Sometimes you have to wonder if suburban school officials own a mirror.
In an article in yesterday’s New York Times, Shelby County Schools Board member Joe Clayton said: “As far as racial trust goes, I don’t think we’ve improved much since the 1970s.”
It’s a comment that begs the question: “As a prominent educator in this community for those 40 years, what exactly have you done to contribute to racial trust?”
Or more pertinently: “What precisely are you doing these days?”
Missed Opportunities
As a teacher and coach in Shelby County Schools, a principal in Memphis City Schools, first principal of Briarcrest Christian School, member of the former Shelby County Schools, and now a member of the 23-member unified school board, few people in education have stood astride the unfolding history of our local educational systems than he has. But like many white educators of his time, he chose to stand aside when opportunities came to create a system that could educate a diverse student population based on the premise that every child can learn.
He was a highly-respected principal in Memphis City Schools back in the days of separate but equal schools. It was a time when faced with the imperative to integrate its schools, the system and its white administration slow-walked the desegregation plan and contributed directly to the more aggressive approach by federal court.
Ultimately, it was a time when “seg academies” sprang up all over Memphis as white people bailed on city schools. In 1973-74, Mr. Clayton left Overton High School to become the first principal at Briarcrest Christian School and hired the first 70 teachers. In 1978, the Internal Revenue Service took aim at “white flight” schools and included Briarcrest in its order to increase the number of minority students. Briarcrest argued that it was founded on the principle of non-discrimination (although the student body was almost all white and there was the fact that its establishment coincided with desegregation). It took the ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court which struck down the IRS edict in 1984.
Praying for Change
Mr. Clayton was elected to the Shelby County Schools board six years before retiring from Briarcrest School, perhaps contributing to the blurring of the line for him between public and parochial schools as he pushed for prayer and Bible classes. During his terms, he has been a relentless campaigner for special school district status for county schools as the magic answer to protect it from the evil influence of the city system.
He also opposed city and county consolidation because he feared that if it was approved, it would usher in merged city-county school systems. The irony of course is that consolidation of local government would have kept the two-system structure in place, but in defeating it, the county board members ushered in their worst nightmare. In the wake of the failed consolidation, Memphians voted to surrender the charter of Memphis City Schools, and in effect, created a unified, single district, and try as they might, the county school board could not prevent it.
Mr. Clayton was one of the five school board members who even went to federal court in an effort to block the merger of the two school districts and subsequently asked the court to order their legal bills to be paid. He has also been part of policies by an all-white county school board that saw nothing wrong with one school being more than 90% African-American and another 85% white.
Breaking Free of Old Thinking
We don’t mean to vilify Mr. Clayton, but his career is emblematic and reflection of a path followed by many during these 40 years. It is also instructive about the history that brings us to the place we are today and about the forces that fought the realities of the changing demographics of our community despite leadership opportunities to make a difference for good.
Instead, they were pivotal in ushering in the lack of racial trust that they now decry. For them, almost anything is fodder for their opposition to a new school district that can heal our community and that won’t perpetuate a caste system that drags down everyone here and stifles the kinds of leap-frog improvements that can move the entire region from the bottom rungs of economic indicators for the largest 51 metros.
Maybe Mr. Clayton is just a prisoner of his generation. There’s no question that our aspirations are better represented by the generation of Kenya Bradshaw and Billy Orgel. Ms. Bradshaw is a member of the state committee on school merger and Mr. Orgel is chair of the local unified school board. Instead of talking about why the new system can’t succeed and fueling the continued push for the towns to create their own districts, they are doing their best to make sure it has its best chance for success.
They look to a better future rather than fighting to hang on to the past and its relics in thinking. They hope for changes in an educational system where no student is treated as second class or “less than.” They work for a system that can respond to the needs of an entire community rather than to the lucky ones blessed with socio-economic advantage.
Exercise in Faith
Essentially, it all comes down to a question of good faith. The mandate for the unified school board is clear: develop an educational structure that offers academic opportunity to children of all kinds and colors. If in truth a member of the unified board cannot commit wholly and sincerely to this purpose, he should resign, because at this point in the history of Memphis and Shelby County, what we need most are people of good will.
