The Tie That Binds? Gerry House offers testimonials for ServiceMaster, the company that co-sponsored her awards. by John Branston Dr. Gerry House In the tough competition for school maintenance contracts, ServiceMaster can use all the help it can get. In Memphis, help comes straight from the top in the person of Memphis City Schools Superintendent Dr. Gerry House. “Rave reviews praising ServiceMaster have poured in from all constituencies, including the teachers, principals, parents, and community,” House says in a testimonial on ServiceMaster’s Web site. Other House-authored blurbs praise the company’s expertise and business sense or vouch for the satisfaction of district principals. In 1993, a year after House arrived in Memphis, ServiceMaster, an Illinois-based company with several operations and its CEO headquartered in Memphis, was awarded a five-year, $17.5 million contract for school maintenance. The contract was renewed for another five years in 1998. There is another connection between Gerry House and ServiceMaster that goes beyond clean floors and manicured lawns. In 1999, House was named the national Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). And in 1998, she won the Richard R. Green Award from the Council of Great City Schools as the nation’s top educator in urban education. Both awards are co-sponsored by ServiceMaster, although the organizations select the winners. For reasons that are unclear, the sponsorship has not previously been reported in Memphis and some school board members say they were unaware of it. House, whose personal integrity is widely applauded, did not profit significantly from the awards. They boosted her prestige at a time when test scores and school reforms, by her own admission, have been somewhat disappointing. Each award comes with a $10,000 college scholarship to be given to a high school student. The AASA award also includes a gold medallion and $2,000 savings bond. House, who announced this month that she is resigning to work for a nonprofit foundation in New York, was not paid by ServiceMaster for her corporate testimonials. “We do not do testimonials for anyone if what you mean is paid endorsements,” says Memphis City Schools spokeswoman Janice Crawford. Any employee can make favorable comments about a vendor and they may be published. The bigger beneficiary of the relationship would appear to be ServiceMaster and the Memphis City Schools, which are joined in both a business partnership and in mutual image polishing. This comes at a time when Memphis is about to enter intense discussions about the future of public education and the selection of a new superintendent and when ServiceMaster is battling to grow its business in a sometimes hostile environment. Cleanliness and Godliness ServiceMaster, which had 1999 revenues of $5.7 billion, operates in what can sometimes be a high-profile, controversial environment when it competes for school maintenance contracts. “Much of our business may be classified as routine and mundane,” ServiceMaster Chairman C. William Pollard told a Congressional committee on education in 1998. “We do such things as clean toilets and floors, maintain boilers and air-handling units, serve food, kill bugs, care for lawns and landscape, clean carpets, provide maid service, repair home appliances. The task before us is to train and motivate people to serve so that they will do a more effective job, be more productive in their work, and yes, even be better people.” The company flaunts its Christian commitment and lists service to God as one of its guiding principles in its annual report. To get into the school maintenance business, ServiceMaster has to overcome two hurdles: competitors and fears of privatization. There were howls of protest from city employees, unions, and some school board members when ServiceMaster was awarded the $17.5 million contract in 1993. But House presented a strong case that restructuring was necessary and that most of the system’s 1,400 maintenance employees would keep their jobs. School board member Barbara Prescott says the groundwork was actually laid by House’s predecessor, interim superintendent Ray Holt, in 1992. Six companies were interviewed, and ServiceMaster was chosen for its experience in large urban school districts. Prescott, who says she tired of frequent complaints about broken school windows and other maintenance problems under the old regime, is a ServiceMaster fan. “They [ServiceMaster] have solved immeasurable headaches,” she says. “My complaints about maintenance ended when they were hired.” Fellow school board members Jim Brown and Lora Jobe echo Prescott’s favorable comments. “They’ve done an exemplary job,” says Brown. In other cities, however, ServiceMaster has not enjoyed such a warm reception (see related