The Memphis Police Department (MPD) is aware of threats circulating on social media targeted towards schools in the area. While officers and Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS) are investigating threats, the schools have been placed on soft lockdown per MPD.
Officer Christopher Williams of MPD said no injuries have been reported at this time and instructed media to reach out to MSCS for additional information.
Memphis Shelby County Schools posted a statement to their social media pages that they were aware of these threats.
“As a precautionary measure, please do not go to your child’s school as law enforcement is actively investigating,” the statement said. MSCS said they will provide updates as necessary.
A Facebook user by the name of Joseph Braxton posted photos of screenshots from Instagram stories from a user by the name of @austinsmith9624. These screenshots tagged Southwind High School with the user threatening to “take out 30 people or more with a sk and a ar15 [sic].”
The user also posted they will be delivering their message at lunch time and that people will regret bullying them.
“Anyone in my way may be dealt with outside or inside,” the user said in another post.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Tennessee’s third set of test scores from the pandemic era improved again across all core subjects and grades, even exceeding pre-pandemic proficiency rates in English language arts and social studies.
State-level results released Thursday showed an overall increase in proficiency since last year for public school students, and a surge since 2021, when the first test scores from the pandemic period declined dramatically across the nation.
But the performance of historically underserved students — including children with disabilities, those from low-income families, and students of color — still lags. Those groups of students, who already trailed their peers before disruptions to schooling began in 2020, also spent the longest time learning remotely during the public health emergency caused by Covid-19.
The latest scores continue the state’s upward trend of pandemic recovery, based on standardized tests under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, also known as TCAP.
The academic snapshot suggests that Tennessee’s early investments in summer learning camps and intensive tutoring are paying off to counter three straight years of Covid-related disruptions.
Governor Bill Lee called the results “encouraging,” while interim Education Commissioner Sam Pearcy praised educators, students, and their families for their hard work.
“These gains signal that we’re focused on the right work to advance student learning,” Pearcy told reporters during a morning call. “And as a result of that, we know that we will all continue to keep our foot on the gas to keep this momentum rolling.”
Beginning in the third grade, Tennessee students take TCAPs in four core subjects. This year’s students exceeded pre-pandemic levels in English language arts and social studies, while improving in math and science.
As previously reported, Tennessee’s third-grade proficiency rate jumped by over 4 percentage points to more than 40 percent on tests given this spring. Many of the other 60 percent have to participate in learning intervention programs to avoid being held back a year under a new state law.
Results for historically underserved student groups reflected both good and bad news.
The good news: Improvement for students of color, children from low-income families, those with disabilities, and those learning to speak English mostly paralleled the gains of their more affluent, white, or nondisabled peers.
The bad news: Tennessee isn’t closing those persistent gaps. Our analysis below focused on overall performance in English language arts.
The statewide data is available online by clicking “2023 State Assessment” on a new dashboard of the Tennessee Report Card.
District-level results, which are being reviewed by district leaders, are scheduled to be released in July.
And for the first time under a long-delayed change to the state’s accountability policies, this year’s TCAP results will be used to help calculate A-to-F grades this fall for Tennessee’s 1,700-plus public schools. The state has deferred the new accountability measure for five years because of testing and data disruptions, most recently caused by the pandemic.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with graphics and analysis.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Kae Petrin is a data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Tennessee’s third-grade reading proficiency rate jumped by more than 4 percentage points to 40 percent on this year’s state tests. But that means up to 60 percent of its third graders could be at risk of being held back under the state’s tough new retention law.
The results, based on preliminary scores, showed some level of improvement in all four of the state’s reading performance categories. The percentage of third graders who scored as advanced readers, the state’s top performance category, rose 3 percentage points to 13 percent, the largest figure in over a decade.
Tennessee released the statewide data Monday as families began receiving news about whether their third graders scored well enough on spring tests to move on to fourth grade.
While the state won’t release the final scores until this summer, the preliminary scores offer the first statewide glimpse at the effects of a controversial 2021 law passed in an effort to stem pandemic learning loss and boost Tennessee’s long-lagging scores for reading.