God knows we are all well-acquainted with the results that come from people with narrow agendas, people whose attitudes seem fixed by and in another time, and people who seem more interested in preserving the status quo than even considering that there might be a better way to the future.
Instead of continuing to offer up reasons that a unified district won’t work, Ms. Bradshaw, Mr. Orgel, and most of the other members of the unified board seem intent on making the honest, extra effort that can produce ideas that could reinvent public education in our community so that the dismal academic record of city schools and the average record of county schools could be elevated in imaginative ways.
Reinventing Education
That’s why the unified school board’s mission isn’t merely to develop a workable structure that melds together two systems, two sets of administrators, two teacher organizations, two building management staffs, and more in the Noah’s Arc version of public education in the past. Their work is about considering other organizational structures and not just the obvious one where two bureaucracies are fused together, including the multi district version that’s been kicking around since Bill Morris proposed it while county mayor. In essence, it creates smaller districts with each managed by its own boards but served by a consolidated administrative function.
The unified board must also consider innovations in the classroom that can transform academic achievement and public expectations. That will require some long hours and expert help. It will also require serious discipline to separate the wheat from the chaff because no part of the public sector is given more to magic answers and magical thinking than education.
Then again, there’s no greater payoff for our community than if the unified board gets it right. It would unleash a force for progress unlike any in recent memory and it could also be a force to correct the lack of racial trust that has been a self-fulfilling prophecy since Mr. Clayton became a principal.
The comments posted in response to the NYT article are telling as well. Written by people from all parts of the country, they echo the dialogue here about school consolidation. The themes of these remarks remind me that the citizens of Memphis and Shelby County are not different from the people in the rest of the country. We’re brave enough to have a public debate, though, so we get the taint of being a backward, racist community.
Many AREA citizens have a new dream: that the taxpayer/investors in the school system get high value for their investment, that the students will leave our system well equipped for the next step in their lives, whether it’s college or work, and that the educators, both in the classroom and in administration, will receive the resources, support, and compensation they need and deserve to do this vital job.
I’m so thankful that people like Ms. Bradshaw and Mr. Orgel are willing to put forth the effort needed to realize our dream. Even Mr. Clayton deserves our appreciation. He does represent a point of view, one which I personally hope is in the minority and is recognized as the anachronism that it is. The rest of us need to stay informed and let our representatives know what we think of their progress.
Good will is needed from everyone who believes that education is the foundation and the key to the future of Shelby County and of our nation. Someone much smarter than me once said, “Begin with the end in mind.” Let’s all take a deep breath and with good will think about what we want life in this county to look like and then work out how we get there.
SCM;
Please elaborate. You seem to view the “Morris plan” of multiple school districts with favor. You strongly oppose the Bartlett/Collierville/Germantown plan for multiple, smaller school districts. What makes one good and the other bad?
Ken – I think most people who object to the plans of the suburban municipalities do so for two reasons; one – money. The county government has substantial investments in real estate and other infrastructure for the schools in those municipalities. Would the cities buy the buildings, etc. from the consolidated district? If so – where would that money come from – bonds? That means property tax hikes for the residents of those municipalities. What impact would that have on the consolidated district as a whole financially? Those are important questions that MUST be answered
The second point of opposition is the undercurrent of racism/classism. While I know not ALL residents of those municipalities are racists/classists, several of the leading mouthpieces have made it pretty plain why they don’t want their children in proximity of “those” other children. When an elected official uses the word “contamination” to refer to the mixing of urban and suburban school children, that’s a HUGE red flag. Also – if the suburban municipalities created mini-districts, it would make a de facto segregated system, which is what we have now. Yeah yeah – almost 40% minority in SCS – but those minorities are concentrated in areas which tend to fall OUTSIDE the municipal boundaries in question, as far as I understand it. Even it is more class oriented than race, race and class are virtually synonymous in the area. Either way – it’s seems, to many, to be a move to continue to isolate the students from Memphis proper into a failing district. The only difference in a name change. (As an aside, one of the major factors in the failure of the MCS is the lack of middle-class students, regardless of race. Carving of the municipalities would effectively starve the system of the middle class, virtually assuring the new system’s failure.)
