Tag: Unified School Board

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Opinion

Mayors Wharton and Landrieu and the 66 Percent Doctrine

Mitch Landrieu

  • Mitch Landrieu

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu came to Memphis and The Peabody Thursday and had the audience in the palm of his hand. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton came to the Memphis City Council Thursday and had them at his throat.

Landrieu was guest of honor at an event called “A Summons to Memphis” sponsored by our sister publication Memphis magazine. He said lots of nice things about Memphis and suggested that mayors and cities try to do things that two-thirds or 66 percent of “the people” will support, writing off the other 33 percent as hardcore opposed.
He contrasted the idea of trying to achieve a majority of “50 percent plus one” (“which doesn’t work because somebody can flip that one”) with “governing on the 66 percent model,” in that “Something that works for almost everybody is always better than something that works for half the people, plus one.”

Coincidentally, Landrieu, who comes from a political family, was elected in 2010 with 67 percent of the vote.

Wharton was guest of honor at an event that could have been called “A Summons to The Reckoning” with a mostly cranky Budget Committee of the City Council. Coincidentally, Wharton was elected in 2011 with 65 percent of the vote. Close enough to make him, like Landrieu, a certified 66-percenter.

But if you want to be hailed as a great guy mayor with a bright future, it is not a bad idea to travel to another city where you can smile, compliment, tell jokes, and speak in platitudes. I have no doubt A C Wharton would get a standing ovation as luncheon speaker next week anywhere in New Orleans.

The 66-percent doctrine is brilliant in its simplicity. And if it is not taken too literally, it makes some sense, particularly when a city is on its heels from a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina or reveling in euphoria over the success of its favorite professional sports team as New Orleans was with the Saints in 2010.

But it breaks down when you apply it to specific ideas and things and have to put a price on them, as Wharton did Thursday when he floated a 50-percent property tax increase and 3,250 city employee layoffs as the extremes of the spend-cut continuum.

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Opinion

A Tie Vote on Teacher Pay Change at School Board

Dorsey Hopson

  • Dorsey Hopson

The Unified School Board voted 10-10 Tuesday on a proposal to change the way teachers are paid. But the measure, which needed 12 votes to pass, can come up again because of some strategic moves by proponents of the change.

Three members of the 23-member board were absent. Board member Kevin Woods voted “no” but is actually in favor of the change. By voting no he reserved the right to bring up the measure again — a practice that is fairly standard on the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission. Barbara Prescott, chairman of the Transition Planning Commission which proposed the change, said she believes there is one more “yes” vote among the three absentees, which, with Woods, would make a majority.

The proposal puts more emphasis on student test scores and less emphasis on experience and advanced degrees. But interim superintendent Dorsey Hopson emphasized that it would not cut the pay of any current teacher or any teacher currently working on an advanced degree.

In the face of dozens of Memphis Education Association members holding signs urging board members to vote no, Hopson defended the proposed change, in the first test of his leadership as superintendent.

He gave a good account of himself, as did several board members in the debate that avoided emotional outbursts. The complex issue, with conflicting studies and research, lends itself to “on the one hand, on the other hand” speeches, and there were several of them.

The division on the board defied the usual stereotypes. Both suburban and Memphis representatives were to be found on both sides. So were board members with advanced degrees. Proponents included David Reaves, Tomeka Hart, Jeff Warren, Betty Mallott, and Billy Orgel. Opponents included Joe Clayton, Snowden Carruthers, David Pickler, Sara Lewis, Patrice Robinson, Stephanie Gatewood, and Kenneth Whalum Jr.

No speaker carried the day, but Hopson had the most memorable line. He repeatedly used the fictional example of a degree in “basket weaving” qualifying a teacher for more money. In the example he used, a teacher with a bachelor’s degree and excellent student test results and mentoring experience would make $43,994. Another teacher with a master’s degree and 45 more hours of graduate school with mediocre test results and no outside mentoring or added responsibility could make $66,258.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Obstructing From Within

The conversations between county commissioners and school board commissioners at the Shelby County Commission’s budget retreat a couple weeks ago, Judge Hardy Mays’ comments about his frustration over school board decision-making processes, and my recent conversations with a suburban mayor and a school board commissioner have confirmed in my mind that it will be difficult for the school board to open the 2013-14 school year with the best chance for success. The need for a special master is quite apparent.

(Editor’s note: This week federal judge Hardy Mays appointed former City of Memphis CAO Rick Masson special master for city/county school merger.)

