an elementary.

That school will be constructed off Myakka Road and Lake Marion Creek Drive, Collins said. It could open in 2007.

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Lakeland teacher Michael Seger is blogging about the neckties he wears to work.

Tomorrow, the second, I'll have the day off and will have no reason to wear a tie. For my four-day work week, I'll wear on Tuesday a tie (II) with a nautical theme, complete with a few lighthouses (great symbols); you can see one in the lower left of the photo. (Unidentified material; Wilson & Grace, Fairhaven, Vermont)

On Wednesday, my tie (III) is a good example of what is called the "Bold Look." It's stark geometric pattern seems plenty bold to me. (Unidentified material; Adam, America's Famous Hatter)

Strange? Turns out there are plenty of 'Necktie Blogs' out there. Just check out Michael's list of 'Neckties Online'.

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Welcome to Empirical Polk, a blog all about Polk County, Florida.

Why Empirical? It's a play on words. In 1914 Polk County was named 'Imperial Polk County', twist that a bit and you get Empirical Polk County. Empirical is defined as:

being based upon experience or observational information and not necessarily on proven scientific data

Why a blog? A number of community blogs have helped citizens report news and comment on issues outside of the traditional media. If there is a hot-topic in a paper and 100+ people write letters to the editor only a few will be printed, the commentay aspect of a blog allows all those people to be heard/read. In some cases people may have advance knowledge of news or other items and are able to report it before the local media (Sticks of Fire in Tampa does this all the time).

The blog will always be written by a number of authors (hopefully that list will expand) and feature of different points of view, sometimes opposing views on the same topic. Interested in writing? Contact Us

This blog, like others features the ability to comment on articles. Have something to add? Want to tell us we're wrong? Comment away. Comments will only be moderated or removed if they violate the comment policy.

If you just want to send us a tip you can e-mail: tips@empiricalpolk.com

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