A group called Stand for Children held a press conference last Friday to, well, pat itself on the back. Nothing wrong with that. Politics is not for the shy. Four candidates it backed for Unified School Board were elected, but three others lost and one of the winners was unopposed. Still, a decent batting average.
Jane Roberts of the Commercial Appeal, Les Smith of Fox 13, and I were the only ones who showed up at the office on McLemore across from Soulsville and Stax Academy. That’s a small showing compared to, say, a mayoral press conference. I think it shows some uncertainty about exactly where Stand for Children stands, who they are, and how much clout the group has. We wound up having more of an informal conversation with Tennessee director Kenya Bradshaw and three of the candidates than a press conference.
The uncertainty was reflected in our choice of adjectives. I like “upstart” group. Les went with “education advocacy organization” and The CA has gone with “education reform group.” One thing we agreed on is that Stand For Children is unusually well funded and spent more than $150,000 on the school board races, which is a huge amount. It doled out some $90,000 to campaign workers who were paid $10 an hour.