MCS is already broken up into 4 smaller sub-districts. I think the consolidated board is considering implementing a similar plan for the county. If the districts have a little more autonomy than the MCS subdistricts have, than that’s a good compromise between the two positions.
These are just MY thoughts on the issue. I live in one of the suburban municipalities, but have children in MCS for the superior (IMO) curriculum and access to the arts and special services we did not find in the SCS. I see both sides of the argument, but I know i don’t want to pay more in property tax nor do I want to support the ghettozation of the consolidated system. We should give it a fighting chance.
Briarcrest…when I was in high school, Briacrest H.S. had zero black students, this was in 1982.
Slight correction: Kenya Bradshaw is not a member of the 23-member unified school board. She is a member of the 21-member Transition Planning Commission – the committee required by the Norris-Todd legislation.
Bill Morris’ proposals, while probably well intentioned, were contrary to state law and remain contrary to state law. Just remember in the end the new county school board will determine the structure of the new school system and I am certain it will fall within current state law.
I have never seen anything really improved in this community by a change in governmental structure. I think the officials who are in office are far more important than the governmental structures.
Another note or two: I think folks need to remember that the decision of the city school board members to approve surrender of the system’s charter was not based on achieving a merged school system per se or any belief that a unified system would provide any better education for anyone.
If you go back and read the city board’s resolution and review the comments of board members at the time, the thrust of the action was to maintain a link to the countywide property tax base. The fear was that if the city system remained a special school district and a new special district were created in the county outside the city, county funding for schools would go away and each of the two systems would receive property tax revenue only from the territory within their boundaries.
A majority of the school board members believed that if this occurred, schools within Memphis would lose the annual $28 million property tax subsidy that the city’s schools currently receive from taxpayers in the county outside the city. Property taxpayers within Memphis provide no subsidy for schools in the county outside Memphis.
Now that the charter has been surrendered, the schools within Memphis will continue to be tied to the countywide tax base regardless of whether new suburban municipal districts are formed.
It is clear that the property tax base within Memphis is growing very little if at all while property value growth in the county outside Memphis has been strong.
That brings us around to the situation where it is very important for schools within Memphis for the property tax bases in the suburban municipalities and in the rest of the county outside Memphis to remain strong and growing.
If those tax bases falter, the blow is going to be devastating to the funding of schools within Memphis as well as to those outside.
There is a strong history in this community of people moving outward when they are uneasy about the school situations in which they find themselves.
Census and other demographic numbers show that Memphis and Shelby County in the past decade experienced the largest outward movement of residents in the community’s history.
It seems clear that another decade or two of movement like this will leave schools and the rest of the community in shambles.
jcov:
You need to pay better attention. A number of people, notably board members Jones and Hart, cited that merger was about improving educational opportunities and results. Don’t try to change history because you didn’t like it. It was the right think to do, and there is nothing but anecdotes and fear-mongering to claim that this will result in white flight and more people leaving our community. As this post implies, this doesn’t have to happen if people of good hearts will come together to plan for a different way of educating our children. And it wasn’t schools that was driving people out of Shelby County, but many other factors like crime, corruption, and tax rates.
Ken: The difference between a unified system with multiple districts and separate districts for the towns are obvious. They diffuse educational standards and destroy the chance for our commitment to every child to be a unifying principle that bonds us together rather than our schools being yet another thing driving us apart. Rather than embark on their “it’s all about me” course, the towns should make a proposal to the unified school board and they should evaluate whether charters in the towns within the new unified district make sense in light of their stated concerns.
jcov40: Way back in the days of Bill Morris, it was determined that the structure being proposed by his committee was legally possible.
SCM;
Thanks for the reply. I always enjoy our discussions.
“Diffuse educational standards” seems to mean that the educational standards might be different between the mega-district and municipal districts. That is one of the advantages of small districts. They are responsive to the students they are supposed to serve. That responsiveness includes implementing the educational standards that maximize the performance of their students.
The unity theme sounds good in theory. In practice, it will be very, very difficult to generate deep community support for a system so large that it becomes an entity unto itself; answering to no one.
Are any of the U.S. school districts with 100,000+ students credited with unifying their community? There are literally hundreds of examples of municipal school districts that unite their communities, including all three of the East Tennesse districts that Germantown’s leadership visited.
