AFSCME should be ashamed.
This week, it mailed to thousands of Memphis households an anti-consolidation piece that degraded the message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In attempting to draw a specious connection that said surrendering the charter of Memphis City Schools is the same as surrendering Dr. King’s dream, AFSCME leaders only managed to show how out of touch it is. It’s more than passing strange that people who fought so hard for the civil rights of African-Americans in Memphis are now willing to climb into bed with the very people who would have opposed Dr. King if he were alive today.
Here’s the thing: we know that Dr. King has been gone for 42 years, but only an amnesiac would think that his dream countenanced separate but equal school districts that fail to treat all children the same, that institutionalize unfair taxation for a majority black city, and that use public education as the means to build walls between people.
There are so many sermons, commentaries, and statements by Dr. King that contradict the school consolidation opponents, but we default to our favorite, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which includes this:
“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood…Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.”
It’s time in Memphis and Shelby County to stop the monologue from which isolationists inside and outside Memphis draw power. It’s also time to blow up walls built on prejudice and inequities. There was a time when AFSCME was on the front lines of such battles. This time it is sadly on the wrong side of history.
We reprise a post from December 29, 2010:
As we predicted in an earlier post, the anti-school consolidation folks position themselves as experts on schools and are coming out of the woodwork with specious “facts,” stilted arguments, and more trafficking in fear and fiction.
In many respects, they act like we are a community of amnesiacs. Just yesterday, more red herrings and alleged truths were sent out under the heading: Why The Rush to Surrender MCS Charter ? The missive purported to lay out the truth about the issue, presenting as fact all kinds of things like city schools will not lose funding if Shelby County Schools becomes a special school district and that county commissioners will still have a role, throwing out a bunch of budget numbers that allegedly give their case validity.
Of course, they don’t, because the most of these anti-community folks don’t really understand the complexities of school funding and the implications of interlocking state laws and DOE rules that involve NCLB and BEP to name just a couple.
It’s a sign that the anti-unity people are worried. They don’t have a vote and their only currency is to napalm Memphis with lies and deceptions in hopes that they can sound like they are authoritative and that they are successful in scaring the bejesus out of Memphis voters, even if it means exposing the racist rhetoric by some among them.
Most of all, like yesterday’s commentary pretending to show that there’s no reason for Memphis City Schools to rush to a vote, it’s equal parts blame the victim and Rip Van Winkle political rhetoric.
Memphis City Schools voted for the referendum because Shelby County’s rush to a special school district. And the disingenuous argument that Shelby County Schools intention was benign at best and misunderstood at worst assumes we have lost our memory cells. It is built on a factual house of cards and requires the reader to assume that county schools will act in good faith and that they can be trusted, two facts not supported by experience or the facts. More to the point, the latest talking points by the anti-merger cabal simply asks to accept on faith that Shelby County Schools will not revert, given half a chance, to its earlier plans to eliminate the Shelby County Board of Commissioners from approving its budget, to gain taxing authority and to freeze school district boundaries. To suggest now that Mr. Pickler’s promises to the contrary should be accepted as the basis for moving ahead insults our intelligence.
One thing we count on: the architects of all this drama – Shelby County Schools and its minions – will continue to spin another story and will continue to claim that they are possessors of the truth and the numbers.
It’s the same arrogance that led an all-white county school board to assume that a majority black city schools board would never vote to relinquish their power.
As we’ve said before, we live in the Age of the Big Lie. It plays itself out across the U.S. and its purveyors here work hard to repeat the lies often enough that they start sounding plausible. Again, their arrogance convinces them that a majority black city will not take charge of their own destiny and can be stampeded into the voting booth to vote against their own self-interest. It smacks of the striking belief by so many suburban white politicians that African-Americans can’t play quarterback on their own field and that their votes can be manipulated ala Boss Crump.
Here’s the thing: Yes, there are many questions that need to be answered and while lots of pro-divisiveness politicos say we need more time to figure out what’s legal, one thing is incontrovertible: Memphis City Schools acted within its statutory rights to relinquish its charter. There will be ample time – regardless of what you hear – to iron out merger issues during a transition period until a new diverse board will replace the all-white county school board. Too many of those calling for more time so lawyers can work on this seem motivated by a desire to run out the clock so that Shelby County Schools can get a bill introduced in the Tennessee Legislature.