Gov. Bill Lee, who championed the 2021 law, called the gains “historic.”
“While we still have a long way to go before we reach the goals laid out in legislation,” Schwinn said, “I appreciate the ongoing efforts of Tennessee schools as they implement summer and tutoring programs to provide students not yet on grade level with the supports they need to thrive.”
Tennessee has about 75,000 third graders. The early data showed 35 percent scored as “approaching” proficiency, down 1 percentage point from last year; and 25 percent scored “below” proficiency, down by 3 percentage points last year in the state’s bottom category. Another 27 percent were deemed to have met the state’s threshold for reading, up 2 percentage points from last year.
Those who weren’t deemed proficient readers may retake the test this week to try to improve their score, or may have to attend learning camps this summer or tutoring sessions this fall to be eligible to advance to fourth grade.
But the state’s numbers do not factor in students who are automatically exempt under the law. Those include third graders with a disability or suspected disability that affects reading; students who have been previously retained; and English language learners with less than two years of instruction in English language arts.
“Exemption decisions will be dealt with at the local level, in compliance with the law,” said Brian Blackley, a state education department spokesman.
Knox County Schools was among the first school systems to report district-level results, with more than a third of its third graders at risk of retention. The district shared scores with families on Friday night and gave them until Sunday to sign up their child to retest this week. More than 1,200 Knox County third graders retook the test on Monday, said spokeswoman Carly Harrington.
About 38 percent of Nashville students face possible retention based on an analysis of performance and exemptions by Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.
Chattanooga-based Hamilton County Schools reported that more than one-fifth of its third graders either did not score proficient in reading, or did not meet the state’s exemption criteria. “We are in the process of notifying families right now,” spokesman Steve Doremus said Monday.
In Rutherford County Schools, a large suburban district south of Nashville, about 30 percent of third graders may have to satisfy additional learning requirements to be eligible to advance to fourth grade.
School officials in Memphis did not immediately answer Chalkbeat’s questions about third-grade performance.
“We’re working to support the families of our third-grade students over the next few days as they prepare for retests, appeals, our MSCS Summer Learning Academy, and end-of-year celebrations,” Memphis-Shelby County Schools said in a statement.
In releasing statewide data on Monday, the department reversed course from its stance last week.
Historically, the state has not publicly released data from preliminary student-level scores, which are protected by federal confidentiality laws. Blackley said Friday that would continue to be the case. On Monday, however, he said the public release of some statewide results was an attempt to increase transparency because of the high stakes for third graders.
“We understand there’s a lot of interest,” he said, “so we wanted to give a comprehensive view of third-grade data for English language arts as soon as possible.”
This year’s third graders were the youngest students affected by school disruptions during the pandemic. Their kindergarten year was shortened by three months when Gov. Bill Lee urged public school officials to close their buildings in March 2020 to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
The resulting state-funded learning interventions have proven popular, but the retention policy has received widespread criticism.
It’s “worth remembering this broken 3rd grade retention policy was rushed into law during a 4-day special session without any input from educators or families,” state Sen. Jeff Yarbro tweeted over the weekend.
The Nashville Democrat questioned the adequacy of the state’s financial investment in education, its interpretation of scores from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, and the law’s focus on third graders.
“Maybe, just maybe, our efforts should focus on instruction & interventions in K-2 (if not earlier),” Yarbro wrote.
In Memphis, Sen. Raumesh Akbari said the possibility of holding back thousands of third graders based on a single test score was “manufactured chaos.”
“There are so many student interventions we could be supporting to improve reading comprehension. High-stakes testing, with the threat of failing third grade, is not one of them,” said Akbari, who chairs the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Many school officials also question whether TCAP is the best measure of a child’s ability to read.
“The promotion requirements around one TCAP data point don’t portray simple ‘reading ability,’” Rutherford County Schools Superintendent James Sullivan said in a statement.
“Instead,” he said, “the TCAP third grade English Language Arts assessment is a measure of a student’s performance on all Tennessee Academic ELA Standards including the ability to interact, decipher, comprehend, and analyze comprehensive text.”