The choices available to the suburbs are a mega-district or municipal districts. Choosing a structure that has proven successful while rejecting a structure that has proven unsuccessful is not a case of “it’s all about me”. It is what’s best for the students, all of the students.
SCM: Lawyers tend to tell mayors what they want hear.
There is nothing that tells me that creation of suburban school districts would have any significant impact on schools within Memphis. Whatever happens, taxpayers in the county outside the city will continue to provide millions in annual subsidies to support schools within Memphis.
Ken:
We still suspect that the concept of municipal districts aren’t predicated most strongly in educational standards, but fear and misinformation and misunderstanding and clinging onto the notion that there is an exemplary system outside Memphis. It feels like the educational version of “my house value will go down if those people move into my neighborhood.”
Why not simply wait and see what the unified school board recommends or take your ideas to it and see what happens? As we’ve said, you could have more autonomy and more accountability under state charter school legislation and still be part of a communitywide commitment to the idea that every student can learn and excel.
Germantown school district will not become Oak Ridge 2, and the demographic changes will shape Germantown’s future as well as the entire region and the cost of being isolationist will be high and futile.
As we asked with this post, if we have bad faith between the races here (which is holding us back as a region), multiple school districts have been the fault line that divides us, creates an us versus them attitude, and inculculates that in our children.
Germantown will not be an island of prosperity and success because it manages to creates its own safe school district. Its success is Memphis’ success and at least listening and learning are steps to show that at least there is an interest in every child and not just a special group of children.
The greatest determinant on a students’ academic success is their socio-economic background. It’s not about size of the district, it’s not about teachers, etc. It seems a needless tariff to be paid for Germantown to keep to itself and to perpetuate the attitude that you can go it alone. It’s why we were excited when you ran against Mr. Pickler.
It just feels like to us that on this question, there was a decision made by Germantown officials, and now all the arguments are aimed at simply validating that predetermined decision.
jcov40: I agree with you about attorneys that the mayors themselves appoint, but in this case, the proposal for multi-districts was developed by a large, community-based task force. It asked for the legal opinion which came from outside lawyers, as I recall.
My problems with municipal districts:
1) Cost. Likely there will be at least three districts in the county if this goes through, and possibly new schools will be needed to properly organize the suburbs into their own districts. Even if the increased costs/taxes don’t bother the current residents, an increase in cost of living and doing business here is bad for the county at large when competing with other metros.
2) Politics: If the suburbs opt out, the merger process becomes a sham with MCS just changing names. MCS is not the monster people claim, but it could certainly be improved. This won’t happen if critical voices don’t participate in the merger. In addition, there are a lot of really involved parents in the suburbs. More parental involvement in a school district seems like a good thing.
3) PR: MCS has been built up as a boogy man. As soon as people find out MCS is coming to town, they get scared and leave, contributing to sprawl. Some of this may be race motivated, but mostly I think it is that people are protective of their kids, and they will act irrationally out of fear. If the merger worked and people’s fears were shown to be untrue, it would benefit the city. People would be more likely to live in Memphis proper, and in an ideal world, it could bring more unity to the metro.
“Quick Watson, the game is afoot.” We have a debate underway with SCM!
It seems you are saying “Ken, you are right but for the wrong reasons.” I don’t believe we have anything other than educational objectives in mind, but assume that we do. If a mega-district structure will hurt students, good intentions won’t change that. If multiple, smaller districts help children, should that approach be ruled out due to bad motives? That’s a very interesting view of public policy: It is not enough to have the right approach, you must have pure motives as well.
“Why not wait and see what the unified board recommends?” Because there are four decades of research that says this is not the right approach.
“Why not take your ideas to the unified board and see what they say?” The unified board was carefully constructed to support a mega-school district. Any alternative is dismissed with the hollow arguments you have presented so well.
“The cost of being isolationist will be high and futile.” I believe that Germantown will welcome inter-district transfers. This is not an isolationist move; it is an endeavor to build a school district that responds to the needs of its customers.
