We had an unwanted flashback last week to the days when Strom Thurmond tried to justify Jim Crow laws with the argument that he was only trying to protect black folks from the burdens of self-government.
Now comes Shelby County Schools Chairman David Pickler, whose smarmy statements apparently know no bounds, to explain his district’s federal lawsuit on the grounds of his deep and abiding concern about Memphis students.
To hear him, Mr. Pickler’s only intention was to be a white knight protecting the majority black students of Memphis City Schools. He is motivated by the need to protect city school students from the irresponsible actions of the grownups on the Memphis City Schools Board of Commissioners who relinquished the district’s charter. He even said that he was moved by the need to fight for these children’s rights and equal protection under the 14th Amendment. More accurately, he was saying that he was all for protecting the children of Memphis as long as they don’t become part of his district.
Gods of Nashville
Meanwhile, any hopes that new Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam would be a reasonable mediator were quashed with his quick signing the so-called Norris bill to ratify the state’s historic interference into a distinctly local issue. In the Friday battle with Mr. Pickler for the biggest hypocrite of the day, Senator Mark Norris of Collierville continued his cloying, if not historically revisionist, comments about the failings of Memphis City Schools, displaying an uncanny ability to ignore the fact that Shelby County Schools’ blind pursuit of a special school district triggered this entire controversy.
Governor Haslam said that the bill accomplished his priorities, keeping the Memphis referendum in place and putting in place a planning process. It was disingenuous in the extreme since he has to know that it’s a charade in which a purely political process is masquerading as a planning process. It’s too early to know of course, but it seems possible that in trying to keep his own party happy, the governor will rapidly lose the mainstream leanings that defined him as mayor of Knoxville.
Speaking of mayors, it may be that in hindsight, this may be seen as Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr.’s finest hour. Shaking off any vestiges of neutrality as a result of his outrage at Senator Norris’s willingness to change state law to suit him, the mayor showed passion and persuasion in poking holes in the Republicans’ arguments. It was impossible to not see Senator Norris’s face in your mind when Mayor Wharton complained about the “gods of Nashville” who change the rules in the middle of the game.
Grand Old Pandering
Showing signs of his courtroom days, he laid out a case against the Norris bill. Noting that the law amended by the Tennessee Legislature had been on the books for decades with no changes or concerns, until, and only until, City of Memphis decided to act in keeping with it did Republican lawmakers move as if Western Civilization hung in the balance, taking swift action ultimately aimed at keeping the city and county school districts from ever consolidating. The legal scholars that we know say that the Shelby County Schools is flimsy and that the district’s own lawyer had already urged the district to move ahead with planning and transition.
Some suggest that we brought this on ourselves for lack of a plan, but remarkably, multi-national companies are merged every day, law firms, even those with Senator Norris, merge every day, and the massive Race to the Top program can be completed without the wringing of hands about the lack of time. It is but one more talking point that acts like an effective plan is as complicated as Middle Eastern peace. People who have actually done it – merged two districts – say it can be done in 10-12 months.
All in all, it’s enough to make you wonder whatever happened to the Grand Old Party, the one that gave birth to ideas like environment protection, civil rights, universal health care, and welfare reform. We assume that GOP has gone to the dustbin of history, replaced by the narrow interests of a party dominated by right wing thought and self-righteous actions.
War on Reason
In this regard, it’s possible to see this school consolidation issue in the larger lens of national politics and the extremist policies of a party driven by its own inflated impulses and the urge to pay back old grievances. There are other places with similar moralistic examples of Republicans attacking minorities, mainly defined as gays, immigrants, and African-Americans.
Republicans are working hard to overturn gay marriage in New Hampshire. There are constitutional amendments being pushed to block same-sex marriage in half a dozen states. In Indiana, it’s not enough to block gay marriage but Republicans there want to block civil unions as well.
Several states, including Missouri, have Republicans pushing drug testing for welfare recipients. Just under 20 states are considering the adoption of anti-immigration laws similar to Arizona’s. Abortion bills are being introduced in state legislatures by the day, and with the openly partisan U.S. Supreme Court, pro-choice forces should brace for the worst.
Preparing for the Siege
This new burst of right wing extremism is accompanied by its normal fellow traveler, anti-intellectualism, and there is little doubt that the future will be rife with the kinds of unpleasant narratives that treated the Republican Party well in the past election: gays undermining marriage, welfare queens, drug-dealing immigrants, and abortion factories.
American history is a story of the pendulum swinging to extremes but inevitably settling in the middle. Unfortunately, before that happens, we’ll have to endure and fight intrusions into local affairs like the one unleashed here by politicians who have railed for years about government incursion, that is, until they had the power of the government to wield for themselves.
