As I write this post on a  Monday morning, just across the state line, in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, municipal authorities, the Memphis City School Board, and the administrators of Booker T. Washington High School are preparing for a very special graduation speaker:  President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm).

This is his first trip to Memphis as president.

Vice-President Joe Biden notified Principal Alisha Kiner of the news last Tuesday:

He first congratulated me. He called me by my first name, so I know we are friends.

She announced the news to the student body in the auditorium in a scene that quickly became reminiscent of a University of Memphis Tigers Basketball Game:

…When they ask you how it feels to be in the bottom three (of schools vying for a visit from Obama), tell them you have no idea, because you won!

Principal Kiner says that when she meets the president, she intends to thank him “for validating the work my kids have done.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said minutes after it became official:

I’m ecstatic. I almost came to tears. Booker T. Washington students will have the memory of a lifetime.

According to Cohen, the decisive factor was “not a red-state, blue-state thing,” but the presentation the students made with their video.

The president’s visit is a result of Booker T.’s win in the White House’s Race to the Top Commencement Challenge, in which students were asked to submit an essay and optional video of why the president should choose them.

BTW was one among hundreds of entries.

Quite remarkable in any circumstance, but astronomical considering the condition of the school’s neighborhood and the school system that they are a part of.

The Memphis Housing Authority announced last year that it was demolishing 650-unit Cleaborn Homes last year, putting BTW in danger of losing half its student body overnight.

The Memphis City School Board no longer legally exists.  As I reported on February 13th, in my post, A Scholastic Soap Opera in Memphis:

After over 30 years of mismanagement, poor stewardship, and the downright dumbing-down of an excellent school system, the politicians of the city of Memphis, including the School Board, the City Council, and the Mayor, himself, have decided that they will surrender the charter of the Memphis City Schools System in order to merge with the Shelby County School System…by any means necessary.

After the citizens voted down consolidation of city and county services last November, the Memphis City School Board , in an attempt to save their failing school system and their phony baloney jobs, came up with the plan to surrender their charter, thereby forcing consolidation with the Shelby County Schools.

In the last few days, things have really come to a head in this scholastic soap opera:

• The Memphis City School Board voted Monday night, December 20th, 2010 to let City voters decide on March 8th whether to surrender its charter. (UPDATE:  Memphis City Voters cast their vote in favor of surrendering the charter.)
• On Thursday, February 10th, 2011, the Memphis City Council voted 10 – 0 to accept the decision by the Memphis City Schools Board of Education to surrender its charter, wiping out the city school board in one vote.
• On Friday, February 11th, 2011, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslan signed into law a measure designed to delay any merger between the two systems.

And, through all of this, the wishes of the Shelby County School Board and the citizens that it represents have been tossed aside, because…wait for it…it’s for the children.

So, Friday night, February 11th, 2011, Shelby County School District leaders filed a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that the city school board’s “irrational” charter surrender deprives Memphis students of their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit also attacks the city of Memphis and the Memphis City Council for supporting “the (MCS) board’s unplanned and un-thoughtful effort to abandon its obligations to the children of Memphis.”

According to the lawsuit:

It is legally and factually impossible for the Shelby County Schools to immediately begin to operate the City of Memphis public school system without the employment of a thoughtful plan of transition.

…The Memphis City Schools and the Memphis City Council have failed and refused to follow any such procedures and have created, thereby, a chaotic and dangerous vacuum by ending the legal foundation for the operation of the public schools of the City of Memphis.

Martavius Jones, the city school board member who sponsored the resolution surrendering the charter, was just a wee bit upset:

The outrageousness of all of this is that Memphis is part of Shelby County.

We’re using Memphis tax dollars to sue Memphis out of its right and the obligation Shelby County Schools has to educate all children in Shelby County.

What about your obligation to clean up your own house, Martavius?

The County School Boards asks in the lawsuit for a speedy hearing in federal court. They also ask that for a judge to either strike down the MCS charter surrender or set a date when a transfer of MCS to SCS would take effect.

SCS board chairman David Pickler said:

We’re looking at the threat of real, irreparable harm to the children of Memphis and Shelby County Schools.

Multiple defendants have been named in the lawsuit, including the MCS Board of Education, the City Council, the City of Memphis, the U.S. Department of Education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, the Tennessee Department of Education and Acting Education Commissioner Patrick Smith.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and Council Chairman Myron Lowery announced at a press conference earlier Friday that the city had already begun contemplating how it would proceed with its own legal actions.

According to Mayor Wharton, the Council was forced to act when Norris and suburban Republican state legislators “changed the rules midstream” by passing legislation to affect the charter surrender process that started last year.

Nobody on the Council was picking a fight on this. The only time the Council got going was when the legislature got going.

Not responding specifically to the Shelby County Board’s lawsuit, Wharton said Memphis City Schools acted in accordance with those procedures set out “in this nation of laws.”

According to Wharton, state law and the Shelby County charter require the county school board to be responsible for “every child in Shelby County, Tennessee”.   He went on, comparing the city school system “to a babysitter who babysat those kids for a couple of decades and they are now saying we are bringing your children back to you.”

The students of Booker T. Washington have overcome the odds.
Last year, BTW outdid state requirements in Algebra I by 27 percentage points. Its graduation rate climbed from 55 percent in 2007 to 81.6 percent in 2010.

In spite of parents, politicians, and school administrators who have eschewed personal responsibility, earning Memphis the nickname of “Detroit South” and creating a school system reminiscent of Lean on Me or Jim Belushi’s movie The Principal, the students at Booker T. have not only perservered, they’ve thrived.

This is their day.  Congratulations, Warriors (their school mascot).  You’ve earned it.