Tuesday, December 21, 2010
After Lengthy Meeting, MCS Board Takes Fateful Vote to Liquidate Itself
Posted by Jackson Baker on Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:36 AM
- JB
- Reacting somberly to Monday night's vote were (l to r) Ken Hoover, former candidate for the Shelby County School Board, SCS attorney Valerie Speakman, Shelby County schools superintendent John Aitken, and SCS Board chairman David Pickler.
It took more than six hours and enough bloviating and redundancy and hair-splitting — mixed in with spurts of genuine eloquence — to put a Toastmasters’ Convention to shame. But when it was all over and the climactic votes were at hand, the Memphis School Board took the most decisive act in its history (and conceivably one of its very last acts of any kind)— voting 5-4 to allow city voters the privilege of voting Memphis City Schools out of existence.
That referendum — to be held within 45 to 60 days of Monday night’s vote — was a response to the crisis that had been brewing since Shelby County School Board president David Pickler announced last month, in the wake of the November 2 election, that the time seemed ripe for another attempt in the General Assembly to create a special school district for the Shelby County school system.
Pickler’s statement of intent would galvanize MCS Board members Martavius Jones and Tomeka Hart, fearful that a special school district in the county would inevitably drain property tax revenue from the city schools, to float a defensive strategy — that of surrendering the MCS charter, an action which, if approved by city voters, would automatically consolidate city and county schools.
Those two diametrically opposed plans came to be known as “nuclear options,” and they generated feverish attempts, sanctioned by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, to find a third way, some compromise agreement between the two school systems that would forestall a showdown.
Efforts to do so began last week with a summit of city and county officials presided over by city council member Wanda Halbert, and they culminated with a meeting of principal players on Sunday. Out of that came a plan that would freeze both nuclear options for a period of three years, during which mutual consultations would take place and neither would carry out its Doomsday Plan.
Memphis School Board member Jeff Warren proposed a variant of the compromise Monday night, one that was to founder after a good deal of contentious back and forthing, and the admission by MCS attorney Dorsey Hopson that no agreement between the two boards would be legally binding on the Tennessee legislature, already under pressure from the Tennessee School Boards Association to end a prohibition against new school districts.
Ultimately, Warren’s motion was brought to a vote and failed, with Jones, Hart, Sharon Webb, Stephanie Gatewood, and Patrice Robinson voting no, and Kenneth Whalum, Betty Mallott, Warren, and Board president Freda Williams voting yes. The next vote was on the motion to call the referendum on surrendering the charter, and it succeeded 5-4 with the former nay-sayers now the yea-sayers.
Besieged by reporters afterward, Pickler said his Board would meet to discuss a response. He declined to confirm rampant speculation that the Shelby County School Board would vote to seek legislation on behalf of a special school district.
Details to come.
Comments (23)
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This should be excellent news - for Fayette County. I'll be heading there this weekend to start buying up property.
Merc: I can't help but revel in their misery. Karma's a bitch, ain't it?
Jeff: No need for you to come across the state line to capitalize on this. Based on your governor's recently nostalgic recollections of the place, Yazoo City, MS suggests itself as even more of a potential refuge for the next wave of white flighters. http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/20…
Boy, I can hardly wait for the flood of fear mongering, lies and disinformation we're about to be treated to by the opponents of what could end up being one of the best things to happen to Memphis since the industry that was spawned by Elvis' death. The voters of Memphis need to realize what the school board did, namely that the only thing Republican state legislators can be trusted to do is eff Memphis.
P.S. Hopefully, few will pay any attention to the table-pounding ministers' group. No self-respecting citizen of Memphis is going to punish innocent Memphis businesses over this just to promote that group's power trip. That would really be violating the first lesson a dog learns.
If the ministers follow through on their threats as a result of the vote I and my family are long gone...and I'm not talking about Fayette County. Reports show that Nashville- and other southern cities- is emerging from the recession faster and in better shape than Memphis. If the worst of the threats comes to pass this city’s plummet will have no comparison in modern times.
I would like to know what children in either system will benefit from a merger of these two schools systems. If combined, there would be 150,000 students in the new mega district. The logistics of transporting that many students to school everyday is mind boggling. I can't even imagine how bus routes would be organized. How do you govern a district that large? It seems there would be too many hands in the pot and very little accountability.
What happens to the MCS school board if the vote goes through and the charter is dissolved? Do they think they can just "hop on" with SCS and be one big happy family? Ultimately, a school district that is fiscally irresponsible with very poor leadership is not going to help whatever district it merges with. SCS has a proven track record of operating on far less money per pupil and earning much higher test scores than MCS. With all of the resources MCS has at its disposal, it just blows my mind that improvements can't be made at the leadership level.
Parents have had the option of living outside of the city limits of Memphis so their students could go to well run and high performing schools. By merging these districts, we are taking the problems of MCS and spreading them to SCS. It's going to contaminate 47,000 students in SCS. SCS can't fix MCS. MCS will only bring the district down. There will no longer be a good public school option for the parents living in shelby county.
I know this comes down to money, and MCS would rather dissolve than lose a dime. But let's all be honest with ourselves- no amount of money will fix what's wrong with MCS. Lack of parental involvement and value of education in MCS can never be fixed with money. The problems of MCS are starting in the homes of the students, and no tax dollars will fix those problems.
I think that merging these districts will do one thing and one thing only- it will drag a well performing district down with a district that has been on the verge of imploding for years.
Another concern is that should both school systems actually merge in the near, what impact will that have property values should liberal judges decide to ressurect the insane 1970s experiments in busing kids around the city to make things "more fair" and "level the playing field".
"It's going to contaminate 47,000 students in SCS. SCS can't fix MCS."