story, “What They’re Saying,” on opposite page). The company lost contracts in Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and Palm Beach, Florida, after outside audits. In Memphis, ServiceMaster has not undergone outside review but has undergone satisfaction surveys by the MCS central office in 1994 and 1997. Based on improvements in seven of nine areas assessed and overall improvement from “average” to “good,” the contract was renewed for another five years in 1998 for $22 million. “That is part of the original budget for maintenance without any extra fees,” says Crawford. ServiceMaster is also responsible for more than $100 million in facility and capital maintenance expenditures. Brown says the school board gets reports from principals and from the company itself. Mike Frey, head of the school system’s Facility Services division, is a ServiceMaster employee. Crawford says he does not meet with House’s cabinet but does meet with assistant superintendent Dennis Hirsch. Prescott, Brown, and board president Sara Lewis say the company gets no special treatment. Prescott says she did not even know ServiceMaster cosponsored the AASA award. “Even if I had known, I don’t think it would have been a consideration,” she says. Other Memphis City Schools vendors have gotten much tougher scrutiny from board members and the press for using their influence. The Detroit-based Barton Malow construction management company was criticized for courting board member Michael Hooks Jr. and for buying dinner for commissioners at a convention in San Francisco. At least one commissioner, Lora Jobe, declined to dine with Barton Malow representatives, reportedly because of not wanting to be subjected to “spin.” The ethical implications of the dinners was the subject of a front-page story in The Commercial Appeal last year. Sponsorships fall into the category of what is known as image enhancement. Several businesses in Memphis sponsor scholarships or participate in the Adopt-a-School program. The Rotary Club sponsors a teacher award program but it is a civic organization, not a vendor. Both the AASA and the Council of the Great City Schools say ServiceMaster does not have a voice in the selection of honorees. “What they get is some visibility and goodwill,” says Mike Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools. Before honoring House in 1998 at its 42nd annual convention in San Francisco, the organization gave its highest award to longtime Memphis Board of Education member Maxine Smith in 1997. “It really is coincidence,” says Casserly. “The school systems do their own nominations, which is totally independent of who has ServiceMaster contracts and who doesn’t. What ServiceMaster does that we could not do out of our own general funds is provide the $10,000 scholarship and a nice dinner at our annual meeting.” The national Superintendent of the Year program has been cosponsored by ServiceMaster since its inception in 1988, according to AASA awards coordinator Darlene Pierce. Association members pick one winner from each state, then Pierce convenes a panel to select the national winner. Like the Richard Green Award, the Superintendent of the Year has been won by ServiceMaster customers and non-customers. “ServiceMaster has no input either on the state level or national level,” says Pierce. “They have been an enormously good co-sponsor in that they understand their role.” That’s not to say that some winners don’t feel compelled to spontaneously express their gratitude. The Des Moines Register reported that 1998 winner Barbara Grohe of Iowa City and other finalists praised ServiceMaster nine times during one 20-minute televised presentation. And House is not alone in offering gushing praise on ServiceMaster’s Web pages. Other superintendents also give testimonials. The AASA has no other vendor sponsors at the national level. ServiceMaster is the exclusive cosponsor of the national Superintendent of the Year award. “If a competitor asked, I would probably encourage them to think of some other opportunity for sponsorship,” Pierce says. She says she was unaware of the superintendent testimonials for ServiceMaster. “That is something we would be concerned about,” she says. “ This is an objective education program. It’s not put together for one corporation or another.” Half Full or Half Empty? The awards raise another issue for Memphis. Both cite the reform programs implemented by House. But it is unclear, in light of test scores and recent comments by Memphis mayor and former superintendent Willie Herenton, if and how much the schools have been reformed. Herenton, the recipient of many education honors himself, has said the schools were in better shape eight years ago when he left them. When House came to Memphis, she made a commitment to “hold