Mike Ritz

The Unified School Board (USB) has 23 members until August 31st. Six of those members (Snowden Carruthers, Mike Wissman, Joe Clayton, Ernest Chism, David Reaves, and David Pickler) appear to be supporting the suburban mayors who criticize the USB and its goals. It plays well for the suburban mayors’ municipal, special, and charter school legislation in Nashville for the USB to publicly struggle. Wissman, as the elected head of Arlington, is, in fact, one of those mayors.

Three USB members (Jeff Warren, Freda Williams, and Kenneth Whalum) did not support the December 2010 vote to give up the Memphis City Schools charter. Sara Lewis, who joined the board after that vote, was also known to be opposed. Those four seem to support postponing the merger, in the hopes that municipal and/or charter schools will appear in some or all of the suburbs and the unified system will just be a slightly larger MCS system, allowing them to continue as if MCS still exists.

The two leaders of MCS who voted to give up the charter (Martavius Jones and Tomeka Hart) recently led the efforts on the board to postpone the merger for a year. Their rationale may be similar to the other four MCS resisters, and they may be having some seller’s remorse over leading an effort opposed by so much suburban political clout in Nashville.

These 12 board members represent a majority of the current 23-member board. They don’t vote on every matter together. However, their actions or inactions allowed MCS superintendent Kriner Cash, who publicly opposed the Transition Planning Commission (TPC) recommendations, to stay in place long after the board voted not to make him the permanent superintendent. Many of these 12 members, if not all, recently voted for a budget with a $145 million shortfall. These actions and many more similar actions or inactions add fuel to the fire of suburban mayors and other critics of a unified system.

As chairman of the county commission, I have been working with Superintendent John Aitken, interim superintendent Dorsey Hopson, and school board chairman Billy Orgel to share with them the county’s fiscal situation and try to position their budget needs for their best chance of receiving county funding over and above the $362 million a year we have to continue.

With their budget chairman, Chris Caldwell, working with them, they proposed a budget close to the recommended $60 million shortfall recommended by the TPC. Recent calculations indicate that there may be votes on the county commission for no more than about $5 million in new funding for the school budget that begins July 1st. Any more than that figure would require raising the tax rate by more than 10 percent and would need a nine-vote super majority — impossible on this divided commission.

The actions of the Unified School Board over the next 90 days will decide the success of its first year, whether it has support of the community, and whether that community support can help secure more than $5 million in new funds for the school system in 2014. I hope a combination of media attention, public pressure, and the fact of a special master can prompt the board to make some critical decisions.

The suburban mayors’ response to this financial dilemma confuses many county commissioners. No matter whether the unified school system stays in place for many years or municipal school systems or charter school systems appear in every suburb, the mayors should support the county commission in providing more school funding.

The mayors surely know they will need much more fiscal support for their local schools than a half-cent sales tax can provide. And funding from the county commission on a per-student basis would relieve them of making property tax increases. Most of the current complaints of school board budget decisions are coming from suburban parents who seem to get the fiscal picture, even if their mayors do not.

Does the suburban mayors’ disgust with the unified school system trump their fiscal concerns? I believe their support of the unified system this year could greatly change the voting dynamics on the school board and the potential for commission vote for a greater than 10-percent property tax increase.

Mike Ritz is chairman of the Shelby County Commission.

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Opinion

Rick Masson Named Special Master

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Rick Masson, former chief administrative officer for the city of Memphis under Mayor Willie Herenton, has been named special master by federal judge Samuel H. Mays to oversee the merger of the Memphis and Shelby County school systems.

For three terms, Masson was Herenton’s “go-to guy” for major projects as well as the main contact with the Memphis City Council.

“Rick is an extremely capable executive who has had high level managerial experience in city government and on the board of MLGW,” said Herenton. “I have utmost confidence in Rick’s ability to lead this board through this merger.”

Herenton said Masson played a key role in the “complicated outsourcing of our I.T. (information technology) department)” and the establishment of annexation reserve areas with Shelby County municipalities in the 1990s when Jim Rout was county mayor.

“He’s been in complicated situations that will help him complete this merger,” said Herenton, who is hoping to start several charter schools under the new unified school system.

Like Mays, a White Station High School graduate in 1966, Masson has some connections to the MCS optional schools program. His son attended White Station when the Massons lived in the Evergreen neighborhood in Midtown.

Former City Councilman John Vergos, also a 1966 WSHS graduate, was delighted with the selection of Masson.

