Tag: school consolidation

• JB
• MayorA C Wharton, County Commissioner Steve Mulroy , and State Senator Jim Kyle confer after Tuesday’s City Hall meet

“Bear in mind, the state always holds the nuclear option, if you will.”

That statement, made by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton near the beginning of a Tuesday afternoon meeting of local officials at City Hall, underscored the heightened degree of difficulty now confronting Memphians committed to next month’s scheduled citywide referendum on the transfer of authority for Memphis City Schools to Shelby County Schools.

The meeting, to which members of the City Council, the County Commission, the two local school boards were invited, had been called on behalf of the Shelby County legislative delegation by state Senator Beverly Marrero, the Midtown Democrat who is this year’s delegation chair.

Scheduled earlier in contemplation of committee action on two anti-merger bills slated for Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the meeting would take place in the immediate wake of a morning press conference in Nashville by Governor Bill Haslam, who, along with the state’s acting Commissioner of Education, Patrick Smith, had unexpectedly and quite directly become participants in the ongoing drama.

Though Haslam acknowledged the validity of the March 8 referendum, Smith had dropped the other shoe, an implied threat to intervene if satisfactory transition plans — one involving the status of teachers involved in the proposed merger, the other concerning a host of general details concerning the transfer of authority from MCS to SCS — were not submitted to his office by deadlines of February 16 and March 1, respectively.

Wharton told the attendees at Tuesday’s meeting that retribution cold come in the form of withheld state BEP (Basic Education Program) funding, but he said he was “convinced that we can work out a plan that’s acceptable to the state of Tennessee.”

That was in answer to a question from state Senator Jim Kyle, the Memphian who heads up the Senate Democratic caucus. Kyle had asked if there were a need for any further legislation to shore up the referendum process.

That Kyle, Marrero, and various other Democratic members of the delegation were the only legislators in attendance was a statement in itself. As council chairman Myron Lowery said, “It’s extremely significant who is here today….We do not have a full complement of our delegation. We are missing important people who will be presenting legislation in Nashville tomorrow.” That, Lowery said, was “a signal to the public about what’s being planned and what’s not being shared.”

County Commission chairman Sidney Chism, another Democrat, seconded Lowery’s concerns that, as the Council chairman had put it, the legislature’s Republicans — notably the absent Mark Norris of Collierville, Senate majority leader and the author of one bill to thwart the March 8 referendum — meant to “change the rules in the middle of the game.”

Chism concurred, saying, “We can’t stop it….They can pass anything they want…They want to dictate to the people.”

At that point, County Commission member Mike Carpenter, who functioned as something of a token Republican at the City Hall meeting, rose to make the case that issues involving the March 8 referendum and the merger were not partisan ones, a position that was endorsed in short order by state Representatives Larry Miller and G.A. Hardaway and by Council member Janis Fulllilove.

State Representative Johnnie Turner would make the same point, but she returned to Chism’s fatalism in speaking of Norris’ bill, SB 25, which professes to supersede the results of the referendum, calling for an alternate, lengthy process that would culminate in a joint vote of city and county residents down the line.

“It’s going to pass. We know that it is, so what can we do as a group?” she asked.

Attention soon turned to a letter Smith had sent to MSC superintendent Kriner Cash and SCS superintendent John Aitken, in which the acting commissioner had spelled out his terms.

Several attendees expressed confusion as to their meaning, and state Representative Jeanne Richardson responded to a statement by Wharton, meant to be reassuring, in which the mayor had professed optimism about complying with Smith’s conditions and continuing with the referendum process, regardless of potential obstacles that could “mess it up.”

“Respectfully, I would suggest to you that the purpose of this letter was to ‘mess it up’” Richardson told the mayor. She said Smith’s deadlines were so abrupt as to make compliance “impossible.”

After some more back-and-forthing, state Representative Joe Towns announced that he had Smith on the line, and the Commissioner’s voice was patched through to the public audio system of City Hall.

As was the case with an early phone call from City Council member Shea Flinn, Smith’s voice on the call was virtually unintelligible in the cavernous chamber, and, though the commissioner acknowledged that the second of his two deadlines, the March 1 one involving general transition, was not supported by specific statutes, he stood by both it and, especially, the first one of February 15 regarding teachers.

If Smith’s explicit meaning remained unclear, his tone was conciliatory and seemed to imply flexibility — a fact which gave Senator Kyle the opportunity to say, toward the end of the meeting that not all of the legislature’s Republicans would be of one mind regarding the Memphis situation and that the city’s point of view and that of MCS would be given a fair shake.