What an incoherent smear of everythng SCM doesn’t like.
Hey SCM, you forgot Brussels sprouts.
SCM,
Please reconcile Wharton’s “outrage at Senator Norris’s willingness to change state law to suit him (Norris)” with Wharton’s plea to the legislature to take immediate action to provide clarity to the transition process.
“The mayors said they have been in discussions with leaders of Shelby County’s state legislative delegation — including Senate Republican Majority Leader Mark Norris and Senate Democratic Minority Leader Jim Kyle — about expediting a bill that would provide for an orderly planning and transition process in the event voters approve abolishing the city schools’ charter.” Commercial Appeal, 1/4/11 http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jan/04/wharton-luttrell-promise-leadership-orderly-transi/
Does this mean that Wharton would be okay with changes in state law that Wharton drafted but it is retroactive legislation when Norris follow Norris’ own council?
As to “the law…had been on the books for decades with no changes or concerns..”: This law, TCA 49-6-502, has never been invoked before.
I’ll stop there. This entire discussion, on both sides, is filled with talking points and devoid of facts.
SCM, you lose focus when you extrapolate too much. As a person who formerly identified as a Republican, I’m as disgusted with the panderings of the GOP as anyone, but I think it’s a stretch to blow this subject up into a blanket diatribe. It’s my opnion that this rightward social issue lurch will self-correct at some point..taking a historical view of it.
Ken, Wharton had one great point: no one in outer Shelby County OR state government cared one whit about the fortunes of MCS until it threatened to upset their apple cart. Now all of a sudden, they’re all about the kids. Pardon me if I express cynicism about Pickler, et als’ sincerity on this subject. He’s full of it.
packrat:
We agree that things will in time self-correct. That was the point of the last paragraph.
Ken:
Mayor Wharton was pleading with the legislature to set in motion a planning process that would have been directed by him and Mayor Luttrell. It would have had national experts guiding it and it would have been done locally, but with collaboration with the Department of Education. It would have considered options for moving ahead, particularly the multi-district structure.
Mayor Wharton rightly sees the Norris plan for what it is: a sham aimed at protecting what exists today and to make sure that Memphis City Schools is walled off from the pristine world of the county schools.
We fear that you have been listening to Norris’s revisionist history too much. It’s facile but fallacious.
Ken:
Can you grasp the concept that Wharton can call for a plan but that doesn’t mean that he’ll support ANY plan? The devil is in the details, literally.
I think you said what I said, just using different words.
Wharton was open to new legislation if it followed his outline. Norris did not follow the Wharton outline. Now Wharton is saying that the legislature, who he invited in, should butt out.
Your praise for the Wharton plan and criticism of the Norris bill seem to indicate your agreement. A “retroactive’ state law that you like would be okay; a “retroactive” law you dislike should be struck down by the courts.
Ken:
Wharton and Luttrell both said that they wanted to be honest brokers in a process to move ahead. When the legislature wasn’t willing to operate in a similar vein, we don’t find it strange that Wharton would exit as a result of the duplicitous actions of Norris et al.
Retroactive laws should only be changed if there are exigent circumstances and that’s why we are so concerned about the politicization of the judicial system from state courts to the Supreme Court.
Ken you are attempting to mislead with the information you provided regarding retroactive legislation. In the article you provided- as well as the quote- the legislation apparently being sought by Wharton and Lutrell did not in any way infringe on existing state laws that detail how a special district may surrender its charter nor did it seek to alter who exactly may vote in such a referendum. The legislation they sought would simply detail how a team that equally represented all parties would be defined should the referendum pass. It would create an approved “next step” in the process that was not outlined in current state law.
The legislation being sought by Norris seeks to alter current state law regarding how the charter is to be surrendered and who would be permitted to vote on the matter. You attach the notion of “retroactive” to both efforts, but only one clearly seeks to alter state law where the issue is concerned only after the charter has been surrendered. Your idea that both sets of legislation are “retroactive” is disingenuous.
The resistance from the suburbs in Shelby County sounds just like the suburban resistance in northern industrial cities in the 1920s. At that time the western European “whites” didn’t want to govern along side poor Italians, Polish and other eastern European immigrants who had settled close to inner city factories. The suburbanites along with rural conservatives used power in state legislatures to effectively kill annexation by central cities like Detroit, Cleveland and others.
Today, Tennessee’s suburbs have gained the upper hand using the Republican party as the partisan vehicle for keeping poor (mostly African Americans) in Shelby County cut off from a county system just like the separate schools for Blacks and Whites until after 1954.
