Once again Al Klemm shows his ignorance | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

As used herein: ig•no•rance--/ˈignərəns/noun ignorance: 1.lack of knowledge or information. Ex: "he acted in ignorance of basic procedures"--synonyms: incomprehension of, unawareness of, unconsciousness of, unfamiliarity with, inexperience with, lack of knowledge about, lack of information about;

    Al Klemm appeared before the Beaufort County Board of Education at the board's regular monthly meeting November 25, 2013. He spoke during the "public comment" section of the agenda. Again, we see Mr. Klemm's ignorance on full display.

    His opening remark demonstrated ignorance of the Public Meetings Law in North Carolina. That law mandates that the public be given an opportunity to address a public body. Yet Mr. Klemm seems to imply that whether he is allowed to speak or not depends on the graciousness of the school Superintendent. Surely Mr. Klemm heard a recent legal expert who made a presentation on the Open Meetings Law that Beaufort County sponsored when she explained that the law requires boards providing for public comments. Maybe not. So we'll give Mr. Klemm an "F" on knowing the law on the public's right to petition their government for a redress of grievances (see The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution).

    Perhaps this explains why the Gang of Four, with Mr. Klemm being the fourth "swing" vote between the Republican majority and the Democrat minority on the Board of Commissioners, violates this right on a regular basis, the most recent being at the Jail Committee meeting, of which Mr. Klemm is a member.

    Then Mr. Klemm proceeds to address two points he identifies: "Performance and workforce development." He gets both of those wrong also and we award him two more "F's" for ignorance of his subject matter.

    Mr. Klemm's myopic view of educational performance is limited to "the dropout rate." While that is indeed a valid performance criterion, Mr. Klemm shows his ignorance in the way it is measured. We, and the John Locke Foundation, have published numerous articles explaining that North Carolina has no consistently valid way of measuring the "dropout rate" over the years Mr. Klemm refers to. The reason can be simply stated: They have changed the way they compute "dropouts" so it is not valid to assign trends over the years in which the data was collected differently.

    We do have a "feeling" Beaufort County Schools has done better in recent years, but the truth is we don't have a valid and reliable method of determining how much better or worse we have done. It is a shame that Mr. Klemm, as a county commissioner who professes his belief in the importance of education, does not know this well-established fact about North Carolina's dropout data. But Mr. Klemm is well acquainted with making assessments using invalid data.

    He also opines that the County Commission "...really does fund education well..." but offers nothing to substantiate this conclusion.

    Mr. Klemm then proceeds to proclaim that it is his opinion that one of the key reasons Beaufort County is doing better with work force preparedness is some committee he serves on that meets regularly. But as School Board member Mike Isbell points out later in the meeting, the real reason for the progress Beaufort County Schools has made is because of effective teachers and principals and an outstanding Superintendent. We think Mr. Isbell hit the nail on the head and it is a shame that Mr. Klemm did not realize this, or if he does that he did not acknowledge the work of our educators.

    He seems more intent on giving credit to the Committee of 100 for the reduction in the dropout rate than recognizing the work of our educators. While we think the Workforce Development Committee is a good idea, and can serve a valuable purpose if it helps articulate the needs of the workplace to school curriculum planners, common sense would suggest that this would have little or no impact on whether students drop out or not. One has to wonder why Mr. Klemm was not more specific in describing what the Committee has done and why he fails to offer any documentation of the impact the Committee has actually had. Thus, Mr. Klemm comes across as self-serving, even appearing to be trying to take credit for the Committee's work. But he is well known for trying to figure out where the parade is going and then running and jumping to the front. We'd love to see some solid documentation of what he claims.

    We might add parenthetically here that Mr. Klemm also demonstrates his ignorance in his depiction of the "dropout problem" being an issue related to students who do not "go to college." The fact is, kids in the college prep curriculum also drop out of school. Simply steering more kids into vocational courses is not going to eliminate dropouts. Many dropouts are preordained long before the students reach the vocational programs Mr. Klemm makes reference to. Mr. Klemm simply demonstrates his lack of understanding of the problem in offering a single simplistic solution for a very complex problem.

    We'd love to hear Mr. Klemm expound on the idea that vocational courses are more important than students learning the basic skills of reading, writing, computing and problem solving, especially in the lower grades. And while he's at it we'd love to hear him tell us why Exceptional Children's programs don't deserve a mention when he talks about preventing dropouts.

    You can watch this shameful display of ignorance in the video below. But as you watch it we would suggest that you ponder this question: What is Al's point? If you figure that out, please let us know. It escapes us.

    We have watched the video several times and still don't understand why he took the Board's time to make his comments...except that we have a hunch it was simply grandstanding. Free publicity for a politician.

    Note that one of his first comments was to determine if the recording equipment was working correctly. But even more enlightening is his eye contact during his comments. Simply turn your sound off and watch his body language. We found this very enlightening and think you will also.

    Our grandmother used to say: "Sometimes it's better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." We're not calling Mr. Klemm a fool, but he might certainly benefit from Grandma's counsel to know when to speak and what to say.

    But give him credit, he succeeds in four minutes and fifteen seconds in making a pretty good case of his ignorance.

    If Mr. Klemm really wants to do his homework before he pontificates on dropouts again we would encourage him to read this.