Adrienne Battle, director of schools in Nashville, said her district did not agree with the law’s retention policy, but is working with its families to navigate the law’s impacts.
“It is important for children, parents, and the community to understand that if a student didn’t score proficient on this one test, it does not mean they failed, that they cannot read, or that they are not making learning progress,” Battle said. “Tennessee has some of the highest standards in the nation for student expectations.”
Local pushback caused legislators to revisit the law during their most recent legislative session. Among other things, lawmakers widened criteria for determining which third graders are at risk of being held back, but the changes won’t take effect until next school year.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Laura Testino contributed to this report from Memphis. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
The selection process for Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ next superintendent got derailed Saturday when school board members raised questions about an outside search firm’s selection of three finalists, shortly after their names were announced.
Now, the board is asking the search firm for the names of all 34 applicants, and it put off plans to interview finalists until it gets those names.
Saturday’s meeting was the first time the board deliberated publicly about the selection process since it voted to select the search firm, Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates of Schaumburg, Illinois. But instead of discussing the individual finalists, board members peppered Hazard Young officials with questions that made clear they were unsatisfied with the process and the results.
Some of their questions had been raised before by members of a community advisory committee that has challenged the lack of transparency in the process.
“I am not saying we want you to go back,” board Chair Althea Greene told Hazard Young officials during the meeting. “We are not just going to accept this … . We appreciate what you have done, but what I hear is it’s just not good enough.”
The board’s pushback adds a new wrinkle to a high-stakes search for a leader for Tennessee’s largest school district, which is struggling to improve academic outcomes for its 100,000 students and to sustain trust in the community. The previous superintendent, Joris Ray, resigned in August 2022 amid an external investigation into allegations that he abused his power and violated district policies.
Hazard Young, tapped in February to find Ray’s successor, presented the three finalists to board members Saturday: Brenda Cassellius, recently of Boston Public Schools; Carlton Jenkins of Wisconsin’s Madison Metropolitan School District; and Toni Williams, the current interim superintendent of MSCS. (See sidebar below for more about these candidates.)
The response from board members suggested that they expected — at some point during the process — to find out more than just the names of the three finalists, including more information on the full pool of applicants and how they were evaluated. They told Hazard Young President Max McGee and associate Micah Ali that their pushback was rooted in ensuring public trust in the process.
“This is not a restart. This is simply: Give us additional information to be able to validate to this deserving community that the right person will ultimately sit in this seat,” board member Kevin Woods said.
Board member Sheleah Harris said the board felt “unprepared, because we hired you all to do a job, and you did not do it well.”
Tikeila Rucker, a former teacher union leader and current community organizer, said she was frustrated that the board hadn’t raised its concerns with the firm earlier.
“It sounds like the board is just as lost as we are, and that is unacceptable,” Rucker told Chalkbeat.
Board member Stephanie Love acknowledged after the meeting that additional deliberation by the board in public meetings before Saturday could have prevented what she described as the “eleventh hour” hitch in the search.
Applicants for the position were evaluated against a rubric with 16 categories, which included reviews of application documents plus references, “Memphis connection,” and fit with MSCS’ needs, Hazard Young explained. Of the 34 applicants, 21 met qualifications for an interview, and 12 proceeded to the last stage, the search firm said. The three finalists were selected from that group.
Some board members on Saturday questioned why they were not provided with the rubric earlier.
“I’m not going to say the people that we have here are not the best. But is there a way for us to have a little more input that these are who we want?” board member Joyce Dorse Coleman asked.
Hazard Young’s contract for the search suggests there is room for more board involvement: It says the firm is charged with facilitating “board discussions to narrow (the) candidate pool after each round of interviews.”
That the board wants to know the names of all the applicants was new to Hazard Young, Ali said Saturday. It is unclear what information the board will eventually receive in response to that request.
In a statement after the board meeting, Greene said the firm would contact applicants to find out whether they still want to be considered, then release those names publicly “for full transparency.” Under state law, as affirmed by a state attorney general’s opinion, records collected by Hazard Young in connection with the search are subject to open-records laws.
