Tag: Transition Planning Commission

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Opinion

Schools Case in Federal Court: Day Two

Daniel Kiel

  • Daniel Kiel

Mega-data gave way to mini-drama for a little while in the second day of the municipal schools case in federal court Wednesday.

The first day was dominated by dueling demographers and some thrilling testimony about the cohort component method of forecasting. The apparent relevance: small Tennessee towns and school districts could theoretically if not actually become bigger towns with municipal school systems, thereby showing that the state enabling legislation was constitutional.

On Day Two, the plaintiffs (Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission) called law school professor and Transition Planning Commission member Daniel Kiel to the stand. He reviewed the work of the TPC from October 2011 until August 2012 in the context of two things that happened in Nashville during that time: the General Assembly’s passage of legislation allowing municipal school districts before unification of the Memphis and Shelby County school systems at the start of the 2013-2014 school year and the state attorney general’s opinion that muni’s couldn’t jump the gun.

The TPC plan mentions the possibility of municipal school systems in Shelby County but doesn’t specifically account for them in its calculations.

“It was too hypothetical to incorporate into the plan,” Kiel said. But when Tom Cates, attorney for the suburbs, asked if “it was always there and always considered something that might happen, is that correct?”, Kiel agreed with him and later said “It is accurate that the TPC anticipated the possibility of municipal school systems, yes.”

Kiel said the TPC was charged with planning for unification in 2013 and that he personally put in 8-14 hours a week of donated time. Cates said the suburbs were likewise planning for their future by holding referenda in August and school board elections in November.

“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, right?” he said.

Colorful, and certainly more interesting than the cohort component method and the bona fides of expert witnesses, but the relevance of this examination to the constitutionality of the law in question was not clear. One thing it seemed likely to do was make citizens less comfortable in court than Kiel think twice about serving on school panels that might get them called as witnesses in federal court hearings and subjected to questions from lawyers.

At the lunch break, attorneys for the suburbs were entering into evidence stacks of facts about small towns in Tennessee such as Milan, apparently in preparation for showing how the law of muni’s could apply to them as well as Shelby County.

Spectators again included lawmakers Mark Norris and G.A. Hardaway, among others. Hardaway told me he plans to work on fostering better communications in Nashville next session so decisions are not subject to instant judicial review. Norris said he was willing to testify in the hearing but wasn’t asked to.

It’s a great case for lawyers. I conservatively calculate the daily expenditure for ten attorneys at $2500 an hour, the daily fee for expert witnesses at $4000, and the ballpark total at $25,000 a day. Maybe we should go back to the days of settling disputes by expense account dinners and meetings in smoke-filled rooms.

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Opinion

Unified School Board Leaves Superintendent Question Hanging

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The unified 23-member Shelby County Board of Education met for five hours and 15 minutes Tuesday but accomplished little if anything.

The board accepted — which is not the same as approved — the sweeping and potentially monumental 200-page report of the Transition Planning Commission for the 2013 merger of the Memphis and Shelby County school systems, the biggest school system merger in American history.

Following that, for the second week in a row, the board engaged in tedious, fruitless discussions of procedural details that gave strong evidence that this body is incapable of implementing any of the controversial recommendations in the TPC plan, including, most of all, the selection of a superintendent by this fall.

Hour after hour, motion after motion, a handful of members led by Martavius Jones and Jeff Warren engaged in a baffling series of discussions. They were aimed not at selecting a superintendent, only at the nature of the selection process. Near the end of the meeting, members agreed to appoint a committee to work out details of the process. Meanwhile, superintendents John Aitken and Kriner Cash sat side-by-side watching the show, occasionally making what appeared to be friendly comments to each other. Cash also introduced several new principals for Memphis City Schools next year. Otherwise, they were spectators.

The do-nothing option appears to favor Aitken, who has a contract until 2015, over Cash, whose contract ends next year. But guesses are just that — guesses — where this board is concerned. If Aitken does get the job, it could just as likely be through board inaction as action.

At least half a dozen times during the session, members voted on procedural matters that served only to get them back to where they had been several minutes earlier. By the end of the evening, the board had essentially undone the work it had done in a similar marathon meeting last week that seemed to force the question. At one point, there was a long discussion, led by Jones, on whether the “ad hoc” committee to start the selection process (not MAKE the selection) should have 5 members or 23 members, which Jones favored. It only took five MCS members to surrender the MCS charter in 2010, but that point did not come up.

As it now stands, the board will do some sort of superintendent search ending some time later this year, but only if the committee can agree on the conditions of the search itself. Warren, author of one of the evening’s motions to have such a search, lamented at one point that it could be January before a selection is made. Board member Betty Mallott, who had offered a resolution to begin the transfer of administration of the schools to Shelby County for the sake of expedience, withdrew her motion after the five-hour mark.