That, my friends, is exactly why there is a rush to vote to merge our separate but equal school districts. It’s also why it’s time to end the justifications and excuses for continuing the existence of our Jim Crow public education system.
The cast of characters in suburban politics would flunk a remedial course in elementary logic.
Here’s the syllogism they offer up:
One, Shelby County Schools are superior to Memphis City Schools and the paragon of exceptional education.
Two, our only concern is about the kids and getting them a quality education.
Therefore, we will do whatever we can to keep those Memphis students out of our district.
Just Do It
We just don’t understand. If their methods are better and if their teaching is so exceptional, they shouldn’t hide their light under a basket. They should step up to lead us out of the wilderness on a journey to the Promised Land where the best education in Tennessee is supposedly found.
All of this reminds us of the time years ago at a Leadership Memphis meeting when a former mayor of Germantown told the class that Shelby County Schools simply had “the answer” to student performance. And because of this, he said, if the principal of Germantown High Schools was moved to Northside High School, the city school would have the same student achievement as the suburban school.
The class laughed so loudly that it was hard to hear the rest of what he was saying, but it’s pretty obvious that Shelby County Schools believes that it knows the secrets to better education. We just don’t understand why they don’t want to share.
It’s About The Kids, We Promise
You do have to give the suburban politicians credit for staying on message, even if it is logically fallacious and intellectually dishonest. A good example was interviews by Tennessee Senator Brian Kelsey following the vote by the city board to surrender their district’s charter, he said his proposed bill to punish Memphis City Schools for its audacity in voting to control its own destiny was actually only intended to protect the education of those Memphis students.
It was those students that he’s really concerned about, but not enough to say that Shelby County Schools should share its magic potion to help children unlucky enough, through a coincidence of birth, that they can’t be part of the chosen few.
We suspect that all these talking points may sound good on their conference call, but somehow, seeing him and the rest of the county cabal as saviors of urban education would be just as mind-blowing as expecting Memphis City Schools Board of Commissioners to stand by while Shelby County Schools Chairman David Pickler achieved his dream of a special school district. He and others can try to recast history and act like he’s never been an enemy of Memphis City Schools, but it’s just not true.
Revising History
His first scenario for Shelby County Schools has long been for it to have taxing authority and to remove the Shelby County Board of Commissioners from the funding approval process. He may be engaged in an exercise in revisionist history today by saying he was never trying to attack ADA funding or that he was never trying to eliminate county commissioners’ votes on school funding, but the record speaks for itself.
For lovers of irony, it doesn’t get much better than this. It’s absolutely Shakespearean, as the protagonist is undone by his own obsession rather than what he was worried about in the first place. In his blind fixation on special school district as the trump card for consolidation, Mr. Pickler put the hold cards into the hands of Memphis City Schools and he could ultimately be the reason for the consolidation that he so abhors.
Who would have thought that only weeks after the stinging defeat of city-county consolidation that business as usual could be so thoroughly turned upside down by five courageous members of Memphis City Schools Board of Commissioners? Of course, Mr. Pickler shifts to his default setting – that all of this was part of the grand conspiracy to consolidate governments.
Chicken Little
It’s a symptom of his desperation to find a scapegoat (at a time when he’s been bruised from all sides) for a crisis of his own making. Despite his comments, anyone who thinks that consolidating schools will lead in short order to the consolidation of city and county governments needs to log on to the Election Commission’s website and revisit the election results.
Removing schools once and for all from the debate about consolidating government does not improve the odds for passage at the polls. Despite his customary “sky is falling” rhetoric about gigantic tax increases, about research findings showing that size matters, and about the deteriorating of public education, this is instead an opportunity to recalibrate our schools to align with human capital, economic development, and other priorities.
That’s why we hope that Memphis City Schools Board President Freda Williams was misquoted when a reporter said that she planned to campaign to defeat charter surrender at the polls. If she is looking for the way to usher in the worst nightmares of her district, this would be it. The board has put all the chips on the table and if the referendum fails, things don’t just go back to what they were.