“He’s the kind of guy who would come into the office and put his feet up on the desk and talk about whatever was troubling you,” he said. “I was on the first council that majority African-American, and Rick had a reputation for being able to work with the administration and council.”

Vergos believes Masson has “a healthy skepticism about school budgeting and I think that is good in this situation.”

Masson’s selection was something of a surprise. Only last week he was announced as the newest “heavy hitter” addition to a local public relations and consulting firm, Caissa.

Mays listed eight duties of the special master.

1) To monitor the work of the Shelby County Board of Education as it makes the decisions necessary to transfer the administration of the Memphis City Schools to the Shelby County Board of Education;

2) To assist the Shelby County Board of Education and its staff in making decisions and in establishing and maintaining deadlines for decisions;

3) To ensure that the issues identified in the Transition Plan approved by the Transition Planning Commission and reviewed by the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education are considered and resolved in a timely and appropriate way;

4) To work with the parties and the Tennessee Department of Education as necessary to provide that the rights of teachers are not impaired, interrupted, or diminished;

5) To work with the Shelby County Board of Education in establishing a practical budget for the combined school systems and with the appropriate parties to the Consent Decree that the budget is adequately funded;

6) To gather such information as may be necessary to implement the Consent Decree and to report to the Court orally or in writing, as may be necessary, considering always that time is of the essence;

7) To promote cooperation among the parties and among the members of the Shelby County Board of Education and to encourage voluntary compliance with the Consent Decree; and

8) To recommend specific action by the Court if decisions are not made or not timely made.

From the order: “The special master may communicate ex parte with the Court, with counsel, with representatives of any party, or with such other individuals as necessary to perform his duties. The Court appoints Rick Masson of Shelby County, Tennessee, as special master. Mr. Masson has experience in municipal administration and finance, the organization and management of nonprofit organizations, and strategic planning for public agencies. He will serve at the pleasure of the Court and be compensated at the rate of $250 an hour, plus expenses, payable monthly. His compensation will be paid one-half by the Memphis City Schools and one-half by the Shelby County Schools, as provided in the Consent Decree. He will assume his duties on the entry of this order. The special master is directed to take all appropriate measures to perform his assigned duties fairly and efficiently.”

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Opinion

Twenty Questions: What’s a Special Master?

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A lot of Tuesday night’s three-hour school board meeting (a “cup of coffee” in school board time) was like a game of Twenty Questions, with school board attorney Valerie Speakman doing the “I’m thinking of a person” part and channeling federal judge Hardy Mays.

Had this been a party or a courtroom, Mays, of course, would have been there himself to answer the questions. But a school board meeting is neither of those, so Speakman did her best to recount details of a meeting Monday between Mays and attorneys in the schools case.

Is this person important? Oh, yes, special you might say. Is it a special master? Yes. Man? Not necessarily. Lawyer? Not necessarily. Do we know this person? Maybe. Would the master be our master? Possibly. Do we have to hire this master? Not necessarily. Would the master make the merger happen faster? You’re getting warm. Including the superintendent selection? Warmer.

So it went for an hour or so, board members probing and Speakman trying to be both candid and careful. Attorneys thought the meeting was going to be routine until Mays brought up the prospect of a special master, a land mine he had buried in the wording of the consent decree in 2011. After weighing Speakman’s answers and interim Memphis City Schools superintendent/attorney Dorsey Hopson’s too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen warning, the board decided not to request appointment of a special master, which is no guarantee that it won’t happen anyway.

Speakman said Mays is not pleased with the progress of the merger and “made it clear that he would not entertain any delay.” He is especially unhappy with the superintendent selection process. The board’s timetable has that happening in May. The Transition Planning Commission recommended that it be done last year.

“He specifically said May is way too late in the game,” Speakman said, adding that Mays “likes” Shelby County Schools Superintendent John Aitken. Whether the judge likes him in the Facebook sense or likes him for the job is not clear. “Why is the judge trippin’ about another superintendent?” asked board member Dr. Kenneth Whalum Jr.

Speakman estimated the merger is about 20 percent done, but the unified board is on the verge of making “monumental decisions” regarding jobs in the next 30-45 days. When attorneys asked Mays if it was prudent to merge the school systems when the suburbs might find a way out, Mays said that issue is not going to be resolved in 30 days, 90 days, or even longer and the board should “put the concerns about municipal school districts out of their minds” and carry on. Adding words to the effect that when you entered into the consent decree in 2011 you should have considered the consequences.