The show could run a while longer. The 23-member board will serve until August of 2013, when it will be replaced by a seven-member board elected this year but installed next year.

Bottom line: two superintendents, neither one out of the running, and still the possibility that neither one will get the job. As for the TPC plan, the recommendations for school closings and personnel cuts and privatization and overcoming a starting deficit of $57 million (assuming costs can be cut, which appears unlikely) appear to be lacking anything resembling consensus on a board that looks impossibly divided and at sea on matters both small and large.

UPDATED: Wednesday morning.
With a nod of gratitude to my former colleague Jimmie Covington, an elaboration on the move to the seven-member school board in 2013: The seven members who are elected Aug. 2 will take office after the election results are certified. A complicating factor is that four members of the old city and county boards are among the candidates, including David Pickler and Kenneth Whalum. If any of these old board members are elected to the new positions, vacancies will be created on the old boards on the 23-member board. The County Commission will fill those by appointment. Then on Sept. 1, 2013, the old board members will go away leaving the seven-member board. However, County Commission members have announced plans to create a 13-member board. They would do this by appointing six additional members, who would run for the posts either in November 2013 or in 2014.

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Opinion

12 Hot Buttons in the Schools Merger Report

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The Transition Planning Commission released a first draft of its transition plan for the merger of the Memphis and Shelby County schools in 2013. Members were discussing the 198-page report Thursday and scheduled a press conference for Friday morning. Copies of the plan were distributed to the media Thursday morning at the start of what is likely to be an all-day meeting.

Here are a dozen likely hot buttons when the report gets to the public and unfied county school board, which must implement the merger one way or another.

1. “The likelihood of of municipal districts.” This language first appears on page 190. Arguably, it should be in the first paragraph of the executive summary. As the report says, “Enrollment projections will be particularly challenging given school closures, the growth of ASD (Achievement School District) and charter schools, and the potential for municipal school districts.” That and every other projection for a unfied system that could have some 150,000 students if the muni’s don’t start their own systems, or something closer to 100,000 students if they do.

2. “In 2011, 10 percent of students met the ACT’s college readiness benchmark, and 25% scored 21 or better.” The ultimate goal of the plan for a merged system is that every student graduates ready for success in college and career. Ambitious, to put it mildly.

3. “A district wide school transfer policy on a space available basis. The district will continue to support the Optional Programs that exist in the current MCS, as well as unique offerings such as the International Baccalaureate programs in the both school districts.” Holding high-achieving students has been an issue since busing in the 1970s. The optional program accounts for about six percent of MCS enrollment. The schools-within-schools model contrasts with the entrance-by-test-score model for the top public schools in Nashville and other cities.

4. “The TPC recommends that teacher compensation be redesigned to better attract and retain effective teachers.” In other words, no automatic raises for seniority or picking up an advanced degree in summer school.

5. “The analysis indicated an opportunity to close 21 schools for a savings of about $21 million a year.” The schools are mainly in “Western Memphis” but they are not identified. That will be up to the unified school board. For perspective, there are 89 schools with under 80 percent utilization, and 70 of them are in Memphis.The plan recommends doing the deed before school starts in 2013. Never has MCS/SCS closed so many schools at once.

6. “Overall Shelby County public school enrollment is projected to decline 3 percent from FY 2012 to FY2016, resulting in approximately 147,400.” This estimate could be wildly optimistic depending on what happens on August 2nd.

7. “Independent of the merger, the district is projected to face a deficit of $73 million in FY 2014 . . . The merger increased the deficit by $72 million, with the TPC recommending an additional $15 million in investments, leaving the merged system with a starting gap of $160 million.” To close it, the plan recommends $93 million in “net efficiencies” by cuts, closings, outsourcing, and combining functions and “vigorously pursue” additional sources of funds, notably the city of Memphis repayment of $55 million withheld in 2009 and currently in legal dispute.

8. “In recent years, MCS has had large surpluses: 296 teachers in 2010-11 and 621 teachers in 2011-12.” Under the MEA agreement, MCS teachers are currently surplussed in seniority order without consideration of effectiveness. The plan recommends that the district “no longer guarantee jobs to surplussed teachers” and fire them if they are rated “significantly below expectations.” Improving the teacher talent pool is on of the main goals of the plan.

9. “Migrate to the Shelby County Schools model of outsourced custodial services.” Estimated savings: $22-$25 million.

10. Security officers. Currently, MCS spends $13.5 million per year and SCS spends $1 million. The plan recommends continuing to use district-funded security officers and local law enforcement, but raises the prospect of somehow replacing or eliminating 211 crossing guards, which, of course, is one of the primary contact points for public school parents.

11. Both districts have a surplus in their school nutrition departments. In MCS, it has ranged from 6 to 9 percent over the last three years. In other words, the free lunch program, which includes 85 percent of MCS students and 38 percent of SCS students, is a profit center.