While Greene has previously said the board did not expect to receive a full applicant list, other board members Saturday said they had asked to know who all the candidates are.
Two of the finalists presented, Cassellius and Jenkins, have decades of experience in education. Williams, whose background is largely in finance, rose to the top tier for experience that Hazard Young called “nontraditional,” a term that could apply to applicants who came from a foundation, military, or business background.
Harris, the board member, challenged the firm — and the selection of Williams as a finalist — on this point. If the board had given input on the rubric earlier, she said, the search “probably would have some different finalists.”
Hazard Young told board members Saturday that Williams sought a legal opinion on the policy that found it was “void and unenforceable.”
Kenneth Walker, attorney for the school board, said that the board’s policy was valid and that it gives the board discretion to choose someone with experience equivalent to the academic experience cited in the policy.
Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Gov. Bill Lee delivers his 2023 state address on Feb. 6. The Republican governor pledged to further bolster school security on Tennessee’s K-12 campuses. Courtesy of State of Tennessee
Gov. Bill Lee is proposing sweeping changes to enhance school safety across Tennessee, requiring all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, or risk losing escalating amounts of state funding with each violation.
Legislation from the Republican governor, introduced this week in several legislative committees, also mandates several new safety-related drills when students aren’t present; tweaks training requirements for armed and unarmed campus officers; and requires new security features for school buildings constructed or remodeled after this July 1st.
In addition, Lee wants more top law enforcement officials on the state’s school safety team and proposes to transfer its oversight from the Department of Education to the Department of Safety, the agency responsible for homeland security and state troopers.
The governor’s proposal comes after the state fire marshal’s office identified 527 unlocked exterior doors during inspections of about 1,500 Tennessee public schools this school year, according to state officials.
Last June, Lee signed an executive order directing Tennessee school leaders and law enforcement to work together to double down on existing school safety protocols after a deadly shooting in Texas, where a gunman entered an elementary school through an unlocked door and killed 19 children and two teachers.
Lee also promised Tennesseans that state troopers and local police would conduct more unannounced security inspections of schools to make sure entrances are locked to prevent unauthorized access. More than 20,000 doors have been checked so far, state officials said.
Despite having one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, the state has enacted numerous laws under Lee’s leadership to loosen requirements for gun ownership. In 2021, he signed a law allowing most Tennesseans 21 and older to carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety.
This year, however, the governor’s administration is opposing several new bills from Republican lawmakers who want to loosen those regulations even further.
The new safety legislation fulfills a promise Lee made at his state address last month. “We’ve done a lot to make schools safer,” he said, “but I don’t want to look up months from now and think we should’ve done more.”
His proposal, outlined in a 14-page amendment, would require schools to keep all external doors locked when students are present and to limit access through one secure, primary entrance.
The legislation authorizes state and local law enforcement officers to inspect doors — and requires immediate actions to address any infractions. Written notifications describing violations must be sent within 24 hours to the school’s administrators, district leaders, the parent-teacher organization, and state officials in the departments of education and safety.
If a campus does not have a law enforcement officer on site and violates the locked door requirements two or more times in a school year, local school officials would have to post a full-time officer there within 30 days of receiving notice and undertake a corrective action plan. If they do not comply, the legislation directs Tennessee’s education commissioner to withhold 2 percent of its annual state funds, escalating by 2 percent for each subsequent violation, up to 10 percent.
A campus that has a full-time officer faces similar financial penalties for its district or charter organization if it violates the locked door requirements.
“To be clear, the purpose of this proposal is to help schools resolve any security flaws and ensure students and teachers are safe,” said Jade Byers, the governor’s press secretary, in a statement to Chalkbeat on Wednesday. “School funding will only be temporarily withheld while the (district) takes corrective action to resolve the issue.”
Tennessee school leaders have lauded the governor’s prioritization of school safety and, in recent years, taken advantage of millions of dollars in state grants to upgrade building security and hire law enforcement for their campuses. For instance, a grant program championed by the governor in 2019 placed more than 200 school resource officers (SRO) in schools.
But they say that more money is needed to hire more officers — and that the governor’s proposal doesn’t address their staffing challenges.
