Should Keith Cook Resign?

Let me add that Dana Thompson would never plagiarize a speech. She fights for what's right for ALL the children of the county. As far as I'm concerned she's the best one of the bunch and a good one at that! I certainly don't see the current board and some that are running making significant changes for the benefit of the children, and that's what matters most!

If I am correct Dana Thompson was the chair of ROB-Chapel Hill.

I don't see any widsdom in telling residents of Orange County to spend money in Durham and Alamance. I think that is just plain dumb. Everyone knows sales tax dollars filter back to the areas they are spent in by law - so she is depriving our own kids if everyone actually listened to her. Because one school member lacks ethics doesn't mean another one can't too. There are ways to fight which might actually get respect and followers - telling people to spend money elsewhere is not one of them. Emotional appeals that don't survive exposure to light and scrutiny just don't cut it. If this energy was directed at a county wide supplemental tax schools would get more money sooner, bussing zones would remain restricted to smaller geographies and residents could still have local control over their school boards. It would be guaranteed to pass.

Meanwhile -- the kids in Orange get not one penny more for schools 04-05 which could have happened and probably would have if different commissioners who didn't care about being re-elected for 20 years in a row sat on that body. And if a school board member dared to cast a second.

Boardmember Thompson had the chance to second a motion to have the POSSIBILITY of a small county tax for the kids and refused - so it is a bit disingenious to say there is such concern about funding.

It's playing politics however you dice it. The more you scrutinize it the more it comes down to many other logical solutions that probably would be better for the county at least for the next 20 years. Meanwhile no extra money goes anywhere , and I sense neither district is happy with the amount of funding as proposed.

This has nothing to do with personal agendas.

If you think it is a personal agendas why don't the commissioners

1.. increase ad valorem property tax by 1 penny or more for education

2. put a county wide supplemental on THE BALLOT

3. put a county only school district tax on THE BALLOT like CH-carrboro has

ALL OF THESE THINGS TAKE THE PERSONAL AGENDAS AWAY AND LET THE PEOPLE DIRECTLY DECIDE.

county commissioners have the ability to put these things on the ballot

IF they wanted do.

I agree it is a personal agenda but Moses has made it personal and others in the county Dana Thomson et al., are using it as a WEDGE ISSUE. Detracting what could be a focus on the environment, land use, school siting and planning and building etc....instead of uniting behind more funding for schools it is all about merging. A big long term mistake IMHO.

logic, reason, giving the constituents what they want and exploring other funding mechanisms have not been given equal footing.

Put it on the ballot and take the personal agendas and wedge issues away.

Merging is the only appropriate thing. Should the children of the county continue to be held back from opportunity because of the personal agendas that the majority of the school board members possess? Hmmmm botched superintendant searches, what's the truth behind that one? Please tell me! Actually, it's a dirty little secret, isn't it? It's not hard to figure that one out. Keith Cook needs to go as well as a few other of his contingents. Nothing but a disgrace!

To the point on this topic, I agree with Bobby -- Cook should stand for election and let those numbers speak for themselves. It's unlikely that he could remove himself from the ballot now even if he wished to, but I'd hate to see the voters deprived of the opportunity to speak with their votes on this particular issue.

Much more to say on other topics, but a discussion of Cook stealing a speech does not necessarily declare open season on any ethical lapse that ever happened.

The pro-merger factions in the county would love nothing more than to hang Keith Cook with his plagiarism. That is because they would like to benefit from his mistakes by getting pro-merger candidates, like Liz Brown, like Jim Henninger, elected to the Orange County Board of Education. They would like Margaret Brown and Moses Cary to be re-elected as well.

Look whos leading the charge. "Lisa" aka Gayane Chambless, Jean Bolduc, Dana Thompson, Susan Houck, Liz Brown, Kelly Porco. Sounds like a FFICS or ROB-CH roll call to me.

So lets sit back and enjoy the dust that is kicked up from Keith Cook's stupid mistake. At the end of the day, Cook will get re-elected because he truly is anti-merger and he has support in areas that the pro-merger factions do not.

Feel "up to speed" yet?