12. “The transition office will first need a superintendent named for the 2013-14 school year to manage and lead the merger effort.” At one point in the report, it is suggested that this take place by October 1, 2012, but in another part of the report the superintendent selection is recommended before the fall of 2013. Whatever — “The most important milestone in the implementation of the merger is the first activity listed, the naming of the 2013-14 superintendent.” As of mid-Thursday afternoon, the TPC members were having a vigorous debate about this. More to come in later Flyer reports and blogs.

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Opinion

Schools Panel Should Leave Everything on the Field

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Transition Planning Commission to unified Shelby County School Board: Close 21 (unnamed) schools before school starts in 2013 and save about $20 million.

Predicted response of school board: That’s easy for you to say.

The planning commission knows this, because several of them are current or former Memphis City Schools board members, students, or staff. They can only plan; it is the school board that is empowered to make decisions, as the federal court ruled last year. So don’t expect there to be 21 school closings before school starts in 2013.

Near the end of Friday’s meeting, chairwoman Barbara Prescott, a former MCS board member, asked for a non-binding show of hands to signify general agreement or disagreement with the school closing recommendation. TPC members tentatively raised their arms like students hoping they would not be called upon in class.

The lack of enthusiasm was understandable.

“This will be a very difficult implementation process,” said Prescott.

Closing schools, especially high schools, has “a tremendous negative effect” on the community, said Reginald Green.

The open secret is that underutilized schools (58 percent of capacity in the targeted areas of northwest and southwest Memphis) are a fact of life. In 2005, the Memphis school board closed four schools, and this year three more schools will be closed, but closing 21 at a time, including four high schools, would be unprecedented.

Right-sizing is a moment of truth. Former Memphis superintendent Johnnie B. Watson has said that closing schools was the hardest thing he had to do in his career. The bad news is usually buffered with hopeful comments about alternative uses such as charter schools or community centers that might or might not pan out. But Pete Gorman, the former superintendent of the award-winning Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system in North Carolina, admitted that “you can’t close schools well” when he spoke to the TPC last year.

The TPC should ask its Boston consultants what alternatives are feasible and what impact they would have on the projected savings if the lights have to be turned on anyway and the buildings have to be ADA compliant. If school closings come to a vote, the school board will need all the evidence and support it can get.

There has never been a schools transition planning commission before, and there will probably never be another one. This is not a team, because that implies a common goal, but it is a diverse, experienced group. Look at these names and backgrounds on the TPC website. The report the TPC puts together in the next six weeks will be one of a kind. It won’t be the last word. The school board rules. The state legislature and the Shelby County suburban mayors are moving full speed toward a vote on municipal schools this year, as Jackson Baker reported.

To borrow a favorite motivational line from coaches, the TPC must “leave everything on the field” if a unified system including the suburbs is to have a chance. Acknowledge the changes that have happened since the panel was created. Improvise. Everyone else is. If TPC members want to put some meat on the bones of a unified system, recommend that the board hire popular Shelby County Schools Superintendent John Aitken. And examine the claim that the municipalities should get their school buildings for free because they “have already paid for them.” And put a dollar figure on the cost of new schools, and identify who will have the responsibility of paying for them. If there are going to be referendums this year, give the voters some names and numbers to weigh against the projections of the suburban school consultants.

In one of the first TPC meetings six months ago, members talked about their hopes in a get-to-know-you session. Louis Padgett, the principal at Northhaven Elementary School, urged everyone to “really go at each other really hard” and “take on our biases.”

The schedule that Prescott outlined calls for some long meetings in May and June. It will be tempting to remain above the fray, bury some things under words and numbers, and just be done with it. The court-ordered and carefully chosen TPC, with all those consultants and staff its disposal, should go at it really hard and take on biases.

I know, easy for me to say.

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Opinion

School Planning Team Sends Norris and Nashville a Mixed Message

Barbara Prescott

  • Barbara Prescott

The elected officials and citizen volunteers on the Transition Planning Commission have been a model of decorum since they started work last year, but the underlying differences of opinion over a future unified school system came out front and center at Thursday’s meeting.

The spark, of course, was municipal school systems and their champion in the state legislature, Senator Mark Norris.

Some members of the TPC, including chairman Barbara Prescott and Jim Boyd, think Norris is undercutting their efforts to come up with a plan for a system , starting in August of 2013, that could serve 150,000 students — in other words, all the students currently in city or county public schools. Other members, notably Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald, say suburban municipalities should be allowed to vote this spring on starting their own systems, and if the vote is favorable, that will help the TPC plan for a smaller unified system. The timetable, as much as the outcome, is at issue.