The Real Worst Case Scenario
Rather, an emboldened Shelby County Schools will have newfound power to pass whatever bill that they want at the Tennessee Legislature, and Mr. Pickler may even go back to an earlier incarnation of his special school district amendment, the one with taxing authority and state legislators approving the county district’s budget.
It is now in every Memphians’ self-interest to do what they can to approve the charter surrender, because after all, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. More to the point, one man’s crisis is another man’s opportunity, and this is the opportunity in more than 100 years to reimagine what our public education system should look like.
Yes, there are seminal questions to be answered, because there is no aspect of state law that is murkier or more confusing. That’s why the biggest need that we have right now is an honest broker to act as a reliable source of information and as a statesman leading the thinking for what will happen when the charter surrender is approved by the voters.
Hype
We suspect that in the coming weeks, we’ll hear a lot of ideas from Shelby County Schools and their allies, –ranging from shutting down schools to gutting existing contracts with teachers — that are designed to strike fear into the hearts of Memphis voters. It’s begun in a small way already with Shelby County Schools current board and superintendent acting like they’ll be unilaterally making all the crucial decisions.
The truth is that they can say and do whatever they want, but it can all be undone by a new countywide elected board that will replace the current all-white Shelby County Schools Board. In other words, the period between the referendum and the election of a new board is a time to get the structure right, to align financial and operational systems, and to keep things in motion.
In this way, the most accurate description of the role of the present board and superintendent of Shelby County Schools is now caretaker for a new district rather than as undertaker for Memphis City Schools.
Hopefully, they can rise to the challenge and invest their energy in getting the new district right than in continuing their political fight to keep the walls between us.
I too have been to the mountaintop!
and I see…
a suburban schools district followed within 5 years by a separate county.
Agree per the post and I think IO has a point although a new county would be exceedingly difficult as highlighted in discussion here before.
Per the other comment, it’s as if someone 8 track tape form the 1980’s.
the difficult we do immediately.
the exceedingly difficult takes time.
secession!
Instead of aggressively organizing to protect collective bargaining rights in Nashville, or preparing to re-organize teachers and support staff across the soon to be unified district, some unions seem to think it’s more important to protect a status quo that is unsustainable. It’s ironic that a pro-merger advocate like myself will be in Nashville tomorrow to stand up for organized teachers, while their own unions expend an inordinate amount of their resources fighting against the end of 50+ years of re-segregation.
resegregation sponsored by the yankee courts and maxine smith.
what ye sow, ye reap.
Great point, Scott.
IO: There’s no way that secession can occur. That was put to bed 20 years ago. But we presume you meant it rhetorically.
“Those who fail to learn from history are destinied to repeat it”
I think people are failing to realize that no one said that blacks could not attend schools in the county and no one said that whites could not attend school in the city. People are failing to realize that people have made voluntary housing choices that have led to the make up for city and county schools today. There is no one standing at the doors of county schools saying you “can’t come in here” or “n*****” go away”.
As an African-American female who lives in the county, it sickens me to no end that this issue has been made about race. If we continue to teach our children that “white is right” or “white is always better” and we are going to make sure that the government gives you what they got, is just another way of enablement. People are too blind to see that this has been about inadequate leadership on the part of the people they have elected and pay hundred and thousands of dollars a year to run MCS. They have received millions of dollars of county tax payer money to make sure that everything was “equal” and what have they done with it? They have created one of the worse school systems in the country. So now that they have completely made a mess of a situation that they do not know how to fix, they just want to walk away and say now you handle it. Oh by the way this is your fault because you have all the white kids at your schools-get out of here!
If this is about them losing money if the county becomes a special district and keep their tax money would it really make a difference? As I said before, they have not been able to accomplish anything at all with the money they have been receiving for years so why would it really matter?
Giving up the charter will do nothing for those failing schools because the issues with those schools run way deeper than just whose running them-county or city. There are so many variables that it would take decades to turn around generations of cycles. Look at Frayser High School. 90 girls in less than one school year are pregnant or already had their baby. Do you think this had anything to do with them being under the MCS charter and not the SCS school system?
Forced integration has taught us one thing in the past-
“in a democracy people can vote with their feet”. The white folks left then and they will surely leave again. Before it left the city black and poor. What will happen now?