“..listening and learning are steps to show that at least there is an interest in every child and not just a special group of children.” From a sound bite perspective, this is your clear winner: You are saying that creating a municipal school district means we don’t’ care about the children of Memphis. The suburbs cannot force (or convince) Memphis to consider alternatives to the mega-district model. Choosing the alternative, a smaller and more responsive district structure, does not mean we don’t care. It is a Serenity Prayer moment “God grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
As I said higher up, a city school board majority voted to surrender the charter not to merge the systems per se but to ensure that the city’s school;s remained tied to the countywide tax base. That goal was achieved.
It seemed to me that the board members who voted for the surrender did not do so because they in any way wanted any reform in the way the schools within Memphis are operated. Since it was not a merger for merger’s sake, the current effort may very well be a sham.
It also seems to me that many of these people who are pushing for the merger are doing so because they want a major change in the way schools within Memphis are operated. Basically, I suspect that a number of them are anti-city schools insofar as the way schools within Memphis are operated today.
Also, if suburban districts are formed, the only taxes that would be increased would be in the suburbs. At least some of the people who advocated surrender of the charter have for several years been supporting higher taxes in the county outside Memphis and lower taxes within Memphis in hopes that would result in fewer people moving out of Memphis.
I believe that during one discussion on the city council, one of the council members who supported charter surrender said it would be fine if Germantown, Colliervile etc formed their own school systems if they wished.
I think for a number of years some officials wiithin county government, including some mayors have not liked the way city schools have been operated. And it is clear that the current city council has not liked the way the city’s schools have been operated.
The last comment went in as anonymous. It should have gone in as jcov40.
JB;
My response to your well made points:
Cost: Your point about capital costs is well taken. Creating municipal school districts will likely involve construction of some schools that otherwise wouldn’t be built for several years. From an operating perspective, smaller districts are more cost efficient. A Syracuse study estimated the optimum size to be 6,000 students. Most researchers agree that anything above 20,00 students incurs penalties of scale. In a multiple district arrangement, capital costs will be higher and operating costs will be lower in the early years. Over the long term, both capital and operating costs will be lower.
Politics: The merger process has been a sham from the very beginning. No one (including Hart and Jones) entered into this process with the idea that it was good for Memphis City students. Not only can schools inside the city improve without help from the suburbs, it is the only way they can improve. Successful schools have the support of their community. Support cannot be exported from Arlington to Frayser.
PR: Fear. I am an Arkansas fan and I fear that the Razorbacks will be thoroughly whipped by LSU. Is that a fear, or a rational expectation based results so far this season? The suburbs fear, or rationally expect, that a mega district will be remote, removed from the students it is supposed to serve, and less effective than other potential structures. This expectation is consistent with the experience of other districts around the country.
Thanks for the response Ken. I’d like to briefly respond.
Cost: If you could link to that Syracuse study I’d love to see it. My instinct is that some of this data is flawed, simply because it defies economic sense. A properly organized larger structure can make better use of efficiencies of scale and reduce redundancies. When you make direct comparisons between larger and smaller districts, in general, it is hard to make an accurate comparisons. For example, comparing SCS to MCS is dificult because they have such different challenges. MCS is saddled with high poverty kids with greater needs, and older, less efficient buildings that aren’t utilized efficiently because of general neighborhood deterioration. In addition, larger districts may have additional costs because they can pool resources for features that smaller districts can’t provide, like magnet schools. In addition, even if the smaller districts operate more efficiently, I still think it is likely you’ll have a net increase in operating costs. You’re still hiring three administrations and all of the various support staff that goes along with it. There are simply a lot of fixed operating costs in running any school district.That is what common sense tells me, but I’m open to being proven wrong if the data shows otherwise.
Politics: Regardless of how this occurred, it is now an opportunity. The boards will be subject to re-election when this ends, and active political pressure will make sure it meets the public’s expectations.
Schools in the city can improve without the county. I think they would improve more with some new voices and different perspectives. I’m hoping for dramatic changes, and I think having both parties involved makes that more likely.
Lastly, I there is little to no risk for the suburbs to be active in using their leverage to guide the merger to meet their needs. If they can get a system they like out of it and want to stay, great, expenses avoided. If they decide to form SSDs at the end because they aren’t happy with the result of the committee, that is their right. If the participate for a few years and find it is as bad as they fear, they can always pull the trigger and split. There is no expiration date for the option to split.
