I was entering the tenth grade in 1973, when forced busing began in the city of Memphis, TN. To say that it was a time of great upheaval would be an understatement.
In my Middle Class neighborhood, in my typical Memphis City School, our administration tried to make accommodations for the new students. They decided that there would be two Sophomore Commissioners on the Student Council, a White one and a Black one. I was elected as the White Commissioner, and the last I heard of the fellow who became the Black Commissioner, he was a Doctor at Johns Hopkins.
And now, 40 years later, students in the Former Shelby County School System, are beginning to enter their own “Brave New World.”.
You see, a couple of years ago, the then overwhelmingly majority-Black Memphis City School System was swirling down the ol’ porcelain receptacle at an alarming rate. Decades of poor management and fiscal irresponsibility had taken a fatal toll. The City School Board was besieged by parents and city leaders alike, wanting them to actually do their jobs, and turn the struggling school system around. Of course, neither they, nor the school system’s overpaid administration had a clue as to how to actually be fiscally responsible leaders.
So, one of the mountebanks on the school board had an idea: Surrender the System’s Charter to the state, thereby dissolving the System, and forcing a merger with the fiscally sound, White-majority Shelby County School System.
In fact, in the “interest of fairness”, they held a referendum to allow the citizens to vote on whether to merge the school systems or not. The motion overwhelmingly passed.
Of course, the fact that they only allowed Memphis residents, and not the entire county to vote on the measure, probably had something to do with the outcome, don’t ya think?
An Interim School Board was formed, whose make-up just happens to have more representatives from the city system on it than the county’s. (Yeah. I was shocked, too. …Not.)
Then a discussion was started as to which School Superintendent to keep, the City’s or the County’s.
They “compromised” and gave both of them the boot.
But, not so fast. Again, “in the interest of fairness”, an attorney for the City Schools was made the new Superintendent. (Are you catching on, yet?)
Sounds like things were going just as the City School Board’s Professional Politicians planned, huh?
Well, in every life a little rain must fall. The Tennessee State Legislature ruled that the municipalities in the county could form their own separate school systems, if their citizens voted for it.
They did. (Dateline: July 16, 2013)
Voters in six Memphis suburbs decided Tuesday [July to start public school districts in the municipalities where they live.
Residents of Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland and Millington overwhelmingly approved separate school systems in the second vote on the issue in less than a year. A federal judge invalidated the first vote.
More than 90 percent of voters in four of the six suburbs voted to approve new school systems, according to the Shelby County Election Commission. Eighty-seven percent of voters in Lakeland and 74 percent in Millington voted “yes.”
The suburbs want to avoid the massive merger between the struggling Memphis City Schools system and the more successful Shelby County Schools system. Suburban leaders and many parents fear that education quality and academic achievement will suffer if they join the huge merged system — known as the Unified School District — and they want control of their own school systems.
The merger, which has created a school system of 150,000 students, is to begin operating when classes start in August. Experts say the merger represents one of the largest school consolidations in decades.
But the makeup of that system could only last a year — the six new suburban systems could start operating in 2014.
Critics say the suburban separation will hamper the massive consolidation efforts, which have included intense budget battles and layoffs of hundreds of teachers and office employees. Some board members in the unified district worry about losing quality teachers and administrators to the new districts. They also stand to lose valuable tax dollars to the breakaway systems.
But the six suburbs have been galvanized in their efforts, spending hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars in a campaign that has included community meetings, public rallies and a bitter legal fight in federal court. All six municipalities already have voted to raise taxes to pay for schools.
A judge in November ruled that the earlier suburban schools vote in August 2012 violated the Tennessee constitution because it dealt with only one county. Lawmakers in Nashville wrote and passed a new law that applied statewide and allowed Tuesday’s vote.
You know , I saw yesterday where Nancy Pelosi and her Liberal brethren want to have a “National Conversation on Race”, in the wake of George Zimmerman being found not guilty of murder, in the case of Trayvon Martin.
This would not be a conversation, it would be a lecture, given by a bunch of didactic, pompous Liberals, who believe that they are smarter than average Americans.
Just like the Memphis City School Board thought that they were being smart by completely destroying what was once an award-winning school system, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, or lack thereof.
Do you see the parallel, boys and girls?
Liberals overestimate their own intelligence…and nothing good ever comes from it.
Until He Comes,
KJ
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