Memphis Area Mayors: 'Train Has Left Station' On Local Schools

Memphis Area Mayors: ‘Train Has Left Station’ On Local Schools

Suburban Memphis mayors heard concerns from the Schools Planning Commission, but admitted that a chance to reform local schools is too good to pass up.

Suburban mayors from across the greater Memphis area listened to Transition Planning Commission (TPC) members concerns during a presentation by the mayors, whose municipal governments are laying the groundwork for referendums in the summer that would approve separate municipal school districts.

A delegation of suburban Shelby County mayors on Thursday night assured the commission planning the transition to unified Memphis and Shelby County schools that the “train has left the station” toward breakaway municipal school districts, writes Michael Kelly at the Commercial Appeal.

However, TPC member and corporate attorney Christine Richards, warned that the plan is on a treacherous legal path as officials take steps to establish school districts before the fall of 2013, when the unified school district is set to open its doors.

TPC chairwoman Barbara Prescott also highlighted the concern for children who live in unincorporated areas and have no assurance that they will have schools to attend in the future.

“But the momentum for municipal school districts is strong, the mayors said, and consultants hired to study the issue had made credible arguments that they are financially and legally feasible.”

Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell has asked the mayors to see a TPC plan before they move forward with the school district formation.

A plan by the TPC is currently in its early stages of development, but it is thought that it would lean toward a substantial degree of local autonomy for the suburbs.

Collierville Mayor Stan Joyner said that local control would guarantee greater transparency and enhance a sense of ownership in the schools.

“Smaller school districts are more efficient and reflect the common values and shared life experiences in the community,” he said.

“Government is at its best when it is closest to the people it serves.”

Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald said:

“I don’t know how as a politician you’d be able to stand in the way of that.”

Germantown Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy said they now have created an opportunity to “make public education an integral part of our individual communities.”

While the chance to exercise the nimble and flexible qualities of suburban municipalities in the educational arena cannot be passed up, she said:

“All of us have tremendous respect for the challenges of the TPC.”

Comments

Linda Brees

February 24, 2012 at 4:06 am

“Smaller school districts are more efficient and reflect the common values and shared life experiences in the community,” he said.

I would bet anything that Collierville is a white, upper-middle class or richer little town and the only common values they want to preserve is the “not giving our money to the poor” value.

Reply
- Joe
  
  February 24, 2012 at 4:09 am
  
  When lacking a real argument, play the race card? At least they are promising “autonomy” whatever that means. Although if autonomy is so great, why not just leave things as they are?
  
  Reply
- JL
  
  February 29, 2012 at 11:48 am
  
  It’s not so much about taking money from the rich and giving to the poor, though I would be lying if race were not a part of it. Racism is still a huge problem in Memphis. However, race cannot be dismissed as an illogical reason to consider in this issue. It exists and it needs to be dealt with. Black, white, and Hispanic do not get along in Memphis. It’s downright dangerous in many Memphis city schools where the different gangs are thrust together. It is a problem that needs addressing, for sure, but first it needs to be acknowledged.
  However, another reality that needs to be acknowledged is that Memphis city schools are so substantially worse than the county and suburban schools that the fear of the decline of the county schools is a very real one. There is an armed police officer (not just a drug enforcement officer) in every single Memphis city school, even at the elementary level. Their scores are lower, their drop-out rates are higher, pick your measure of quality, the city schools will prove to be worse than county schools.
  This is about parents who want what is best for their children. The Memphis City school are not the best for ANYBODY’s children, which is why anybody who can afford to moves out, regardless of race.
  
  Reply
Kevin

February 24, 2012 at 4:08 am

I’m not sure that smaller school districts actually lead to efficiency. Actually, I don’t even know how it can because even small districts have to have administrators to manage them and those jobs are almost surely replicated by administrators in other small districts and can be successfully managed by fewer people if the districts were to be combined. I find the “local values” argument to be a little dubious as well. What local values does a Memphis suburb has that Memphis proper hasn’t?

Reply
- JL
  
  February 29, 2012 at 12:05 pm
  
  If you lived in Memphis or Shelby County, you would know exactly how “local values” differ between Memphis and the outlying areas.
  
  For instance, in Memphis city schools, kids are interested in the latest sneakers or pimping out their cars. Their career aspirations include fighting to be the head of the gang or rising in the ranks of drug dealing. They don’t know who their daddies are and they have brothers or sisters who have different daddies than their own. Their main goal in life is surviving.
  
  In the county and suburbs, kids are interested in getting good grades so they can get into a good college so they can get a good job and provide for their families. Their parents make them do their homework and might even help them with it. They are more likely to at least know their daddies, and probably live with a male role model, whether a father or a step-father. Their main goal in life is being successful.
  
  It’s not acceptable, but it’s the reality. Another story to illustrate:
  My father worked as a psychologist in a clinic in a very poor part of town that provided services to low-income families. He said that looking in the parking lot, one would never know that the cars belonged to families on welfare: Hummers, Cadillacs, Lexuses . . . usually with huge fancy rims or other upgrades. He would have mothers (or aunts, or grandmothers) bring in their kids and pressure him to diagnose the kid with something, anything, so that they could get “services” for having a special needs child. Welfare usually puts a cap on the number of children that count for amount of assistance, but children with special needs don’t count. (I’ve never been surprised that there is over-identification of special needs students).
  
  And yes, all of my dad’s clients were black.
  
  White and black in Memphis are two very different cultures. It’s terrible and completely unthinkable that race can still be so divisive in this one city when such large strides have been made elsewhere, but this plan will more likely exacerbate these differences rather than address them.
  
  Reply