PR/Fear: The problem with your analogy is, you have recent experience to show you exactly how well the Hogs and Tigers are playing right now. No one KNOWS what this merger will produce. It is early in the process, and open to community feedback. I don’t think it is fair to say all large districts fail because they are large. It is too simplistic of an explanation. Who is to say you can’t craft a large district that is responsive and effective? My current thought is somewhat of a Federalist system. A large central authority with limited enumerated powers, semi-autonomous smaller districts that can adapt to the unique needs of their areas and be directly responsive to their students. Imagine “charter districts”, free to innovate so long as they performed and met certain universal standards. You would gain from the effeciencies of a large system I outlined earlier, but retain a more responsive, local face.
JB;
Thank you for the quality and civility of this thread.
The penalties of size are well established. There are literally scores of these studies. Here is a link to a review of dozens of size research studies:
http://cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/efap/Papers_reports/Revisiting_Economies.pdf
The Syracuse results, optimum size of 6,000, are referenced on page 12 – “For total costs, the cost-minimizing district enrollment is approximately 6,000 students,..”
“active political pressure will make sure it (the district) meets the public’s expectations” In November of 2010, public discontent with MCS was very high. 5 MCS board members ran for re-election. Two were unopposed, two won handily, and the one who was defeated lost to a school board re-tread. It is not credible to say that the public can (or will) hold a 150,000 student school district accountable.
Why not wait? This transition is and will be very disruptive. Cash and Aitken have both indicated that instruction will be at risk as staffs are consumed by the planning involved. Serial transitions will be twice as disruptive. Uncertainty is very unhealthy for school districts and the communities they serve. An indefinite period in limbo is something to be avoided. Other than capital expenses, the smaller districts will almost certainly spend less per pupil than the mega district and will definitely spend money more efficiently. The capital penalty is a matter of timing and who pays, but not incremental cost.
Maybe a Federalist system. This point requires an entire paper, but pretending to be small is no substitute for actually being small.
It seems you and I disagree more about which factors are most important rather than what is helpful or harmful for public education. At the bottom, Memphians desire a single county-wide school district for subjective reasons/values and suburban residents have a different perspective of what is most important. Objective evidence will not likely change subjective values.
If I recall correctly SCM has been a strong advocate of the suburban cities’ paying more for the operation of schools within their boundaries. The only way to do that is through the creation of suburban school districts.
jcov:
We are strong advocates for tax equity…whether that meant that Memphis taxpayers should stop paying twice for schools or whether it meant every city should pay for schools. It was simply a matter of consistency and fair play.
Ken:
We may be back where we started, but our belief is that the students of Germantown will perform academically strong because structure is not the definitive factor in that performance. It’s about high-quality teachers in the classroom, principals with more autonomy to make decisions based on his specific issues, the willingness to try innovations, etc.
We would welcome a tone by people connected with the municipal districts to show concern and commitment to the children of Memphis and unincorporated Shelby County. We shouldn’t rely on the media on this issue either, but what’s been reported are comments that treat kids on the other city of a line as the enemies of the special children in the towns and their education, and that somehow Memphis officials are corrupt and uncaring. We’ve written before about the they’re bad, we’re good attitude of the suburbs despite the quality of their elected officials, (and you were willing to put your name on the ballot to try to change this in one key race). We know that you aren’t engaging in this kind of shrill rhetoric but it would contribute to more reasonable and reasoned debate if everyone on all sides swore off code words; the term, those people; and the Memphis is evil syndrome.
As we’ve said, educational research is like the Bible. You can find something to support whatever side you choose. We just think in the long run that knowing that socio-economic factors are determinant, the cost of division and divisiveness is high and it contributions in our inability to keep the kids we educate here when they graduate.
As we said, the unified board is not — and should not — be only about getting the structure right, and that’s why we think you should share the values and principles that you place in a school district as part of that process.
Thanks for taking the time to talk about this.
Ken,
I don’t have time for a lengthy response, but I did want to note that I read the Syracuse report today. I’m not sure if you meant to hold that out as proof beyond the 6,000 point, but I do not think it is supportive of a blanket smaller is better position.