Mays told the attorneys that politics should have no role in the merger. But the context of that statement is not known. Mays, former chief of staff to ex-governor Don Sundquist, was once a political creature himself and knows that one person’s policies is another person’s politics. The 23-member school board represents a spectrum of views and loyalties. Jobs, schools, hundreds of millions of dollars, and neighborhoods are at stake. To expect politics to play no part in this is not realistic.

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Opinion

School Board Members Jones and Pickler Trade Accusations

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Martavius Jones and David Pickler have been school board adversaries since the start of the debate over a unified school system, but now the disagreement is personal.

Both men are financial advisers. In December, Jones surprised members of the Unified School Board with a formal resolution (nine “whereas” paragraphs plus one “therefore be it resolved”) requesting Pickler’s immediate resignation “for failure to publicly disclose the apparent conflict of interest and direct or indirect benefit and/or personal gain” from his public office.

This week Pickler formally replied with a point-by-point rebuttal from an attorney he hired, Stephen Shields, plus a personal letter and a warning that “I am reserving all legal options to remedy the harm” to his reputation. The letter from Shields says “causes of action such as false light and defamation do exist, of course, but an assessment of the viability of such causes is beyond the scope of this analysis.”

Pickler and Jones are holdovers from the old county and city school boards, and often appear in media stories and public forums. The charge and counter-charge have landed in the lap of the unified board’s three-member Ethics Committee which, like all things board related, is newly created and finding its bearings. The upshot: one more thing to divide and distract the board as it tries to create a unified school system by August.

The crux of the complicated complaint is that Pickler and/or his firm, Pickler Wealth Advisers, benefited from commissions for a $12 million school board investment in the Tennessee School Board Association Trust at American Funds, a mutual fund company. Pickler is former secretary/treasurer of the TSBA board of directors and an investment advisor to the trust since 2009.

“It is the opinion of legal counsel that allegations made by Mr. Jones are simply inaccurate,” Pickler says in a letter to board member and committee chair Teresa Jones. “If I had any conflict of interest at all, it was at best indirect in nature and that in any event my outside interests were the subject of disclosures that fully met the requirements of state law and board policy.”

He asks the board to request that Jones withdraw his “ill-conceived” resolution and apologize for the distractions and discomfort to Pickler and his business partner.

Jones zeroed in on a June 26, 2012 vote of the school board on the general fund budget for Memphis City Schools. In his self-described “independent legal analysis,” Shields says the contribution to the trust fund was from the 2011-2012 budget, not the budget that was voted on in June, and therefore Pickler did not vote on it and no disclosure was required.

Pickler made disclosures to the Shelby County Board in 2009 when there was a trust item on the agenda. And he disclosed his role as a broker during a unified board committee meeting in November, 2012 and again as part of a board audit in September.

Jones said he would not have learned of the alleged disclosure problem but for a letter from the TSBA finance director in July on which he was mistakenly copied.

The only certain outcome of this is an end to the veneer of collegiality and mutual respect that marked the first two years of the Pickler-Jones relationship. The charge is a serious one, and the gloves are off now.

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Opinion

Odd Couples on Unified School Board Get Along

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Ernest Chism (left) and Kenneth Whalum Jr.

A couple of years ago it might have seemed like the Dinner Party from Hell. Gather the members of the Memphis and Shelby County school boards, throw in some fresh faces, bust up the alliances, and put them in a room together for hours at a time for a year or so.

At the center of table sit superintendents Kriner Cash and John Aitken, total strangers four years ago. Nearby, county schools champion David Pickler sits next to MCS charter surrender leader Martavius Jones. As much as anyone, these two set the tone for frank but civil discussions in a series of debates and joint public appearances in 2010-2011.

The unified school system may or may not work, but the unified school board — by design and circumstance — has the most interesting seating chart in town. It may not lead to a world-class unified school system, but it has probably done as much consciousness raising as any public undertaking in recent history.

Other seatmates include Memphis firebrand Dr. Kenneth Whalum Jr. and Germantown schools lion Ernest Chism; Dr. Snowden Carruthers of the old county board and Tomeka Hart, coauthor of the MCS charter surrender; and David Reaves, another suburbanite and one of the board’s youngest members, and, a few seats away, Sara Lewis of Smokey City in North Memphis, one of the board’s senior members. At various times during Thursday night’s board meeting, they could be seen talking amiably and smiling and laughing together.