Thursday’s meeting featured two votes that divided the commission. The first was whether to consider a motion by Boyd to address the issue. It passed. The second was on whether to send Norris and his friends in Nashville a message to stop acting as if he speaks on their behalf and to let the TPC do its work. It failed, but partly because Prescott, who voted no, feared that a favorable vote would be misconstrued as the TPC opposing municipal school districts under any circumstances, which is not her view.

(If that sounds confusing, then you have not been following the schools saga for the last two years. And we’re 15 months from August of 2013 . . .)

The muni-issue first came up in an executive session and then took up more than an hour of the general session until members voted and abruptly left. There were no insults and no shouting, but the rifts were plain to see. In previous meetings, members have been bending over backwards to find some common ground on non-muni items and behaving in the manner of ambassadors. But the hard work starts in May, when weekly meetings are expected to last two to four hours or longer, according to committee chairs. The goal is to have a plan by mid-June.

The soft-spoken Boyd, leader of the nonprofit Bridges for 16 years until stepping down last year, first drew attention to the elephant in the room at an otherwise ho-hum executive session. Coincidentally, neither suburban champion David Pickler (at a convention) or McDonald (last-minute arrival) were there when he did it, but McDonald figured out what was up in short order.

“The same people who wrote that (Norris-Todd bill) legislation have changed the rules of the game,” Boyd said. He said he took the job to create a unified system, and to not speak out against what he perceives as shenanigans in Nashville “is to forsake the responsibility that was originally given to us.”

The legislature intends to act this session, Boyd said, so “we either act now or it’s law.”

McDonald first objected to adding Boyd’s motion to the agenda of the general meeting, but Prescott allowed it. McDonald then said that Boyd’s motion would be an attempt to kill what was merely “clarification” of the Norris-Todd bill. Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell suggested deferring the item until a future meeting

“For us to go out on a limb and take a position against municipal districts is beyond our mandate,” Luttrell said.

Boyd tried to explain that was not his intent, but one way or another, Luttrell had made a point that seemed to influence Prescott and other members to back off, while expressing appreciation to Boyd. Prescott added that she had personally notified Norris that she resented him, in her view, presuming to speak or act on behalf of the TPC.

“We’re not blind to the fact that our plan might not serve 150,000 students,” she said, but she thinks it is best to prepare for that number in case the muni’s don’t come to pass for whatever reason.

Members, some of whom had been in TPC meetings for five hours Thursday, quit for the day shortly after 7 p.m. They have to be wondering if the herculean task ahead of them is worth it without fresh judicial intervention or a commitment from Luttrell and other moderates to hold the line on muni’s until August of 2013 as the original bill said. The muni’s and the uni’s sharply disagree about the significance of a go-slow opinion by the state attorney general earlier this month. McDonald called it “one lawyer’s opinion.” If the suburbs form their own systems and the “unified” system starts with, say, 100,000-120,000 students, their plans and calculations based on 150,000 students won’t be worth much if anything.

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Opinion

Surveys Suggest That Media Are Too Negative on Schools Merger

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Two broad-based surveys indicate that Memphians and, to a lesser extent, suburban residents of Shelby County, are more open to a unified school district than media reports, blogs, and public comments make it seem. The surveys were done by Yacoubian Research to assist the Transition Planning Commission.

There is a downloadable version of the community survey here and a downloadable version of the survey of teachers and administrators here.

The community survey was done by telephone and got 1,218 responses. The staff survey was done by email and got 2,213 replies. Both of them are detailed and, therefore, hard to summarize. But readers willing to look at them will find a somewhat more sympathetic view of unification than is typically presented in public forums and news media comment sections, which can be dominated by anonymous individuals with a strong point of view, usually anti-Memphis City Schools.

“The majority of citizens are not pessimistic about the merger,” says the introduction to the community survey. Having said that, 30-40 percent of respondents said they would either move away from a unified district after August, 2013, or are “not sure” if they would stay or move.

In the staff survey, MCS employees (1,224 of the total) and Shelby County Schools employees (984 of the total) differed starkly in their evaluations of the two systems. Only 31 percent of MCS employees rated their system good to excellent, and 7 percent rated it failed/poor. In the county school system, 95 percent rated SCS good to excellent and not a single respondent gave the system a failing grade.

MCS superintendent Kriner Cash was rated good to excellent by 17 percent of respondents, while SCS superintendent John Aitken got those marks from 43 percent of respondents.

In defense of professional commenters and reporters, we base our work on multiple interviews, personal experience and observation, readings, and attendance at schools meetings around the community over the last two years or longer. Reporting on public meetings presents a problem if one side or the other dominates the comment period. These Yacoubian surveys are a much bigger sample and worth a look. As a reader, the choice is yours.

Final observation: the term “failing schools,” as this piece in the American Journalism Review notes, is carelessly overused and, according to these surveys, inaccurate to the extent it suggests that all public schools in Memphis or other urban areas are failing.