Roy Exum: A One-Sided Opportunity

  • Wednesday, April 26, 2017
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

State education commissioner Candace McQueen has apparently fallen and hit her head. She most certainly needs to be examined after she came to Chattanooga on Monday and told the Times-Free Press about an exciting “partnership.” Are you kidding me? Despite the newspaper’s editors actually touting the venture as “promising,” the lady is clearly dancing by herself. With her Achievement School District idea floundering in Memphis, I fear this poor woman must stay up at night devising one wacky idea after another.

We’ve been threatened for a year that the state was going to take over five of our worst performing schools. We’ve also watched a bizarre fiasco unfold in Memphis, where 31 schools were taken over in the last five years by the state in the belief somebody in Nashville is smarter than somebody in Memphis. Guess what? The ASD test scores have repeatedly proven you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken feathers, and the idea of bringing for-profit operators into inner-city Memphis is and forever will be totally ridiculous.

But you want to hear “promising?” Suddenly there are 45 charter schools in Shelby County and – Hello! -- right now there are 14 applications for that many more charter schools next year. That’s amazing, isn’t it? Think about that and ask yourself the real reason. “Why?” (A charter school is a term for a school that receives public funding but … er, uh … operates independently of the established public school system in which it is located.)

So now clever Candace has time to focus on Chattanooga and tells us the state will take over the operations of Orchard Knob Elementary, Orchard Knob Middle, Dalewood, Brainerd and Woodmore but – whoa! – she’s got an even better bargain. She wants to be Hamilton County’s partner. She even called County Mayor Jim Coppinger she is so excited. Yes!

You need to understand the partnership will have her own superintendent, her own administration, her own school board (selected, not elected), and she’ll pick the principals and teachers and stuff. Hamilton County will get to provide the buildings and the kids. Is it great to work together, hand in hand, or what?

The best part is nobody in Hamilton County has to think about what is best for our children any more. Face it – It’s a given that Chattanooga people ain’t nearly as crystal about what’s best for Hamilton County as what comes out of Nashville. It’s true …. Just go to Memphis and ask around. Then look at what’s really happening … my goodness, even the Shelby County Commission has joined the circus; they are indignant that teachers are evaluated by test scores. (It is believed over half of the teachers in the state will quit in the next ten years. Why?)

The Times Free Press quoted everybody present and all oozed about what “a great opportunity” the partnership will be but, lordy, I don’t know how much more “opportunity” any of us can stomach:

* -- We’ve got an “opportunity” to balance the budget after 12 years of no additional taxes this week.

* -- We’ve got an “opportunity” to ask the county commissioners for $24 million in additional memo because the revenue shortfall now so critical.

* -- We’ve got an “opportunity” to begin to interview some superintendent candidates after over a year of just wandering around in education’s desert.

* -- We’ve got an “opportunity” to make $325 million in repairs to our physical building that average standing for over 40 years.

* -- We’ve got an “opportunity” to build a new school; mind you not even one school is on any architect’s table.

* -- We’ve got an “opportunity” to ignore the population explosion in the Ooltewah area, where some schools are literally in danger of the Fire Marshall doing his duty.

* -- We’ve got a “promising” opportunity from the state to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars we do not have, for schools we will no longer have, on students we will no longer have, because that’s what poverty does when schools and families and children have no money.

Please, we’ve got the “opportunity” to a hundred more things but what we do not have is any choice but to be Commissioner’s McQueen partner. Get this straight -- if the duly-elected school board votes against the most one-sided partnership since the Federal Government “helped” the American Indians, our public servant McQueen will simply snatch up the keys to the five schools named, add up to at least ten others teetering on the wire, and show us what a real education is all about.

McQueen knows her Achievement School District folly is doomed. The financially-rocked Shelby County Schools have initiated what they call the iZone and claim it has better results. Further, the Shelby County schools are now somewhat bitterly competing with the ASD for students, especially in neighborhoods losing populations, and as a result, the students are victims because resources (money) is split.

I have solid reasons to believe our problem schools are making progress and I have been to Orchard Knob Elementary where I am absolutely certain an outsider is not needed. I also know our new Partnership is going to cost a lot more money that we do not have. In Chattanooga we have a $24 million budget shortfall. In Tennessee our teachers rank 37th in the United States in what they are paid.

Not only can we not afford foolish and unnecessary ideas from Nashville, it is incumbent on our state representatives in the legislature to stop our Commissioner of Education from creating another Memphis in Chattanooga. The abysmal Achievement School District has torn Shelby County apart. Now she wants to spread the plague when, in fact, we can handle our poor-performing schools far much better than anybody else in Tennessee.

Yes, indeed, we are paying mightily for about 15 years of leadership horrors – by both the school board and the county commission for allow an overall blight. In the past year there has been a harsh review of public education. It is appalling but having the state Dept. of Education slam Hamilton County in the kisser right now is the very last thing that needs to take place.

We need Governor Haslam, the Chattanooga delegation in Nashville, and taxpayers everywhere to stop this nonsense. I can guarantee you that Chattanooga in unique. I can guarantee you people in this community have a far better pulse on our city than anyone over 100 miles away. What Candace McQueen is inflicting on our city is totally wrong and hardly welcomed when we are seeking so many other true “opportunities.”

And I can easily identify exactly who will pay the price for this ruse – the man or woman you see in your mirror.

* * *

WITH THE SCHOOL Board flirting with “free choice,” would a parent want their child at a “partnership” school or a county school? Oh, let me guess. And with state forcing its whims on Hamilton County, wouldn’t it be just perfect to allow our kids to go to the school of their choice? The Guv would have to call out the Guard.

* * *

UNDER THE PROPOSED plan, the state will appoint 60 percent of the partnership board and the school board, which is elected, will appoint 40 percent of the selected board. Why? We have an elected group here, a selected group there, when one or the other seems a waste. What? You smell politics? A hidden agenda? You now smell a fish? Well, I’ll say …

* * *

THE CHARTER-SCHOOL explosion makes you wonder why some communities like East Ridge, Ooltewah, Soddy-Daisy and some others don’t think about it. If Signal Mountain schools became charter schools, how would that differ than if they started their own district?

* * *

A NATIONAL NON-PROFIT organization called Empower Schools accompanied Commissioner McQueen as she revealed her takeover and that is sure to please some of the elected school board members who are concerned we don’t have enough non-profits helping the public schools. Then again, if Hamilton County is incapable of handling its troubled schools, why does the state need to bring in carpet-baggers? It is quite confusing.

royexum@aol.com

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