Implicit in your statement is a position that Shelby County should not even attempt to educate any but the affluent........
I am only implying that SCS continue to educate the students of shelby county, outside of the city limit, as they have been successful doing that thus far. Yes, some of the students in SCS are affluent. Many are not. What most people do not realize about SCS is that there are many schools that are Title 1 and even more schools where a majority of the students are on free or reduced price lunch. Schools like Dexter, Woodstock, Millington, Shadowlawn, Northaven, Lucy, and many others have a population of students who are at or below the poverty level. SCS has been able to meet the state standards in these schools consistently despite low funding and parental involvement. I say, let SCS continue to be successful with the schools in its current boundaries regardless of how affluent the student population is.
Sweet Wounded Jesus!!! You people are crazy. We, that is every single person in Shelby county, all 879 some odd thousand of us, have a chance to do this right. The arguments about MCS will drag down SCS are nothing but thinly (or not so thinly in some cases there GermantownTiger) veiled deep seated racism. Get over it already. Let's get involved and build this so that we, and more importantly the kids, are never subjected to another Kriner Cash type of snake oil salesman, or a single egomaniacal board member that felt he single handedly ran the entire school system. None of that will ever happen as long everyone keeps playing the race-baiting, ruin my schools, ruin my property tax game. It's time to let it go people.
By creating one big school district what are the benefits to students?
sorry i haven't been following as closely as i should.
But by creating a larger school district it sounds like the whole "too big to fail" type scenario. Smaller organizations usually are easier for people to get involved because they actually see their contribution as doing something. In my opinion
This isn't about race. Mad merc, do you really believe that the people who have run MCS so poorly will disappear if we make a mega district? I assume you think David Pickler will go away? Do you think the leadership will suddenly be better? Hate to break it to you, but the leadership won't change. Do you think 150,000 students can be educated in the best way possible by the people of MCS and SCS who are being forced to work together? I think combining two districts could work somewhere else, but I fear we will have a poorly organized mega system if this happens here.
You're absolutely right, it's not about race. The problem is there are too people out there ready to spread fear and dissension using the race game. Just check out the comments on any board talking about this.
My point is the entire SCS will have to be rebuilt to handle this. A new board of education, with new rules. No need for a single king/emperor superintendent. No need to replicate the layer, upon layer of bureaucratic non sense that had become the hallmark of MCS. Sure, if we as a community sit idly by, the same old people will affect the same end game. That is why it is imperative for the people of this community to wake up and seize this incredible opportunity.
We have some excellent examples of what doesn't work. Let's do what we can to move forward without bringing along any of the old rubbish.
Thanks, Marty, I'll handle my own finances. All I see is the thousands of Germantown and Collierville residents fleeing a few more miles down Poplar. There's money to be made fleecing those suckers.
Jeff: I realize you're writing tongue-in-cheek, but if this consolidation somehow happens, which I doubt, it won't affect the racial or demographic make-up of Germantown and Collierville schools. Which, by the way, are already substantially integrated. Nor, sadly, will it particularly affect the all-black schools in our all-black neighborhoods. It just levels the tax structure somewhat. The bomb that the MCS board dropped will keep TN legislators, board members, and attorneys quite busy in the coming weeks. Beyond that, anything is possible.
Simply noting for the record:
Arlington HS 74.7% 20.2%
Bartlett HS 59% 31.4%
Bolton HS 51.3% 43.7%
Collierville HS 82.1% 13.0%
Germantown 42% 49%
Millinton HS 37.9% 57.5%
Southwind HS 1.3% 93.2%
I don't think C'ville qualifies as diverse at anything.
One other fact to remember is that Southwind was/is scheduled to be handed over to MCS along with some of the kids districted to G'town. All numbers are 2009 TN Dept of Education numbers.
Mustang: Just to go through your list of the poorer schools in SCS, these are the TCAP Criterion Referenced Academic Achievement scores, taken from the TN Dept of Education website:
Dexter: B/B/A/B
Woodstock: D/D/D/D
Millington: C/C/B/B
Shadowlawn: B/C/C/C
Northaven: D/F/D/F
Lucy: D/D/D/D
Seems like when SCS faces demographics even approaching those of MCS it doesn't do any better than MCS. (BTW, bit of a stretch to include Dexter in that list)
You also indicate that city residents "choose" their schools because they could simply move to the county. How about this: let's start rebuilding all of the housing projects that concentrate poverty into one place, and dump them right in the middle of Germantown (I am thinking maybe somewhere near Houston High School). Then those people could "choose" to live in the SCS. I am sure the superior educators at Houston/Collierville would keep their stellar performance going, right? Oops, maybe not.
I believe that John Aitken can reside over the MCS and SCS at same time and turn MCS around. HE is just that kind of person. He is not a raciest and he has the best intrest of students at heart. I believe that John with his
excellent leadership skills can get the job done.
Memphis public will not vote to surrender the charter. It'll be interesting to see if SCS will become a special district before the actual vote.
Ah Come On Man we know what this is all about. The county does not want their children going to city schools with black children...Teachers don't want to loose their jobs...Cash is not ready to go back to Fla he is loving the $$$.
Well I am tired of paying taxes to the county for their children to go to school when the county do not pay taxes for city children to go to school.
I say GIVE-UP-THE-CHARTER...We all pay the same taxes for all of our children to go to school.
We must watch the Election Commission they might manipulate the VOTES!!!
Mayfield said: Memphis public will not vote to surrender the charter. It'll be interesting to see if SCS will become a special district before the actual vote.
My response: If John Ryder has anything to do with it, they will redistrict.
Mr. Ryder as a Republican National Committeeman and as someone who’s represented his party in the drawing of legislative districts.
The VOTE is in GIVE-UP-THE-CHARTER!!!
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