According to the state’s most recent school safety report, for the 2021-22 school year, fewer than 1,300 of the state’s 1,800-plus schools had a trained SRO on site.
“The attention and focus on keeping our schools safe is appreciated, but financial penalties will not help add the security measures needed,” said Dale Lynch, executive director of the state superintendents organization, which has lobbied for enough funding so every Tennessee school has an SRO.
Money isn’t the only challenge that districts face, according to Mike Winstead, director of Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville.
“One of the punishments under this bill is that you might have to hire an SRO within 30 days, but that’s easier said than done,” he said. “Many districts across our state have tried to secure SROs from their local police departments, but there’s a shortage of personnel. Police are losing a lot of officers to the federal government, where they can triple their salary.”
Lee also proposes to add annual drills — without students present — for emergency bus safety, and also to prepare school staff and law enforcement agencies on what to expect in an emergency situation at a school.
State law already requires schools to conduct periodic fire drills and annual armed-intruder drills, plus three additional annual drills to prepare for potential emergencies such as an earthquake or tornado.
Altogether, the legislation serves as “an additional meaningful step to secure schools and further enhance school safety,” said Byers, the governor’s spokeswoman.
But striking the right balance between school safety and educational climate is also a concern, says Winstead, a 2018 finalist for national superintendent of the year.
“We want our schools to be friendly and welcoming to students and their families,” said Winstead, “and we don’t want to make our kids feel like they’re going to school in a prison.”
He says collaborative working relationships between school officials and law enforcement are more productive than punitive ones. He’d also like to see more state investments to support student mental health beyond the governor’s $250 million student mental health trust fund, established in 2021 as an endowment to pay for future services.
“Drills are important, SROs are important,” said Winstead, “but the most important thing we can do is foster strong relationships between students and adults.”
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Y’all means all, y’all. (Photo: Nashville LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce)
Tennessee’s Attorney General celebrated a win for discrimination last week after a federal judge blocked a move that would have allowed trans kids to play sports on a team of their gender and more.
In September, Tennessee AG Herbert Slatery led a 20-state coalition in a lawsuit to stop anti-discrimination guidance from President Joe Biden. The order was issued in January and strives to prevent discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
Biden’s guidance challenged state laws on whether schools must allow biological males to compete on girls’ sports teams, whether employers and schools may maintain sex-separated showers and locker rooms, and whether individuals may be compelled to use another person’s preferred pronouns.
Herbert Slatery (Credit: State of Tennessee)
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,” reads Biden’s order from January. “Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes.”
However, Slatery claimed in September that Biden’s order “threatens women’s sports and student and employee privacy.” To get there legally, Slatery and his coalition (including Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and more) claimed only Congress — not the president — can change “these sensitive issues” of “enormous importance.” The coalition’s complaint asserts that the claim that the order simply implements the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock decision on anti-discrimination is faulty.
“The agencies simply do not have that authority,” Slatery said in a statement at the time. “But that has not stopped them from trying. … All of this, together with the threat of withholding educational funding in the midst of a pandemic, warrants this lawsuit.”
Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee blocked the guidance, which Slatery called “expansive and unlawful” and would have forced, among others things, the use of “biologically inaccurate preferred pronouns.”
“The District Court rightly recognized the federal government put Tennessee and other states in an impossible situation: choose between the threat of legal consequences including the withholding of federal funding, or altering our state laws to comply,” Slatery said in a statement. “Keep in mind these new, transformative rules were made without you — without your elected leaders in Congress having a say — which is what the law requires. We are thankful the court put a stop to it, maintained the status quo as the lawsuit proceeds, and reminded the federal government it cannot direct it’s agencies to rewrite the law.”
The court ruling drew scorn from LGBTQ advocates, who were quick to point out the judge in the case, Charles Atley Jr., was appointed by former president Donald Trump.