Briefly reviewed the fast-track status extended to Norris’ bill by the Republican leadership, Kyle said the bill, likely to get floor votes in both Senate and House on Monday, “may be amended, may be changed.”

He concluded, “By Friday, we’re going to know what we’re going to voting on Monday in the legislature at 5 o’clock. We need to know whether you’re for that bill or not.” Though isolated responses of “no” were heard in the chamber, Kyle said, “There may be a bill we can support.”

And, after Kyle’s reiteration that representatives of the city and county and the two school boards shold make their wishes known, the meeting shortly came to an end.

• JB
• Governor Haslam

As of this week, the volcanic local issue involving the schools systems of Memphis and Shelby County has spilled over into the corridors of state government. Big-time. Not only will the General Assembly begin this week to consider in earnest bills dealing the issue, but Governor Bill Haslam stepped in on Tuesday morning with a full-dress press conference at the state Capitol to consider the matter.

What Haslam had to say might possibly give aid and comfort to both sides in the controversy. Essentially the governor acknowledged that the issue was a local one for Memphis and Shelby County and specifically said the forthcoming March 8 citywide referendum on the transfer of authority for Memphis City Schools to Shelby County Schools would go on as scheduled. “Nothing we are doing here will impact that vote.”

But he declared that the state had a “legal responsibility and a moral responsibility,” as well as a “common-sense responsibility” to see that any transition preserved the rights of both teachers and the 150,000 students currently enrolled in the two systems.

Haslam said the state Education Commissioner, Patrick Smith, “has to approve any plan as it relates to teachers” and noted that Smith had dispatched a detailed letter on the subject to both MCS superintendent Kriner Cash and SCS superintendent John Aitken.

In the letter, Smith cites”a legal requirement placed upon the Commissioner of Education by Tenn. Code Ann. §49-5-203(d) in the context of a change in any governmental structure or organization.” The statute, says Smith, provides that “[t]he Commissioner must make a determination that the rights and privileges afforded to teachers by Section 49-5-203 are not impaired, interrupted, or diminished by organizational changes like the one proposed by the referendum. “

Smith says elsewhere in the letter,” In order to make a favorable determination that no impairment, interruption or diminution has occurred, the Department must review a comprehensive plan addressing in detail all of the pertinent aspects related to the transition of teachers.” And the letter sets forth a deadline of February 15 for receipt of “a personnel plan for teachers” and a second deadline of March 1 for receipt of “a comprehensive transition plan developed by both school districts…”

An appendage to the letter lists a lengthy variety of subjects to be addressed in the comprehensive transition plan — including student services, facilities and equipment, charter schools, and debt.

Smith also took part in Wednesday’s press conference and pointedly said the Commissioner’s office had “moral authority… to withhold funds in any district anytime there’s non-compliance with a rule or a state stature.”

Haslam said he had been in touch with various parties to the issues involved, including Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, state Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey of Blountville, state House speaker Beth Harwell of Nashville, and “some members of the Shelby County [legislative] delegation. He said he had talked as recently as Monday night to Wharton and Luttrell and declared he had “great faith and confidence in their leadership.”

In answer to a follow-up question on the March 8 referendum, Haslam repeated his assurances that the vote should go on as scheduled: “I don’t think it’s our place to decide who votes or when the vote happens.” But, in answer to another question about several bills pending in the General Assembly, he said the legislature “has a role,” which it would likely define for itself.

Kriner Cash; Kenneth Whalum, Jr,

“I’ll be long gone.” That was Kriner Cash’s half-serious jest in a conversation Friday night about when the end point might finally be reached in the ongoing wrangle between Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools and between the divergent ways of life they represent.

Superintendent Cash has no immediate plans to ship out — or to give up the commitment to long-term educational reform of the city’s schools that he reasserts every time he speaks publicly about the showdown between the two school systems. The quip was just his resigned acknowledgment of what everybody suspects — that whatever the results of the forthcoming March 8 citywide referendum on MCS charter surrender, a morass of litigation and cross-purposes lies ahead.

Cash was asked whether he envisions a further role with a newly consolidated city/county school system if the referendum should pass, making Shelby County Schools — or Shelby County government or mayhap some newly created county entity — the overseer of the new system.

“There’s no guarantee I would continue on,” he said. And, after a pause, “there’s no guarantee that I would want to continue on.”

Cash made his comments while attending a Friday-night reception at The Peabody for Ralph Crowder, a documentarian who was previewing an introductory video for his work in progress, “Memphis, a City Rich in Song and Experience.”