It’s hard to say whether racism or classism is the driving force, but the resistance is blatant and raw with beliefs that distort rational thinking. These beliefs sound like lies because they are so contrary to due process (both procedural and substantive) and equal protection of the laws.
soon to be outa work MCS teachers polishing their skills for a career change, maybe?
Urbanut,
Your comments about Norris’ bill changing the mechanism for surrender are out of date. Norris’ original proposal WAS to change the mechanics, really to call off the referendum. That idea did not fly. The bill that passed differed from the Wharton plan in these three ways:
1) The Wharton plan put the two mayors in charge of transition planning. The Norris bill leaves the city mayor out and includes the two school boards plus 3 Nashville appointees.
2) I don’t remember any definite timeframe for transition in the Wharton plan. The Norris bill is specific, the beginning of the 3rd school year.
3) The Wharton plan did not include the ability to form new school districts in the county.
The Norris bill is triggered by the vote. Everything in the Norris bill happens AFTER Memphians vote to transfer control of MCS to SCS.
There is still an argument that the Norris bill is retroactive. It alters the outcome of the referendum (delayed transfer of control rather than immediate). The MCS board requested the referendum with the expectation that transfer of control would be immediate. The Wharton plan would have imposed a similar delay. A court will have to decide whether a yes vote results in immediate transfer of control or whether the provisions of the Norris bill apply.
We can continue this back and forth for awhile, and we’re willing to do it, but the main thing is that Norris’s bill does not merge systems and that it is subterfuge for keeping the walls between our students and our districts.
Here’s what would have happened under the Wharton Plan:
1) Luttrell and Wharton would take charge of the process and make sure that the best national thinking on school reform and innovative structures are engaged to lead the process.
2) The process would run for about 18 months, and after that time, the district would have been merged. There would be no special school districts anywhere because we would have one system, one vision.
Of course, Norris’s bill happens after the vote. We have no doubt that the attorney general’s office told him that to do otherwise would be illegal. But be that as it may, his bill and his process is still a political exercise masquerading as a public process.
That feels much different from the Norris plan in reality and in purpose.
Pickler feels justified and I can’t see why.
The Mayor did great, and will probably continue to do great.
The republicans here are much like the Mubareks of Egypt and they are cultivating the very same conditions here. They will be met with the very same results. The problem is they also cultivated a condition of extremely violent crime stats second to none or one sometimes, so, I’m not betting that our revolution will be nonviolent here, only that it’s definitely coming.
Ken,
I stand corrected on some of the issues as I simply don’t have the time to go back and verify and will take your word on it- I don’t recall you resorting to outright falsehoods on SCM before.
Does it not bother you at least a little that the City of Memphis, being a direct financial contributor to the school system, cannot appoint its own representation on the transition board? What was ye old slogan? Oh, I remember- taxation without representation.
Of course this whole fiasco and the position Norris has taken ignores one of the basic principles of this fiasco: we as a community and individuals are equally responsible for the education of all children in Shelby County. Attempting to isolate those in poverty with special districts would absolve certain party’s of this responsibility to the detriment of the city as a whole.
Urb,
No, the transition board makeup does not bother me.
1) Luttrell will appoint at least 3 Memphians and Haslam has already promised a Memphian. A board with 9 Memphians and 9 suburbanites might be a good thing. 10 city to 8 suburbs seems more likely to me.
2) Without the Norris bill, the transition would have been completely up to the current 7 suburbanites on the SCS board.
3) Memphians have 100% of the seats on the MCS board. It is Memphians right to give up that representation. Suburban residents don’t share the city perspective that you are really voting to ‘transfer administrative control’ to yourself.
The failures in MCS are not city-wide or county-wide failures. White Station, Ridgeway, Central, and their feeder schools would not be successful if MCS were completely incapable of delivering an education to anyone. The failures are much more localized: parents and neighborhoods. Singing “we’re all in this together” will not improve those issues or change those environments. I continue to believe that consolidation will make things worse for those children by diluting the focus on their needs.
1) The board would still not be proportional and the suburban interests would be overrepresented, and with Pickler’s propensity for walking out of the room when he doesn’t like the conversation, it’s going to be hard enough already.
2) We don’t agree, but there’s no need to keep rehashing our different angles on the elephant.
3) The city is voting to “transfer administrative control.” It is surrendering the charter and that is a different legal function and option. We could argue that surrendering the charter isn’t covered by the Norris bill.
The failures in SCS are less well-known and its performance is great only because of proximity to MCS. It’s possible that if we could remove the parents and their emotions and their biases that the day after the school districts were merged, nothing in the students’ world change.
There’s no reason that a great school district, like great communities, can’t do two things at once, so the argument about diluting focus just seems convenient here.