all children to the same standards, regardless of their family situation” and to hold teachers accountable. “The business of schools is to educate children, and the way we know whether children are being educated is by measuring how well they do on tests,” she has said. “I look closely at scores from the state’s standardized tests. Every year, the test compares how well our children are performing with the performance of children across the country. But I also look at other tests, such as writing assessments.” Memphis students performed well below state and national medians in reading and math on the 1999 tests, and the gap has not closed significantly in seven years. Writing assessment scores increased locally and statewide. If judging schools is always a half-empty, half-full proposition, the starting point for reform is usually a broad criticism of the status quo. The problem with that approach in Memphis is that two highly regarded superintendents both insist they left or are leaving the schools in good shape. Who and what is Memphis to believe as it begins the search for House’s successor? Whether or not the reforms House implemented remain in place after she is gone will depend on how they are viewed by her successor and by the people who will choose her successor. “The Superintendent of the Year award is not a one-person award but an award won by the superintendent on behalf of the school district,” says Pierce. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if all the reform which is part of what made this possible went away when the superintendent left.” n Local Ratings Reflect Resentment While Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans scored national ratings gains over last year’s game, soft numbers locally suggest that Memphis football fans may forgive, but they may never forget being passed over for an NFL franchise. Nationwide, the game was watched by more than 130 million viewers to become the fifth most-watched event in television history and received a Nielsen rating of 43, up 7 percent from last year. Nielsen ratings reflect the percentage of television households that are tuned in to a particular program. In Memphis, on the other hand, the ratings were 16 percent below the national average. Only 36 percent of Memphis’ television households tuned in to WPTY-TV Channel 24 to watch the game, off 7 percent from last year’s game, broadcast on WHBQ-TV Channel 13, between the emotionally neutral Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons, which received a 39 rating, close to the national average. And lest there be any doubt as to which Tennessee the Titans represent, consider this: Fully half of Nashville’s TVs were tuned to Sunday’s heartbreaker, second only to the 55 rating the game garnered in St. Louis. — Jim Hanas New Truancy Center Opens After more than a year of prep-aration, the Memphis Truancy Assessment Center opened Monday. Funded by a $200,000 grant awarded to the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, the center at 205 N. Claybrook will serve as a temporary housing facility for truant juveniles who are picked up by Memphis Police or Shelby County Sheriff’s Department officers. Under Tennessee law, a student 17 years old or younger is considered truant when they’ve missed five days of school, after which parents can be prosecuted for negligence and receive 30 days in jail. District Attorney General Bill Gibbons announced that letters will be sent to all Memphis and Shelby County parents informing them of the law. — Ashley Fantz Beetle Damage Brings Down Trees Some pine trees at Shelby Farms could be getting the ax in the near future. “We won’t take out the whole forest,” says Tim Martin, superintendent of Shelby Farms. “We’re not clear-cutting.” At their last meeting on January 11th, the park’s board of directors voted to hire a forester to remove trees around the 10k cross-country course that have become infected with the Ips engraver beetle. Some areas have already been blocked off although the forester hasn’t been chosen yet. Before one can be hired, the board has to draft a request for a proposal, place a notice in the newspaper, and notify all identified foresters in the state. Martin says he doesn’t know how long that process will take. “This could take two months, six months, or two years,” he says. When a forester is hired, he or she will have to use mules or horses to remove the infected trees to reduce damage from motorized vehicles. Since the Ips engraver beetle leaves a blue stain that makes the wood unacceptable for other purposes, the trees will be converted into pulp. The pines were planted about 40 to 50 years ago and are not native to the area. There are no plans to replace the damaged trees with other pines, but Martin believes the resulting hole