The MCS superintendent is keenly aware of the differences between the system he heads and the one that now operates in suburban Shelby County, and he has made no secret of his concerns that the several reform initiatives he has pioneered at MCS will be lost in a de facto consolidation of the county’s two school systems.

“This has nothing to do with education, just politics and power,” Cash said — echoing a statement made by numerous opponents of MCS-SCS merger, including the Rev. Kenneth Whalum, pastor of New Olivet Baptist Church and an MCS board member who was also an attendee at the reception.

Since Cash’s arrival at the helm of MCS in 2008, the relationship between the two has been decidedly on again/off again. Just now it’s in an “on” phase, with the superintendent and the famously iconoclastic Board member both in stout resistance mode vis-à-vis the proposed charter surrender.

• JB
• MCS superintendent Cash (right) with videographer Crowder

But they have frequently clashed over some of Cash’s initiatives, and, even when Cash and Whalum, along with several other speakers, shared a stage at East High School some weeks ago at a Memphis Education Association rally against the surrender proposal, their differences surfaced.

On that occasion, Whalum concluded his remarks by expressing two preferences — first, that the assembled MEA members vote no on the March 8 referendum, and, second, “Let’s clean house at Memphis City Schools from top to bottom. By any means necessary.” Asked about that statement on Friday night at the reception, Whalum did not shy away from it, or its implications concerning Cash. “Yes, I’ve raised questions as to whether we have the right superintendent,” he said.

The current collaboration between the two is decidedly ad hoc, and the uneasiness of it surfaced during an audience discussion after Crowder had showed his introductory video. In the course of suggesting that the fully developed and revised project should include a major emphasis on the Memphis schools, a smiling Cash ventured a quip about his sometime nemesis Whalum, who, as an interviewee, had figured prominently in Crowder’s video.

“On the light side, I think it had way too much Kenneth T. Whalum,” As the audience laughed, Whalum added his own jest: “And that was the edited piece, man!”

At the last MSC Board meeting, Whalum had announced as “new business” three resolutions that he wants the Board to act on at its next meeting. One would require the Memphis Urban Debate League, a group with which MSC has partnered, to furnish the Board with a copy of its bylaws, something which was promised but has been long deferred. That, acknowledged Whalum Friday night, reflected his annoyance with the organization for scheduling a series of debates among Memphis high schoolers on the forthcoming charter-surrender referendum.

“They’ve got an agenda, no doubt. And, besides, they owe us those bylaws,” said Whalum.

A second Whalum resolution asks the Board to demand an “immediate tender” of the $57 still owed MCS by the City Council. And his third resolution would request, by way of providing for “post-surrender” closure, itemized reports on activity relating the pending Gates Foundation grant to MCS, a detailed summary of suspensions and expulsions in city schools; and an accounting of the rate of pregnancy in the system.

His lumping the pregnancy and suspension/expulsion figures in with the Gates Foundation issue (which relates to the whether a promised $90 million grant would continue in the event of a merger) is indicative of the fact that Whalum still intends to press internal MSC issues that could be unflattering and/or nettlesome to Cash.

The superintendent made it clear Friday night that he believes the reported figure of 90 pregnancies among students at Frayser High is misleading and “way off.” He said only 10 or so currently enrolled students were known to be pregnant, although another 47 had taken part in a voluntary counseling program for students in the system.

Public interest in the forthcoming March 8 citywide referendum on the merger of Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools continues to mount, with multiple meetings on the subject occurring on almost a nightly basis.

In addition to a public forum conducted Thursday night by the Shelby County Schools Board, two “town meetings” were held under the auspices of Shelby County Commission members. One, at Hollywood Community Center, sponsored by Commissioner Henri Brooks, featured an array of speakers in favor of the merger, including former mayor Willie Herenton. Another, at Snowden School, sponsored by Commissioner Melvin Burgess, featured MCS president Freda Williams and others, addressing the possible complications of the proposed merger.

Former Mayor Willie Herenton at Hollywood:

MCS Board president Freda Williams at Snowden:

Shelby County Commissioner Sidney Chism at Hollywood:

Memphis Education Association president Keith Williams at Snowden:

Thaddeus Matthews on black and white:
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Making his strongest statements yet on the subject of the forthcoming citywide vote on surrender of the Memphis City Schools charter, Mayor A C Wharton used words like “detest” and “contemptible” in expressing his opposition to pending state legislation aimed at curbing Memphians’ sole right to decide the issue.