"Cook said he doesn't think his actions constitute an ethical lapse. Though a similar offense committed by a student could result in suspension, he said he does not think the same standards should apply. He said his decade of service on the school board should outweigh what he had done". (directly out of the News & Observer - June 2nd)

Now WHY wouldn't the SAME standards apply to him? These students put in 13 years of hard work to reach the ultimate goal. If they plagiarize, they jeopardize that. Just because he's had a decade of service on the school board, does that make him so special?! Please! So what he's saying is because he's an adult it's OK? I believe he needs to resign and not be allowed to re-run for position. And he needs to give a public apology to each and every graduate because their graduation is now tainted with this infamous speech.

Resign? Absolutely not!

Mr. Cook raised this flag for whatever reason he might have had, and if he can continue to justify his actions, then I see no reason to deprive all citizens everywhere the golden opportunity to judge for themselves.

As for object lessons for the student population, contemporary students are intelligent and it is my trust in their intelligence that they will develop their own ethical and proper opinion, which also suits their standards.

If Mr. Cook can continue to function in light of the public humiliation, then his contribution will serve a worthy purpose, even though school is never out......

Let this flag wave long and gloriously in the light of truth!

I don't know if anyone else has tried it, but when I put "graduation speeches" into Google, I get more than 121,000 hits. After a lot of looking, I found the Madison one (you can get it quickly if you also add "titanic." At the top of the speech, it is clearly labeled:

REMARKS BY DONNA E. SHALALA U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Date: June 6, 1998

Place: COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY, MADISON WEST HIGH SCHOOL, MADISON, WISCONSIN

Lessons From the Titanic

Has anyone found the one that says "generic?" Another "lie?"

I searched for that early in this story and found nothing unattributed. Neither did the News & Observer reporter covering this during the week. It's baloney and beside the point. It doesn't really matter if Cook knew who wrote the speech. He knew that he didn't.

So we have all been versed on the shortcomings of Orange County School Board Members Keith Cook. Absolutely, he screwed up (to put it mildly). How about the other members and candidates?

Jean Bolduc, would you care to expose OC School Board Member Dana Thompson's shortcomings? How about OC School Board candidate Liz Brown? Both of them have performed much more agregious violations of ethics. What with using school children as a conduit for pro-merger propaganda.

I find it interestingly convenient that you have never editorialized on those two. Especially when they are close personal friends. Ooops, maybe thats the reason you aren't "up to speed". Never mind, guess I answered my own question.

Actually, what Keith Cook did last Friday was bad, but what he's done in the subsequent week is what has brought his career to train wreck status (the Titanic comparison is just too easy).

Making a hideous mistake is one thing, attempting to achieve victimhood within a week is quite another. Cook could have turned this into a demonstration of character in an embrace of accountability. Instead, he has pathetically clung to the notion that this somehow wasn't his fault.

It reminds me of George Bush commenting on his drunk driving conviction just before the election. Asked who was to blame for this coming out at such a sensitive time, he said that he "had his suspicions."

As with Cook, the culprit could be found in any mirror in the house. We've all seen since then that GW is a guy who has a little trouble admitting when he's erred. And with creepy similarity, it's clear that we'd all prefer a leader who can face a mistake, account for himself and move forward a little wiser. Why is that so hard to understand?

Obviously, what Keith did was sloppy and wrong. But it always interests me to see local stories like this touch off great storms of outrage & righteous indignation.

For a little different persepctive, what about the local news media who took it upon themselves to support the Iraq War and ran stories full of both uncorroborated assertions and downright falsehoods? The New York Times issued a tepid apology for their coverage, but an apology nonetheless. Why aren't local citizens demanding apologies from the Herald-Sun, the N&O, and WUNC for their ethical breaches which contributed to the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of people, handed unprecedented power to some of the greatest criminals of our age, and depleted funds we need for social needs? These media organizations have blood on their hands and they may get away with their complicity in a global crime.

Mark

On the subject of his plagiarism, Keith Cook is quoted as follows in today's N&O: "It started out with a little fire, and people threw wood on it, and now you have flames ablazing one more time in Orange County Schools, and it is not good for anybody . . . .It is chilling to feel and hear how vindictive some people are, to know that people could forget so easily."