Not to attach too much significance to this or understate differences, but things could be worse. School board is the lowest-paying part-time public job, and probably the most demanding. Five-hour meetings are the norm. Members must have stamina as well as convictions. When the topic is closing schools, as it was Thursday, this is not a job for the faint of heart.

It is also old-school: the polar opposite of the Internet chat room or newspaper comment section. Anonymous online commenters of unknown expertise can post insults and opinions without ever having to face each other or the people they slam. Board members speak, opine, disagree, and vote in public, side by side, for all to see and hear, on issues that change people’s lives.

Humes Middle School

Humes Middle School and Gordon Elementary School, two schools near north downtown that are on the chopping block or “repositioning” menu, are tough calls because they have customers, neighborhood ties, and attractive buildings that are not at all blighted.

Near the end of Thursday night’s meeting on school closings in north and south Memphis, a somewhat exasperated Chism, former principal at Germantown High School, protested that he was elected to represent the people of Shelby County.

The spectators gave him a small ovation. Chism voted against the closings, as did Whalum on most of the votes.

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Opinion

Why Suburbs Will Eventually Win on Schools

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Where there’s a will there’s a way, and there are more ways than ever when it comes to school choice in public education.

First, there is plenty of will, as evidenced by the smashingly successful suburban referendums earlier this year. The strongest force in the universe is a parent determined to get his or her child into a good public school. The current Shelby County school system is essentially what the Memphis optional schools were a few decades ago: the public school option of choice for middle-class families and some affluent families.

The courtroom setback was a gimme for the Shelby County Commission and federal judge Samuel H. Mays. The ‘burbs were sunk in the opening minutes of the trial in September when commission attorney Leo Bearman played the videotape of that legislative exchange about “Shelby County only.” Attorneys for the defendants promptly objected, but the damage was done. The suburban champions were caught on tape and on Rep. G. A. Hardaway’s clever hook. This was bad law, pure and simple. Mays let the defense team run on for a while about the rural county cover story, but the tape was devastating. Plain words mean what they say. His citation was the dictionary.

The pending segregation claim won’t be so easy. Common sense and mathematics could doom it. There aren’t enough white students in the public schools to integrate all of them. Ninety percent of Memphis public school students attend de-facto segregated schools. That won’t change with unification. Most county schools have diverse student bodies. The exception is Southwind High School, with 12 white students in a student body of 1,653, and its feeder schools. That has the ingredients for an interesting segregation claim, but the federal appeals court has already overruled a Memphis federal court ruling that would have racially balanced the county schools.

The merger of Memphis and Shelby County schools is by all accounts unique in size and scale. It goes against the grain. The trend is smaller, fragmented school systems. I was surprised at just how small some big-city school systems are relative to Memphis. Nashville/Davidson County has 74,680 students. Atlanta has 59,000. Detroit has 51,674. New Orleans had 65,000 pre-Katrina and is a melting pot of charter schools and traditional schools today. St. Louis, taken over by the state five years ago and the subject of a glowing report in The Wall Street Journal this week, has just over 24,000 students.

Nashville, with the blessing of Mayor Karl Dean and Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, is pushing for charter school expansion to the middle class over the opposition of the local school board. The state-run Achievement School District for failing schools is slated to grow in Memphis. The Republican-dominated state legislature is sympathetic to charters as are private donors such as the Gates Foundation. Vouchers have support. Most important, alternative schools have support from teachers and parents who are the ultimate deciders.

Finally, the dysfunctional unified school board with its core of MCS charter surrender proponents is its own worst enemy. The board, which meets Thursday, is likely to close only a handful of schools instead of the 21 closings recommended by the Transition Planning Commission. (There are 45 Memphis schools and 10 Shelby County schools with under 65 percent utilization, according to the TPC.) This will throw the budget out of whack, condemn the half-empty schools to failure or mediocrity, reduced course offerings, and limited extracurricular activities.

My sympathies and my treasure are with Memphis, but my gut tells me suburbs will get their own autonomous school systems within a few years and that this week’s federal court ruling was a temporary setback. It is as inevitable as conference realignment in college sports.

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Opinion

Words of the Week from Fred Smith, Freda Williams, Kriner Cash

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A summary of notable comments from Memphians at various events last week:

“Research Says Closing a School Won’t Fix It.” Sign carried by spectator at school board meeting Tuesday night. The Transition Planning Commission recommends closing 21 schools in Memphis next year.

“It’s a big factor in determining where to send our children to school.” Peter Winterburn, Memphis parent of an MCS student, speaking to the Unified School Board about the CLUE program designed to meet the needs of academically talented and gifted students in MCS.