in the canopy should allow for native hardwood trees to grow and replace them naturally. The Ips engraver beetles have been causing damage all across West Tennessee, and this summer’s drought contributed to the problem, Martin says. “It’s nature’s way of thinning out trees when they need thinning out.” — Jesse Pool What They’re Saying about ServiceMaster and Schools Pro “Rave reviews praising ServiceMaster have poured in from all constituencies, including the teachers, principals, parents, and community.” — Gerry House testimonial on ServiceMaster Web site “What ServiceMaster does is provide the expertise in an area where we do not specialize. Their business sense complements our own educational sense.” — Gerry House testimonial on ServiceMaster’s Web site “Now when ServiceMaster surveys the district principals, Dr. House confirms their satisfaction is much higher than it was.” — “Partnership Profile” on ServiceMaster’s Web site “In their first two years of partnership, ServiceMaster enabled Memphis City Schools to realize a savings of $2.5 million. With that commitment to excellence by ServiceMaster, the district can keep its focus on educational excellence and improving student performance.” — “Partnership Profile of Gerry House” on ServiceMaster Web site “They have solved immeasurable headaches for us. My calls about maintenance problems ended when they were hired.” — Memphis School Board member Barbara Prescott “The sponsors and finalists [for the national Superintendent of the Year award] thanked and extolled ServiceMaster repeatedly during the televised presentation. Iowa City School Superintendent Barbara Grohe quoted from former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on leadership, and then cited the partnership between the school administrators’ group and ServiceMaster as an example of such leadership. It was the ninth reference in 20 minutes to the company during the televised presentation.” — The Des Moines Register, January 14, 1998 (Grohe was the 1998 national Superintendent of the Year.) “Let us never forget that it is only the private sector that creates jobs. All other sectors of our economy, including the government, are economically dependent upon the growth and profitability of the private sector. The business community cannot solve all of the burdens of our society. But it can be a moral community for the development of people, generating profits and paying taxes. This continues to be the grand experiment of ServiceMaster.” — C. William Pollard, chairman of ServiceMaster, in testimony to a Congressional committee in 1998 Con “ServiceMaster Corp. parlayed a $105,000 study for the Washington, D.C., schools in 1993 into a contract worth more than $17 million without any competitive bidding and in violation of procurement rules, the audit found. The inspector general’s draft report states that school officials expanded the company’s contract unnecessarily, rarely verified invoices, and allowed $4.5 million in savings intended for the D.C. schools to flow into ServiceMaster’s coffers.” — The Washington Post, December 24, 1996 (ServiceMaster lost the contract in 1997.) “Palm Beach County school officials don’t want to admit that a private company took them — and the taxpayers — to the cleaners by weasel-wording the contract to take over maintenance, groundskeeping, and energy services. But with the school district spending $4.2 million more this year — rather than saving money, as promised — the only ones cleaning up on the year-old custodial services agreement are the people at Illinois-based ServiceMaster.” — editorial in The Palm Beach Post, May 28, 1999 “ServiceMaster used to have a better relationship with the school board. The custodial-services company has been under contract since 1992 to maintain a number of New Orleans schools. Without taking bids, the board expanded that contract in 1997 to include cutting grass and extended it another two years. Within months, the company was taking heat from board members because some schoolyards were knee-deep in overgrown grass and weeds.” — editorial in The New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 20, 1999. (ServiceMaster lost the contract in November.) Making A Difference In Millennial Memphis - 33 Sometimes, image is everything. At least, a good self-image can go a long way in improving one’s overall outlook. This is especially true for the look of a community. When yards are clean and neighbors take pride in keeping up their homes, the whole neighborhood benefits. Some residents of the Brown & Howell area of the Vollintine-Evergreen community say it’s time for their neighborhood to clean-up, and they have a plan to encourage participation: a “Sweep Around Your Own Front Door” contest. The contest will be a monthly event lasting one year