Memphians regularly don’t recognize what is distinctive about us and what we are doing right unless we get outside validation. We should be getting that validation today in spades. Our own Ballet Memphis is featured prominently...
Read MoreTo wrap up what ended up as a week posting about education, we reprise a post from November 11, 2009: It’s nothing short of hypocritical for us to wring our hands over the D’s and F’s given to Memphis City Schools students in...
Read MoreUPDATE: Newsweek has admitted that it blew it, and White Station High School is now #1,090 out of the top 1,600 high schools in the entire U.S. The written statement from Jay Mathews, Researcher and Contributing Editor with...
Read MoreIf urban school districts like ours had a dollar every time somebody said, “Children are our future,” they’d never have a funding problem. Unfortunately for these districts, Americans are long on platitudes and short on...
Read MoreMemphis Mayor A C Wharton has an ambitious agenda that he laid out during his campaign, but the goal he set recently surpasses all of them for its audaciousness: To make Memphis one of the country’s best-run cities. That is of...
Read MoreThere may be other cities that have done more in the past to improve their schools, but if you’re looking for ground zero for school reform for the future, it’s hard to think of a place more qualified than Memphis. We were...
Read MoreThe Tennessee Legislature – the political equivalent of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight – has done it again. This time, it’s in playing the role that it seems to relish most – Big Brother – as its members ignore the advice...
Read MoreWell, we called it back on March 1. City of Memphis finally folded its hand against John Elkington and settled with his management company. Back in our earlier post, we asked where Mr. Elkington goes for an apology for the...
Read MoreIt’s a sign of the times, or at least a political sign of the times. As surely as elections follow campaigns, the newly elected officials see their names on government signs and photos in public buildings as the spoils of...
Read MoreWhen the topic of city-county government consolidation comes up, it’s hard to figure out if the small town mayors have more in common with Pavlov or Edgar Cayce. On one hand, like the dogs in the Russian scientist’s famous...
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by Bill Day. Memphian Bill Day is two-time winner of the RFK Journalism Award in Cartooning. His cartoons are syndicated internationally by Cagle Cartoons. Cartoons Archive →