Meeting with reporters after delivering his formal State of the City address to an overflow audience in the lobby of LeBonheur Children’s Hospital, Wharton said, “Anything that gets in the way of the vote, I am just unalterably opposed to that…The right to vote is o dear to this city. People marched, people went to jail, and some died across this country. Once that train leaves the station, once you tell the people they’re going to have the right to vote on something, he or she who gets in the way of that acts with great peril. I detest that — any bill, any law, any device, anything that gets in the way of the right to vote.”

Continuing, the mayor said, “Ultimately it should be decided by the people, and absolutely nothing should get in the way of that. When the Memphis City Schools said, let’s let the folks vote on it, that is the law. Now, it is not going to go down well to changes the rules in mid-stream. That’s going to be hard to explain as to why a law that has served 94 counties well for some reason is not a good law for the 95th county. That’s going to be very difficult to explain.”

Asked if he was defending the Memphis-only aspect of the March 8 referendum, Wharton said, “That is correct…That, by the way, was not something that the folks of MCS came up with…That’s been on the books for many many decades…It’s worked fine, and it would be contemptible to change it at this stage.”

Wharton promised that at some future point before the referendum, he would offer some guidance. “I do have an opinion, and that opinion will be expressed clearly before the vote.”

In addressing the subject during his State of the City remarks previously, Wharton had said, “Memphians must have their say in their children’s future, and when early voting starts on February 16, you must take the lead in having your voice heard.” He said he intended to bring in “experts” in the process of consolidation” to insure that if it is the will of the voters, it can be done….. These are the moments that rewrite our city’s history.”

The key elements of any transition would be to make sure “that the education of no child will be disrupted because of the transition and that we will not jeopardize the resources from the Gates Foundation or The Race to the Top,” Wharton said.

In the conversation with reporters, the mayor pointed out that, during the course of his travels to and from Paris for a conference this week, he had talked with Memphis City Schools superintendent Kriner Cash by telephone about the $57 million still owed by city government to MCS. The matter had not been dropped, Wharton said. “It would be so hypocritical to profess to care so much about the schools and then say, ‘I’m not gonna pay that money’” It’s just a matter of getting back together.”

UPDATE: Not long after Mayor Wharton had made his statements in Memphis, state Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville) was quoted in Nashville by The Commercial Appeal’s Rick Locker as saying he intended to try to facilitate legislation blocking attempts to merge the Memphis and Shelby County school systems “for a year or something.”

Simultaneously, Senate Republican leaders scheduled meetings of the Senate Finance and Education committes for next Wednesday so as to vet bills designed to counter MCS-SCS merger and fast-track them for immediate floor action when the legislature reconvenes on Monday, February 7.

That would include a bill by state Senator Mark Norris of Collierville that would call for a delayed referendum and one that would require dual voting by city and county residents, as well as a measure proposed by state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown to enable the state to take over MCS schools (as “non-performing” schools) in the event of a positive merger vote on March 8.

• Tomeka Hart and David Pickler pair off in WMC-TV’s Wednesday night debate.

Headlining a plethora of meetings, forums, colloquies, and what-have-you on the ever-simmering subject of the schools are three public debates scheduled for this week, two of them televised.

On WREG-TV, News Channel 3, there is a Tuesday night encounter featuring two opposed teams — MCS Board member Martavius Jones, State Representative G.A.Hardaway, and city councilman Shea Flinn for charter surrender; and Shelby County Schools chairman David Pickler, the Rev. La Simba Gray, and Germantown Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy opposed.

On Wednesday night, on WMC-TV, in a program held at Playhouse on the Square and co-sponsored by the Memphis Rotary Club (followed up by a “town hall” event), Pickler and MCS Board member Tomeka Hart are paired up, taking the anti- and pro- sides, respectively, on charter surrender.

And on Thursday, a “Town Hall” meeting at Snowden School will feature Shelby County Commissioner Melvin Burgess, City Council member Jim Strickland, and MCS Board member Jeff Warren in an exchange on the charter-surrender and special-school-district issues.

The number of such meetings is fast proliferating, to the point that at the regular Memphis City Schools Board meeting Monday night, outspoken member Sara Lewis, addressing a proposed series of joint MCS-Memphis City Council meetings, was moved to expostulate: “Everybody understands. I’m Sara, and I’m just going to be very, very blunt about what I’m going to do and what I’ not going to do. I just can’t run all over Memphis.”

Lewis did weigh in for some sort of “structured meeting and civil exchange” with the Council, but she and other members of the MCS Board expressed themselves as wary of initiatives from the Council or the Shelby County Commission or SCS or wherever — at least until the Board was able to develop a coherent approach of its own.

MCS member Patrice Robinson underscored the point: “We need [to develop] a common, single message, and we need to do it yesterday.”