The terrible tragedy involving the Ooltewah High School basketball team has obviously struck more than a match in our community. Yet it appears life in the administration of our school system will continue largely unchanged save for some minor public relations optics. Were this awful event the only material problem facing our county school system, it might be possible to conclude that no change in the management system under which the schools operate is required. But sadly it is not.
Our schools are---as I understand it—the worst in the state. We have been failing far too many children for far too many years. Against the backdrop of so many children whose future lives and prospects have been, and continue to be, openly gutted under a failing public education system, we can no longer simply shrug our shoulders and wonder how we got here. We need to recognize that current conditions are the product of human hands. We need to take ownership of the problem.
The process for taking ownership begins by recognizing the obvious, namely, that our schools are operated under a system that has failed us for far too long not to be embarrassed by it. State law divides the operation of our schools between a County Commission responsible for providing funding, and a school board tasked with day to day operational responsibility. See, in particular, Parts 1 and 2 of Chapter 2 of Title 49 of the Tennessee Code, T.C.A. 49-2-101, et. seq.
But the problem is much more profound than the types of problems so often associated with divided management structures. It is a system that fails to account for electoral infirmities, and the ability of busy citizens to make wise and well informed decisions on school board candidates. This is not to say that well qualified candidates have not been elected. I simply knew next of nothing about the issues recited by Rhonda Thurman in a recent letter to the Chattanoogan. In fact, embarrassing as it may be to admit, I know the name of only one current school board member (though I used to know two names). I suspect I am not all that far behind a great many citizens. It is hard enough for citizens to make an informed decision about candidates for county mayor and the County Commission. Expecting voters to make informed decisions about school board candidates is, I believe, a bridge too far in terms of the world of rational expectations. I suspect many people who watched the recent school board meetings regarding Superintendent Smith might readily concur. We have, in a pejorative sense, earned what we have gotten—we have been voting for it election after election.
It is time for our state representatives to draft legislation which would allow counties, by public referendum, to jettison the current school management structure, and move to a consolidated management structure with the schools being managed by a superintendent reporting to the county mayor and serving at the pleasure of the County Commission. Public input on legislative details should be sought, and it is probably too late on the current legislative calendar to move legislation this year. But there is no reason it could not be moved forward and enacted early next year.
Placing school management within a single governmental body—especially the preeminent governmental body in any county -– will lead to more focused public awareness and scrutiny. It will no less importantly impose a focused sense of responsibility on the primary elected leaders of the county.
The importance of our school system and its success plainly merits the attention of our primary elected leaders. They should be accountable for its success or failure. Expanding the importance of the County Commission may also attract more and better candidates leading to better decisions across the board for all county functions.
Having said all of this, I freely admit the proposed management structure may have its own faults. The more important question to me, however, is whether it could be worse than what we currently have.
David R. Evans
Signal Mountain
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I find your desire to radically change the school board/director of schools (superintendent) system we currently have is as highly unlikely.
Your admission of ignorance about Rhonda Thurman's comments also show that you have been unaware of what has been happening in the schools until the recent controversies.
Mr. Evans, the relationship between the director or schools and board did radically change in the 1990s giving the director fall more responsibilities and authority than in the first 90 years of that century. And it changed the focus of the board of education as well.
What you are suggesting as a change is called an independent school district (you might research this especially in Kentucky). The school board has more authority than what we have as well as the authority to set the tax rate. In Tennessee, the county commission has that authority and is very unlikely to to give that up.
If you think the Tennessee legislature and the County Commissions are going to jump on that band wagon to change to this form of government, you are dreaming. It didn't happen over the last 45 years and won't happen in the foreseeable future.
I would further suggest you contact Ms Thurman and ask her to clarify her comments. She was exactly right in everything she said regarding spending, initiatives, votes and the single track system which almost every teacher opposed.
And if you are wondering why the other major school districts in Tennessee did not drop so drastically when the state testing got more challenging, you might ask how many of them are single path.
Ralph Miller