“We are disappointed and outraged by this ruling from the Eastern District of Tennessee where, in yet another example of far-right judges legislating from the bench, the court blocked guidance affirming what the Supreme Court decided in Bostock v. Clayton County: that LGBTQ+ Americans are protected under existing civil rights law,” Joni Madison, interim president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. “Nothing in this decision can stop schools from treating students consistent with their gender identity. And nothing in this decision eliminates schools’ obligations under Title IX or students’ or parents’ abilities to bring lawsuits in federal court. HRC will continue to fight these anti-transgender rulings with every tool in our toolbox.”
This preliminary injunction will remain in effect until the matter is resolved. The matter could get a further decision from the federal court in Tennessee, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, or the Supreme Court of the United States.
Gov. Lee Orders Schools Closed for the Year, Twitter Hilarity Ensues
Governor Bill Lee said Wednesday he wants all Tennessee schools to remain closed throughout the school year.
In a tweet after the announcement, Lee said he’s working with the Tennessee Department of Education to “ensure there is flexibility for districts to complete critical year-end activities.”
The tweet garnered dozens of responses within the first hour after it was published. Many
of them from students, were like this:
Gov. Lee Orders Schools Closed for the Year, Twitter Hilarity Ensues (2)
Some fretted over the announcement in tweets like this, though:
my entire senior year is ruined. i can’t even step foot in my school to finish off my high school experience? no graduation? no senior prom? no senior experiences at all? wow. just wow.
Gov. Lee Orders Schools Closed for the Year, Twitter Hilarity Ensues (5)
To which some responded like this:
The people in these comments that are calling for the state to be reopened….. good lord not everything is a conspiracy to stop you from getting a perm, Karen
— Ja Morants (Bright Future Grizzlies) Burner (@BurnerJa) April 15, 2020
Gov. Lee Orders Schools Closed for the Year, Twitter Hilarity Ensues (4)
Some thought Lee had done the right thing. Some thought Lee had “finally” done the right thing. Other than that, response tweets kind of fell on both sides of this line:
Because of the large number of public hearings on consolidation of governments and school systems, I have visited a few dozen forums in the last six months. And the message I bring to you, my fellow Memphians, is “I can’t hear you.”
At least not well. The acoustics in public and private facilities range from great to awful. As a patriot once said, I may not agree with a word that you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it so long as you say it clearly and limit your remarks to two minutes.
I am a little fanatical on the subject of clarity. My job depends on getting it right as far as “Jim” or “Tim” or “$5 million” or “$5 billion” or “6 p.m. Tuesday” or “6 p.m. Thursday a week from now.”
For several years I refused to get a cellphone for that and other reasons. But “call me on a land line” is no longer an option. So my typical conversation with friends, family, and newsmakers includes several “I’m sorry could you please repeat thats.” On an assignment for an out-of-town newspaper, I once had a conversation with an editor that went something like this:
Me on a borrowed cellphone with the wind blowing and truck engines whining in the background: “I am in Dyersburg and the police are saying the hostages are okay but there have been shots and they are still negotiating. What is your deadline?”
Editor in New York: “So ….. there are many dead … and shot in the head …. and no longer negotiating ….. … have given them a deadline … and your source is a sheriff named ZXXBXBDL! Can you have that for the early edition?”
Memphis Mayor A C Wharton has some blunt advice for people who question the city spending money to attract new companies: get better informed about how the world works.
“Look at what the world is doing, take a global view,” he said at a press conference Tuesday. “Read! Read! Look at what the world is doing.”
Wharton is exasperated at critics of incentives for companies like Electrolux and Mitsubishi Electric, who are locating new plants here in exchange for multi-million dollar tax breaks.
“It really does get to me,” he said, noting that other cities give even more incentives to attract automakers such as Hyndai (Montgomery, Alabama) or Nissan (Nashville and Smyrna).
The press conference was called to announce that the state team tennis tournament is coming to Memphis in 2011 and 2012, but Wharton quickly shifted from tennis players to taxpayers. Asked about looming budget cuts and layoffs of city employees, he told a quick story about a woman from Orange Mound who rides a bus to her job cleaning houses in Germantown every day and has no benefits or health insurance.
He said he must consider “the hundreds of thousands of people who have to pay for what they don’t even get.”