I am coming to understand that school politics in Orange County have been pretty nasty for a while now; I'm a Chapel Hill resident and confess that I haven't paid close attention to the politics of the Orange County school system.

But does Mr. Cook really believe that the reaction to his blunder comes from the vindictiveness of others? That in a more tranquil political climate people wouldn't be outraged by what he did? Perhaps Mr. Cook (and others deeply involved in the Orange County system) are too far into their own in-fighting to recognize that to the eyes of many neutral outside observers, what Mr. Cook did was mortifying. If Good Morning America is picking up the story, you can bet it's not because some Orange Country opponent of Mr. Cook's placed the story there.

More on Cook in today's papers:

Group calls for school board chair's resignation

http://herald-sun.com/orange/10-487418.html

Orange board chairman pressed to resign

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1301568p-7423341c.html

Patrick --

the reason I am interested in other ethics issues not just cook, Is because it is the ethics issues that are not black and white that are the "real" ethics issues. Cooks case is obvious it almost doesn't deserve a thread.

Ethics is not a matter of necessarily a drop in the bucket or the end impact. Ethics is doing what's right when no body is watching.

I am shocked to hear about some of the ethics issues that will not be covered in the press that will probably have a much larger impact than whether or not cook resigns.

I do not understand why any adult human being would even consider going off to look for a speech, paper, report, etc., to actually use for himself,in the first place.. Common sense tells us that someone, somewhere, wrote that speech or paper.

When I was growing up we sat for hours writing, and rewriting to come up with the best piece that we could call our own. I happen to have 5 siblings who were valedictorian or saluditorian of their graduating classes, and it seems that not one of them remembers even consulting with the other about writhing that special speech.

I have taught my own children that it is best to never even think of looking at papers and such on the internet, because each must be his own author, always.............

When a person has even a high school degree, he or she knows very well what plagerism is, and knows that it is entirely inappropriate and is punishable academically. There can be no mistakes about it.

I would strongly suggest that if a person does not feel he/she has the ability to write, or to speak, in his own words, it would be most appropriate to graciously decline when asked to do so.

What still eats at me the most, and my children agree, it that when asked where the speech came from, the first answer was 'I did that" (as quoted in the Herald Sun).

A couple of you really want to get off on this 2003 boycott of Chapel Hill Businesses but can anyone provide a number of how effective it was??? Yes it was an ill-advise move by some folks including a school board member. The effect was like dropping a penny into a 500 gallon tank, hard to find and no impact.

If you expect the County School Board to take action against Mr. Cook, don't hold your breath. When Delores Simpson (who is running for re-election also) interfered with the second superintendent's search by calling one of the finalist and telling him that he would have a rough time here and would not enjoy the entire support of the Board. To no one surprise this person dropped out of the race thereby clearing the way for Delores's candidate to be appointed. The Board did nothing then.

"Then after one member of the Board chooses to exercise a right as a parent of children in the system being affected by the one-sided support of the business community for only one of the two school districts in the county"

In other words, organized a boycott of Chapel Hill Businesses called ROB-Chapel Hill.

Keith Cook is quoted in this morning's N&O as saying that his plagiarism was "an honest mistake." (The article's at http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1298091p-7420081c.html, and the quote is the very last thing in the article.)

Mr. Cook delivered, as his own, a speech that he knew was written by somebody else, and when asked who wrote the speech, he initially said, "I did." In today's paper he maintains that he did "not . . . knowingly deliver[ ] a speech by someone else without using that person's name somewhere to acknowledge them."

"Mistake," yes. Can somebody please explain the "honest" part? I'm missing that.

This is the same man who asked for a waiver of fees for his organization (which does not benefit the children of OCS) to hold their annual banquet, then shortly thereafter (after the banquet had been held!) proposed to the School Board that ALL organizations be charged fees (including organizations which gives children opportunities for recreation and learning such as HYAA, BSA and GSA, etc). Then after one member of the Board chooses to exercise a right as a parent of children in the system being affected by the lack of regard from the business community, he initates a new proposal to revamp the ethics policy. He obviously 1) wants his cake and wants to eat it too and 2) believes rules apply to all except him.