“I read ‘Beowulf’ in third grade.” White Station Middle School student, speaking to the school board in support of the CLUE program.

“We are being used as a guinea pig for other people’s agenda.” School board member Dr. Jeff Warren.

“If there are expectations, this board needs to know what they are.” School board member Martavius Jones on $4 million in private funding for the merger and whether there are strings attached.

“It is within the purview of this board to decide and apply the 172 recommendations.” School board member Freda Williams, suggesting substitute language for a resolution that said the merger recommendations are “within the purview of district administration.”

“We are going to have to get down and dirty with this and that dirt is coming real soon.”
MCS Superintendent Kriner Cash at board meeting Tuesday.

“It’s the largest transfer of wealth in the history of humankind.” FedEx CEO Fred Smith on the OPEC nations in a speech at Rhodes College Thursday night.

“There are 40,000 products of small business in a FedEx 777.” Fred Smith on the importance of corporate “gazelles” to supply the investment capital that supports small business.

“The United States is a disaster in K-12 but in higher ed we are the India of the world.” Fred Smith at Rhodes.

“There are going to be some hard choices.” Smith, a liberal arts graduate of Yale, to the audience at Rhodes, a liberal arts college, on the need for government to put more grants and incentives in science and technology higher education versus liberal arts.

“Five “Straight-A” schools on Achievement: Campus School, Grahamwood Elementary, John P. Freeman Optional School, Richland Elementary, and White Station Middle. Each of these schools is a repeat recipient of straight A’s in Math, Reading/Language, Social Studies, and Science.” Press release on the Tennessee Department of Education 2012 Report Card.

“Fourteen schools ( as compared to four in 2011) received A’s in Math and Reading/Language Value-Added results, signaling continued outstanding growth in student performance: Alton Elementary, Florida-Kansas Elementary, Freedom Prep Academy, Germanshire Elementary, KIPP Academy, Oakhaven Elementary, Peabody Elementary, Power Center Academy, Promise Academy, Raineshaven Elementary, Shannon Elementary, Sharpe Elementary, Sherwood Elementary, and Vollentine Elementary.” Tennessee Department of Education Report Card, highlights from Memphis City Schools.

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Opinion

School Board Endorses Sales Tax Hike, National Search for Superintendent

Kriner Cash

  • Kriner Cash

The Unified Shelby County School Board has trouble voting on matters within its control, but did agree on Tuesday to tell citizens to vote for the referendum calling for a half-cent increase in the sales tax.

The vote was 14 to 6, with one abstention. It came near the end of a five-hour meeting during which the board also voted 15-6 to conduct a national search for a superintendent.

The majority of board members felt that the sales tax increase, while regressive, would raise $62 million, of which $31 million would go to schools.

“This benefits all children regardless of where they live,” said Martavius Jones.

The superintendent search vote came after an amendment changing the search from national to local (effectively handing the job to John Aitken, superintendent of the current Shelby County school system) failed.

“I’m sitting here wondering how anyone in their right mind would want to come to work for us 23 board members,” said David Reaves. He noted that the board took 90 minutes to approve a resolution on merger strategy and timeline after questioning whether it gave the administration too much power.

The timeline calls for a key meeting on November 15th about Transition Planning Commission recommendations. Additional meetings will be held in November, and members predicted they will last several hours and possibly draw thousands of spectators.

“This is a whole lot of work,” said MCS Superintendent Kriner Cash. “There’s never been a merger like this in the history of anything.”

Cash also said, “We are going to have to get down and dirty with this, and that dirt is coming real soon.”

The basic problem is that the board is divided between urban and suburban interests, the suburban representatives don’t trust the Shelby County Commission, several board members don’t trust the administration, and several more members from both camps don’t trust the Transition Planning Commission and the outside interests working behind the scene through foundations, nonprofits, the state Department of Education, and the group Stand For Children.

In a sign of divisions and votes to come, the auditorium was filled with members of AFSCME, the Memphis Education Association, and supporters of the CLUE program in MCS for “gifted” children. They carried signs saying “Keep CLUE,” “No Lottery For Optional Schools,” and “Stop Rich Folks making $ from public education and creating low-wage workers.” Among the TPC recommendations is a lottery for some spaces in optional schools. Slots now go on a first-come, first-served basis. CLUE, heavily supported by parents from Grahamwood Elementary School and a few of their children who also spoke, is often under the gun at budget time. The “rich folks” reference was apparently to operators of charter schools.