Shelby County Schools Board chairman David Pickler must have graduated from the George Bush school of self-awareness. He too has a formidable talent for leveling criticisms of others that so clearly apply to himself.
It’s a remarkable gift to have as a politician – the ability to look right into someone’s eyes and engage in misinformation that the Politburo would have admired.
We thought of this as we read the Memphis Flyer article about school construction decisions, and as Mr. Pickler tarred the professional Office of Planning and Development evaluation of potential sites for the Southeast Shelby high school as reeking of a political agenda.
The Eye Of The Beholder
“Our numbers are not written with any political bias and the numbers simply demonstrate that it needed to be built,” he was quoted as saying by the always reliable Flyer writer Mary Cashiola. Left unsaid was the fact that county schools had no evaluation that reflected anything as much as blind justification for the political position already staked out by its board.
But the absence of self-awareness doesn’t stop there. “If we could coordinate where schools need to be constructed, based on population trends, based on developments that have been approved I think it would allow for a far more efficient situation,” he said. Of course that’s exactly what the OPD study did, and if he really wants that level of coordination, why doesn’t he just delegate site evaluation to that joint city-county office? We’re confident that the Memphis City Schools would agree to OPD as a third-party arbiter.
It’s all a curious obfuscation since the OPD report was ordered by Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, hardly a political enemy of the county schools, as the first rational study of potential school sites for a county school. While the report didn’t say it this way, our reading of the report led to our opinion that the high school in Southeast Shelby County is the wrong size at the wrong place at the wrong price.
Inconvenient Facts
But inconvenient facts like these have never deterred Mr. Pickler and the Shelby County School Board. That’s why in the coming weeks, you should look for a reprise of the rush to judgment by the board for its latest largess to developers with a mad push to buy property at Shelby Drive and Forest Hill-Irene Road for a new K-8 school.
It will of course have all the trappings of every decision about a county school site. There will be the sense of urgency, the lack of facts, a bogus deadline for action, and indignation that anyone should question its decision. All the while, it will engage in a round of self-important backslapping about its excellent management of the county schools, begging the question that if the management is so good, why can’t we make a decision on a school site that is conducted in an orderly, depoliticized environment?
Here’s our prediction. Shelby County Schools will mandate the site, impose a deadline for buying the property, resist any independent evaluation of whether the site is the right one, reject any questions as political attacks, and fight any attempt by Memphis City Schools – which will inherit the school in a few years – to inject reason into the process.
Schnuckered
In the end, it is destined to be a reprise of the Southeast Shelby high school and the Schnucks grocery store school. And as a usual, the reliable thread that ties all of this together will be the board’s cozy relationship with developers.
It’s no secret that Shelby County Schools has been in bed with developers for decades, but the pillow talk these days seems to be coming from the firm, Terry & Terry. The firm quadrupled its investment with the purchase of its land for part of the southeast Shelby high school footprint. Interestingly, the addition of that land helped make the 62-acre site about 50 percent larger than the national standard for a high school – 40 acres (that includes a football field).
Shelby County Schools will probably now recommend the same firm’s land at Forest Hill-Irene and Shelby Drive for its latest school. More important than selling the land, the development firm can then charge a premium for its residential development snuggled up to the school site.
Amazing Coincidences
But such is the way of the world at Shelby County Schools. For as long as any one can remember, developers have picked school sites, and what a surprise, they’ve always been right next to the developer’s own planned residential developments.
So, Mr. Pickler can criticize the 43-page analysis conducted by OPD of the last school site, but it will be interesting to see if the county district can produce the same kind of thorough analysis to show that it has explored all the options carefully and objectively. Or is its analysis limited to an email from the “developer of the month” recommending what the county’s real estate manager should buy?
It’s hard to think of a governmental entity in Shelby County that is less transparent than the Shelby County Board of Education. Thin-skinned and resistant to any ideas that it doesn’t originate, it sees itself as pure of heart and guardian of its political turf. Every one else is misguided and deserves no credit for caring as much about the education of our children as they do.
Back to the question of self-awareness, Mr. Pickler feigns indignation about suggestions that an African-American should be appointed to the all-white school board, which manages a district whose student population approaches 40 percent African-American.
Shades of Adolph Rupp
“Having a litmus test about someone’s credentials to serve on the Shelby County Board of Education because of their skin pigmentation is, quite frankly, offensive,” he said to The Commercial Appeal and added that the board’s decision-making as “color-blind.” Of course, racial politics is the overriding reason for building the Southeast Shelby high school in the first place, but no matter.
He’s not through yet and stretches hyperbole to its breaking point: “I don’t care if they are black, white, red or green if they will share that passion and that commitment to helping ensure that this school system continues to be one of the best in the world.” It’s the norm in Shelby County Schools to make the case that it’s a superior school system by comparing it with Memphis City Schools, a specious comparison for more reason than we can name, when in fact, the county schools on its best days are average.
It’s all back to that incredible lack of self-awareness. And it’s the main reason that we should all get ready for yet one more divisive fight on this new school site.
