While Republicans argue state takeover legislation was crafted to address deficiencies in any underperforming school, Democrats claim it specifically targets Memphis Shelby County Schools.
On Monday, Republican lawmakers approved a conference committee bill that would allow state intervention for schools not meeting certain evaluation guidelines. These school districts would have to meet four out of six criteria detailed in the bill.
The criteria deal with performance on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, absenteeism, management issues.
Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) the sponsor of the House version of the bill, said the legislation was made to hold districts accountable for academic performance. However, Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) said the legislation was “surgically written” to apply to MSCS.
Sen. Brent Taylor, the Senate sponsor, said MSCS hits all six of the criteria that would guarantee state intervention.
Akbari said while many of the state’s local education agencies (LEAs) have proficiency failures, the bill’s concern with audit findings and leadership turnover apply directly to MSCS.
“Memphis Shelby County Schools is but one school district in the state,” Akbari said. “Yes it needs some level of intervention — I certainly don’t think it needs to go as far as a complete takeover, which is what is being proposed.”
Under the proposed legislation, a nine-member board would be appointed to oversee pertinent school districts. Each member must reside in the county of the LEA in question with two members appointed by the Speaker of the House and two by the Speaker of the Senate.
The board would be required to conduct a “Comprehensive Needs Assessment” detailing the qualifications of teachers in the district, quality of textbooks, parental involvement strategies, financial management and more. The board would serve a four-year term.
After reviewing reports from the Tennessee Comptroller of The Treasury, Akbari said she agreed that a mechanism was needed to restructure financial, human resources, and technology systems. However she called Taylor and White’s solution “heavy-handed” as it removes local control in a “meaningful way.”
She criticized the lack of collaboration and said she and Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis) plans to submit a minority report. Akbari also said the state has failed to let the School Turnaround program work and called it a “waste of resources.”
Parkinson said the requirement of a school having a forensic audit only applies to MSCS, and wasn’t included in the initial iteration of the bill. He asked who determined the number of criteria required to qualify a distinct for a state takeover.
“If we wanted to target Shelby County, there’s a number of ways we could have done that,” Taylor said. “ Even though there’s been a lot of discussion about Shelby County and the fact that only 25 percent of the kids that are graduating can read at grade level – that may have brought this issue to my attention or Representative White’s attention — we have an obligation to look at the entire state, and what other school districts are there out there that perhaps need some type of intervention, and that’s why we developed this criteria.”
White said he’s very concerned about educational accountability across the state and said the legislation is a “good move” to address deficiencies.
Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) said the legislation is a step towards setting a “high bar” for educational standards in the state and noted that it applies to all districts.
“This bill applies to everybody,” Cepicky said. “ Everybody in the state of Tennessee should be looking at this and going ‘We have to up our game.’”