with gift certificates as prizes. There will be a special clean-up week when residents will be expected to make sure their areas are clean from the curb to their front door and around the house. Volunteers will judge the homes, and winners will be announced through fliers the following week. The idea is to turn feelings of helplessness and hopelessness into feelings of pride and power. For this worthwhile project, the Brown & Howell Block Club will receive the 33rd Making a Difference in Millennial Memphis grant. As part of its 10th-anniversary celebration, The Memphis Flyer is giving away $50,000 in grants of $1,000 each. The money is provided by an anonymous Memphian who hopes to encourage what might be called good works, little things that improve the quality of life in Memphis. The grants are disbursed by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. Grants are available to any nonprofit in the Memphis area. To apply, send a proposal on the organization’s stationery to: Making A Difference, The Memphis Flyer, P.O. Box 687, Memphis, TN 38101

					Fly on the Wall Bowl Report I: Well, At Least They Beat The Spread In one of those cute little acts we apparently demand of political leaders, Tennessee Senator Bill Frist bet Missouri Senator John Ashcroft a case of Goo-Goo Clusters versus something called Missouri barbecue that the Titans would beat the St. Louis Rams in the big game last Sunday. Of course, the Titans came up agonizingly short and now the state is out a case of Goo-Goo Clusters. But what has gone unreported is the side bet Frist made in the heat of Tennessee’s exciting fourth-quarter comeback. But hey, don’t worry about it. Who needs Social Security? Bowl Report II: Radio Station Punts “We never expected the frenzy that would occur once the announcement came on the radio. It got ridiculous.” — Nashville police department spokesperson Don Aaron on the rash of incidents involving citizens hunting down and frisking officers last Wednesday. The incidents were prompted by a contest held by a local radio station, Music City 103.3, which announced that two tickets to the Super Bowl were taped to the belly of an unidentified Nashville police officer. The station canceled the contest after an hour when it became clear it was creating a dangerous situation when officers were caught unaware. No one ever found the tickets, taped to Officer Jeff Keeter, and the tickets were eventually auctioned off. Bowl Report III: The Political Game The front-runner candidates for the 2000 presidential race took time off Sunday to watch the big game in New Hampshire Sunday. Governor George W. Bush threw a typically Texas-size party in a Portsmouth airplane hangar, while Gore and his staff squeezed into a Martha’s Exchange, a popular pub in Nashua, N.H. Though idealogical opposites, the two presidential hopefuls found themselves rooting for the same team — sort of. “You know, I hope the Houston Oilers win the Super Bowl,” Bush told reporters, to which Gore responded, “If he’s rooting for the Houston Oilers, that’s typical of living in the past.” A Good Day To Die “He’s competent to be executed on a good day, but if he’s going to be executed it’s probably not going to be a good day.” — Dr. William Kenner, testifying for the defense in the competency hearing of Robert Glen Coe. Coe is scheduled to be executed on March 23rd for the 1979 murder of 8-year-old Cary Ann Medlin. The one obstacle is the current hearing to determine whether he is sane enough to die, an effort Coe has done his best to undermine with his frequent outbursts berating the judge and lawyers. News Tip Of The Week You didn’t hear it here, but when the board of trustees for the University of Tennessee system comes to town this week to explore deep cuts in the Memphis campus’ budget, take a look at who’s footing the bill for hotel rooms at The Peabody and expensive dinners. A little bird told us you can expect the name “State of Tennessee” to be on the credit card receipt. The Old Media When you pick up your February copy of Reader’s Digest we hope you enjoy an article by Ed Weathers, former editor of the Flyer’s sister publication Memphis magazine. Back in 1988, the editors of Reader’s Digest contacted the magazine about reprinting one of Weathers’ popular “Backporch” columns, for which they would pay the handsome sum of $180. Of course, magazine publisher Kenneth Neill okayed the deal and filed it away. Now, 12 years later, the piece is scheduled to run, and the other day a check for $180 came in the mail. Unfortunately, it’s made out to Ed, so we’ll have to forward it to him instead of depositing it into the Flyer discretionary fund for widows and orphans.
		Compiled by Mark Jordan Send items to: P.O. Box 1738 Memphis, TN 38101 FAX: 521-0129 e-mail: jordan@memphisflyer.com.