Roy Exum
When the Hamilton County School Board holds its first monthly meeting with three newly elected members in place, the number “3” should be the first thing on the agenda. A paragraph in Wednesday’s Times Free Press said it all: “Just three students from Hamilton County Schools scored high enough to be named (National Merit) semifinalists — Allycia Lee of Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, Renee Schebler of STEM School of Chattanooga and Jared Azevedo from East Hamilton Middle-High School.”
Hamilton County had three. In New Orleans, La., they had over 100. In Fort Worth, Texas, they had 108. One school in Kentucky – Gatton High for the Arts and Sciences – had 18 of its students make the glitter list and Palo Alto, Calif., population 69,852, had 80 students named.
It hardly gives me a thrill to dole out the latest failure of the Hamilton County Department of Education, but I believe we could have had more home-schooled students make the mark. Heck, I believe we could have left every kid at home for 10 years, fed ‘em nothing but the Internet and Popular Mechanics once a month, and had more than three!
But what a starting block it gives our nine elected members, the majority of which have allowed the Hamilton County district to fall to the lowest level of any metro district in the state. If anyone doubts that the school board is not responsible for our debacle, there is enough blame to serve even the three members of the last board who were pointedly ousted by the voters last month.
So, where do we go from here?
Earlier this month Rev. Steve Highlander was elected by his peers to serve as the board’s chairman for this year while Karitsa Mosely Jones, now the lone black representative on the panel, was picked as the co-chair. Both should be held accountable, along with the other seven members, but Highlander, who has a doctorate in ministry and professes to be a devout Believer, still needs watching.
Honestly, Steve is a great guy who I have known as a friend since he was a wrestler at UTC. But friendship has nothing to do with the undeniable fact his ties with the teacher’s union run deep; his brother is a top leader in the teacher’s union and – are you kidding! -- is eager to be a player in the daily operation of the HCDE.
Get this right: the teacher’s union is believed to be the biggest reason Hamilton County teachers rank among the worst in the state because “tenure” keeps the unacceptable teachers providing unacceptable results. The facts are there and the school board must demand that status quo is quite unacceptable
If Highlander will indeed become a leader he can overcome the stigma of being the school board’s representative who only watched as Ooltewah High imploded last year. But if he uses his well-worn “good ole boy” card, heaven help us. As Karitsa Mosely, the new Mrs. Jones, showed vivacious promise with her youth and wonderful enthusiasm but, to be candid, she leaned heavily towards only black issues in her decisions last term. If she does what is best for all 42,000 students, Karitsa can make a difference.
The biggest task, of course, is the hiring of a new superintendent. It is universally agreed that Interim Superintendent Kirk Kelly and top executive Jill Levine are off to a roaring start in their partnership. Earlier this week three groups pitched their services to the school board and how the Tennessee School Board Association got into the mix defies an explanation.
The State Department of Education is all but inept, as proven by the standardized testing fiasco this spring, the ridiculous bureaucracy in Nashville and the marked lack of leadership. So now you want the School Board Association, equally calamitous, to send in a home-grown Gomer? The farther Hamilton County’s School Board can distance itself from “the state,” it will markedly improve the success rate of every child in the district.
That leaves two search firms that are within $7,000-$8,000 of one another and the board members might as well flip a coin. That’s what it seems has happened in the last three fiascos – will all three superintendents ousted – but I’ll declare we should give whoever wins heads-tails so help.
Nashville just hired what city leaders swear is “a winner” as the new school chief. Let’s write a personal letter to every other finalist. Knoxville is deep in a search right now; let’s raid their go-to list. Who would want to live in Knoxville compared to Chattanooga? Are you kidding me? And with 60 percent of our third graders unable to read at grade level, it’s a no-fail situation!
In another move earlier this week, the school board approved the $950,000 purchase of a girl’s soccer field at Ooltewah “for future expansion,” rather than a nasty Title IX threat. I can almost guarantee other schools will soon use the same blackmail techniques and, when the County Commission just dipped into county reserves for a paint-striping machine for Ooltewah, the leaky lock at the Chickamauga Dam is small potatoes compared to what the school board better know is coming.
The bullying report, stemming from an investigation by County District Attorney Neal Pinkston and Sherriff Jim Hammond, may be on tonight’s agenda. Its contents are said to be the most repugnant reflection of our public schools to date but when the county has just three National Merit Semifinalists, we have sunken so low everything looks like up from here.
royexum@aol.com