I feel the only responsible thing for him to do at this time is to step down as Chair of the School Board. He is supposed to be a role model for our children. The only thing he has modeled is how to cheat and how to get away with it!

Come election time I say VOTE ABC...

ANYBODY BUT COOK!

Whatever Liz Brown's situation (I'm not up to speed on the specifics enough to comment), it's fair game for an election cycle. When I ran for the O.C. Board in '94, I never could keep a campaign sign up near Grady Brown Elementary. I never thought of pressing charges against whoever took them (5 or 6 vanished).

I don't think her colleagues are going to cry themselves to sleep for Thompson's departure.

As far as the candidates go, it's a little early to say much, but I will offer that Mr. Hartkopf's no-new-taxes-not-now-or-ever philosophy should be heavily challenged. It's irresponsible.

Individuals who represent our public interests should always be held responsible/irresponsible for their actions/inactions…If Mr. Cook plagiarized portions of his speech then yes, he is VERY wrong. He should apologize (if proven necessary), move on and let the voters decide his fate. There are a lot more volatile unresolved topics that affect us locals to get fired up about (review the achives of this site). We should all practice what we preach, including Mr. Cook. Acknowledge and move on!

Jean, Could you provide a link to your editorial? I'd love to read it.

WTVD11 seems to be taking a note from OP.org.

I don't see what the comments of "whatabouttheothers" have to do with Keith Cook's speech. Please stay on this topic or suggest another one ( http://OrangePolitics.org/contactus1.html ).

And yes, Dan, he most certainly should resign. Almost forgot to state the obvious.

Mr. Cook pushed hard for the recently passed ethics policy for school board members. I wonder if the ethics policy addresses plagiarism and lying to the public.

The voters should retire Mr. Cook on July 20th. In the mean time I can use Mr. Cook as an example of what my children should not do.

According to Ms. Bolduc's newspaper article he made the same speech twice in one day--once to Cedar Ridge and once to Orange.

Was that article in the Herald Sun or a different paper?

Just finish out the term and forget about running for re-election, that would be my advice. BUT...use the rest of the term to educate students about mistakes of plaigarism made in today's society of mass information and communication, electronic or written. DO something with your mistake and educate students/parents accordingly.

The ethical thing for him to do is issue a comprehensive apology while resigning the chairmanship. He's obviously unfit to lead the board. That said, a person's character is revealed not by never making a mistake, but instead by how he handles those he does make. So far, Cook's response has been unimpressive, but the voters should dispense with the matter next month.

Speaking of ethics, my column on this topic this morning stated that "Titanic" was rated "R" which is incorrect. It was PG-13.

Ms. Bolduc had an editorial in today (Wed) Durham Herald. The editorial is worth reading. She gives several facts and it is clear from her article that the speech given by Keith Cook at Orange High was NOT the same as the one he gave a few hours earlier at Cedar Ridge. In the Cedar Ridge speech he quoted AND CITED from the book All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten. I did not type in the NOT correctly. Sorry for my typing.

Hi Jean,

what do you think the ethical or appropriate response from Liz Brown regarding the trial she had was??

Also, was it Dana Thomspon who was affiliated with ROB-CH?

And what should here "penalty" be.

since we are going over the orange school board I'd like to hear your thoughts on the assortment of characters that provide such interesting issues.

As Keith Cook reflects on his recent actions and subsequent interviews and comments, I encourage our Orange County School Board chair to become familiar with the Curriculum for Grades 3-5, particularly those related to Competency Goal 5 and the Information Skills Curriculum. My daughter just completed 5 grade and has an excellent understanding of these concepts.

The entire curriculum can be found at the NC Dept of Public Instruction website. I have excerpted a few key objectives:

5.04 Credit sources in all print, non-print, and electronic.

5.04.7 Include location for title, author on research procedure sheet. Write down authors and title of print and electronic resources.

5.04.9 Students make oral presentation using visual aids about an animal and close with the phrase "I got this information from..." (Presentation Rubric See IMPACT: Guidelines to Media and Technology Programs).

5.05.1 Relate Copyright Law to character education study value of honesty.

5.05.2 Use picture books on the subject of "stealing" to emphasize that stealing information is as bad as stealing objects.