Again, he noted that critics sometimes seem unaware the states and cities all over the U.S. are making drastic cuts to stay solvent. Preliminary budget projections show Memphis could have a $70 million deficit plus $57 million it owes Memphis City Schools.
Asked about the schools referendum, Wharton said he is concerned about the low turnout so far. Only some 3,400 people had voted as of Tuesday morning. Whatever the decision, he said, “I hope it will feel like a mandate.”
He said Memphis will pay $78 million to MCS in 2011 no matter the outcome, and has paid roughly that amount to MCS in 2010 and 2009 also.
The slogans and yard signs have come out. “If You Don’t Know Vote No.” And “Unity.”
I think the “don’t know” one is more effective. The anti-merger side has the easier job. Lots of doubts. The fact is nobody knows the answer to a dozen big questions. The pro-merger side has to choose between the symbolic feel-good message — unity — or the financial message — lower taxes — which is not at all certain.
Slogans aside, another way to look at the schools referendum is to ask this question: Is it worth it?
To answer that, we need to look at what can be changed and what cannot be changed by surrendering the MCS charter and merging the city and county school systems. And then we need to ask if the things that can be changed are more likely to be changed with or without a merger.
First, here’s what I think can be changed:
The discussion. In 29 years in Memphis, I have never seen anything close to this much interest, publicity, serious discussion, and mixed alliances as I have seen in the last four months on the schools issue.
The tax imbalance between Memphis and the suburbs. Sooner or later Memphis will go bankrupt if a shrinking tax base has to support more services, and residents can opt to live in a neighboring suburb where the taxes are 20-40 percent less. It may be a slow death, but I don’t think this can be avoided without consolidation.
School system and school district boundary lines can be redrawn. It’s been done many times already, it just has not been implemented.
School board membership can change and the size of the board can be increased and the district lines can be redrawn.
Superintendents can be changed, just like coaches. Buyouts and hurt feelings come with the territory. If you are a Kriner Cash fan, vote “no” on school consolidation. Otherwise he’s out of here within a year or so.
Openness and accurate, audited numbers. Taxpayers should not have to pay for phantoms. Audit the enrollment and the graduation rate, and the academic outliers. No shenanigans.
The acceptance of an ACT average score of 14, 15, 16, or 17, which is what most city high schools produce. A high school that boasts of increasing its graduation rate with graduates who make a 15 on the ACT— six points below the state average — is cheating those students and setting them up for failure.
The “Us and Them” reporting and grading system that makes Shelby County look so much better than MCS. Blended scores are the rule in Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville.
The uncertainty about what Memphians want. This is a city-only referendum. The turnout and the margin and the result will tell us something.
What can’t be changed:
School choice. The choices are much broader than city schools or county schools. There are tens of thousands of kids in private schools in Shelby County and tens of thousands more in public schools in DeSoto County, Mississippi, minutes away. MCS has an open enrollment policy. And now MCS also has a couple dozen charter schools. The strongest force in the universe is a parent determined to get their kid into a good school. Boundaries are nothing.
Resegregation. There are not enough white kids in the combined city and county system — about 32,000 out of 150,000 — to have racially balanced schools. Racially unbalanced schools are a fact of life here. With a merger we might have unity in the sense of one public system instead of two, but probably not for long once municipalities set up their own systems, which I think they would do.
In-fighting on the school board. A bigger board would have fresh faces but democracy guarantees diversity and disagreement.
The suburban dominance of the state legislature. They have the numbers.
A long and difficult transition. A merger of two public school systems is not at all like a corporate merger. There are no lines of authority. No super CEO. No handpicked board. Nobody with a mandate to close schools and cut jobs.
The achievement gap between the very best schools and the worst schools. There will be and there should be a few college-prep public high schools like White Station, Houston, Collierville, and Central. That’s smart policy for any school system, and it recognizes the clustering effect. It is simply not realistic to expect disadvantaged city schools to close the gap with White Station or Houston.
In summary, I think voters will be asking themselves what a merger can and cannot do, and whether some desirable results are more likely to be achieved with or without a merger. The outcome will influence what suburban residents and the courts do.