While the research seems conclusive that smaller schools are ideal, there is no consensus (from this survey of research) about larger districts. The authors acknowledge that there are clear benefits in terms of administrative costs, but that some of these benefits can be reduced by increased travel times, increased bureaucracy, and the fact that teacher salaries typically level to the higher paid district in the merger. The travel time problem is a result of merging rural districts and shouldn’t apply here. The other two are legitimate, but I don’t think inevitable.
Despite giving an ideal district size as you cited, the authors conclude by emphasizing that more research is needed in actual case studies and on mergers of urban districts. The majority of research according to the authors is focused on rural districts and hypothetical data.
I haven’t had time to research if any further studies can directly answer the question here. This article from the University of Chicago looked interesting: http://jleo.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/1/1.short From the abstract: “Although larger districts were associated with modestly higher returns to education and increased educational attainment in most specifications.” So at least here, larger districts were a plus, but were brought down when schools were consolidated to form larger schools. I haven’t read the full article and have no idea if the data here is any more applicable than that cited in the Syracuse study.
Do you know of any studies that have addressed the deficiencies identified in the Syracuse report? I admit I am not as well read in the subject as I would like. Even apart from the municipal schools issue, if it is clearly proven that smaller districts perform better, then they should be pushed in some way as part of a new SCS, with or without the suburban municipalities.
One last thing before I sign off.
On politics, that is a valid point. My only reply is that I refuse to lose faith in government and democracy simply because it is often flawed. Things change, and sometimes the right person wins. See tonight’s runoff election.
As for waiting, again, I can see your point. My only quibble is that I thought there would be a lag between when a Municipal district could open and when the new SCS would begin operations. If you’re going to have to go through the transitions twice regardless, I don’t think waiting to see if the first one works is a bad idea. But if there is no waiting period, and a SCS school could go straight to a municipal school without already going through the changes involved in a merger, then I’m willing to concede that point. That does make me wonder though – how much time and money is going to be spent on building a district covering all of SCS that will have to be re-done if suburbs secede?
For “Federalism”, I think you’re writing it off without seriously considering if it could work. You’re right though, that is far too large a task to do in blog comments.
And to SCM: Saying that academic research can be used to support any policy may be true to an extent, but statements like that seem to write off the value of research at all. Education research is not tax policy and isn’t coming out of many partisan think tanks. We should be learning from and critically evaluating research. I think we all want the same thing: an education system that can meet the needs of every student better than either system did before. There is nothing more vital to the future of our city than making sure we get education right both for our suburbs and the inner city.
I believe that state legislators, governors, members of Congress and presidents have damaged education so much over the past three or so decades, there is little that can be done at the local level here or elsewhere to change the outcomes in education…
To JB: I don’t know if you’ll still check back here, but your last sentence is outstanding.
“I think we all want the same thing: an education system that can meet the needs of every student better than either system did before.”
The great difficulty in this discussion is that how you see things is greatly influenced by where you sit. It is painfully obvious to many Memphis residents that the best path forward is to join forces and work together in a mega district. Some get very frustrated with anyone who does not support a mega district, even assigning dark motivations and character flaws to the other viewpoint.
Many suburban residents, including myself, are certain that municipal school districts offer the best structure for achieving education excellence. Where we may feel powerless to influence the mega district, some Memphians see indifference. Where we focus on the things we know we can control, some Memphians see selfishness.
There is a real danger that the next two years will tear this county apart. The best chance to avoid that is to take what I think is your approach – to sincerely try and understand the other side’s point of view. I do not predict a consensus among the community on the mega versus muni question. I hope for, and will work towards, serenity – “God grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Ken: If you’re hanging your hat on the study saying the best district size is 6,000, why weren’t you pushing for the Germantown district before? Strange that as long as you were part of county system, you weren’t saying a thing. If this study is right, wasn’t county schools way too big too?
Great point Frank. Yes, SCS is/was too big. New municipal school districts were prohibited prior to the passage of the Norris-Todd law.
County school supporters were talking every year about going to Nashville to get special school district legislation. Why not get legislation allowing municipal districts? Did anyone even breath a word about it until now?