5.05.3 Discuss purpose and need for Copyrighted information and locate copyright dates and "warnings" in books, on videos, etc. (See IMPACT: Guidelines for Media and Technology Programs).

5.05.4 Discuss Copyright as it relates to text, images, music, software in print and electronic formats.

5.05.5 Discuss the term and concept "plagiarism." Write paragraphs relating "plagiarism" to another form of dishonesty.

5.05.6 Provide most current Copyright information to teachers and school personnel.

5.05.7 Encourage teachers to emphasize Intellectual Property Rights as they work with students to identify and use resources.

5.05.8 Work with students to develop a "Good Habits Checklist" for using Copyrighted materials.

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/information/strategies/3-5goal5.htm

Is there any question he should resign?

Keith Cook made a mistake. However, at least he owned up to his mistake unlike another school board candidate who will not own up to hers. Let him stay in, and let the voters decide whether he should be reelected.

It appears there are vacancies for Margaret and Moses to actually have the chance to manage schools up close instead of micro-managing them from afar.

If the 2 incumbents with ethical violations resign (1 promerger -1 anti-merger) and a candidate running accused (not proven) of criminal wrongdoing all step down there won't be enough bodies to fill the seats.

Eleanor,

Meanwhile, you continue to run news clips characterizing the plagiarism as unintentional. Are you saying that you stand by that description? How so, when he admits lifting the speech from a website?

Cook needs to take responsibility for what he did and acknowledge its special significance for him as a leader of the school system. You help neither Cook nor the community by collaborating in his equivocation.

---Dan

I do think a school board member should at least know the definition of plagiarism.

Of course he should resign.

He's the chair of the *school* board, for heaven's sake.

Re Dan Coleman's comments about my interview with Keith Cook this morning:

As soon as I got off the phone with Keith, Ron told me I was hard on him, and subsequently someone else with an education background told me that I asked good questions without being rude or soft.

When I interview people on our show in the morning, I try to ask probing questions while remaining fair. I walk a fine line trying to bring out the facts without stating an opinion.

By the way, Cook is currently running for re-election.

I think the idea of having a grown man take a high school class and speak up in front of the assembly would not go over well and is a bit insensitive.

compare what your asking this man to do relative to the MLK blvd stuff-- hmmmmmm.. (I won't go into detail use your imagination).

If he was on my school board resignation would seem appropriate.

However, there is at least one other current sitting member affiliated with the ROB-CH boycott that would have to go to. So the bar on ethics is not very high from what I can tell. I think they even changed the ethics code because of her.

amazing irony -- a plagiarized speach about the Titanic -- iceberg dead ahead!

I was kidding, Jean. That is why I put the winking emoticon there ;)

I learned one more brief chapter in this story: Last night I was at an art show and a young friend of the artist was there. As we were all talking someone introduced me as an elected official and the subject turned to politics.

So this young lady said that she just graduated from high school last summer and that it was her high school graduation where Keith Cook delivered the infamous Titanic speech.

She said that when she got home afterwards, she had thought that the speech seemed to be too good to actually be written by Cook, so she googled a phrase like 'titanic graduation speech' and found Donna Shalala's speech almost immediately.

Only somewhat perturbed by this discovery, she emailed the link to her high school english teacher who in turn called the Chapel Hill Herald.

Mark writes, "she had thought that the speech seemed to be too good to actually be written by Cook."

Mark, did you probe her about her reasons for thinking it was too good to have been written by Cook? Gosh, maybe it's just not some teachers who might suffer from the problem of low expectations for some people.

I did not really probe into that question. I took in from what she said that it seemed like it was written by a professional writer - which I suppose that it was.

Fred Black writes, " it’s just not some teachers who might suffer from the problem of low expectations for some people."

Fred, please tell us the names of those some teachers. Maybe some good old fashioned public humiliation will set them to rights.

Gary asks, "Fred, please tell us the names of those some teachers. Maybe some good old fashioned public humiliation will set them to rights."

I ask, why, would it help to solve the problem? If you don't think the problem is real, so be it, but far too many parents, teachers and administrators know better.