Roy Exum
AN OPEN LETTER TO GOV. BILL HASLAM …
Greetings to you, my friend. You know with one more year on the course we have sailed during your two terms as the leader of our state you will go down as one of the greatest governors we have ever had. It stands to reason you eye Lamar Alexander’s Senate seat, but whatever you do it will be hard to replicate your service to Tennessee and for this we are thankful.
That said, we need to avoid certain unpleasantness that has befallen Chattanooga.
I wrote you about 10 days ago over the absolute travesty your Commissioner of Education is attempting with five of our poorest schools in Chattanooga. One of the guys in your outer office sent me “Form Letter B” in return and that’s okay.
What I must tell you is far more serious and the best way to do this is head on; let’s get it out in the open. It’s worse, yes sir, I’m afraid she will be long remembered for much larger failures than the way she tore public education asunder in Memphis after splashing through that $500 million “Reach for the Top” federal grant.
Imagine how this reflects on your otherwise magnificent administration: For the past three years students across Tennessee have been promised by the State Department of Education that the results of one statewide test will factor into each one’s final grades. Sir, for the third straight year your State Department of Education has failed to fulfill this promise. I am talking three straight years of “no show” to every graduating senior in the state. Comparatively, our five iZone schools ain’t yet goose eggs, 0.00 percent.
I believe the time has come, while it is regretful but necessary for you as our leader, to consider mandatory oversight for Commissioner Candice McQueen. Her success rate doesn’t even have a pulse! Even if she is finally able to pull it off in Fiscal Year 2018, your Commissioner will depart her post with a paltry .250 success rate. You and I will agree that will most assuredly be in the bottom percentile of secondary education in all 49 of the other United States. This should be totally unacceptable to our Legislature but, hey, you know those people better than I do. Hubba, hubba, Bubba -- right?
Even non-Christians and Democrats most especially wonder how in the world this woman can sit in judgement of anyone. My goodness, she goes oh-for-three in a strike-out so glaring that we would not allow a similar child to advance to the next grade!
Just weeks ago McQueen publicly announced this year’s effort was “a wonderful success” yet not one of the state’s biggest school districts received results to be factored in their final report cards. Hello – there has never been a commissioner in state government so disillusioned. I mean this – ‘No Mas’ as they yell in our second-language programs.
One metro superintendent noted, “For the past three years, we have told students that their test scores will count in their final grade, but for the same three years, the state has not been able to get the grades back to us in time. Obviously, this misleads our students and creates a ‘boy who cried wolf’ scenario.”
In Memphis, Superintendent Dorsey Hopson was disappointed, “There’s a lot of discussion about too many tests, and I think any time you have a situation where you advertise the tests are going to be used for one thing and then we don’t get the data back, it becomes frustrating for students and families. But that’s not in our control,” he said Tuesday night.
Should McQueen be held accountable? She’s the captain of her ship. She was a reflection of state government in its very worst light with her “partnership” idea based on the Communist Party ideology. “We’re here to help,” they beg us to believe, yet want to “appoint” a school board to supersede those who we, the people, have elected. She wants to give us $1 million in state money to “plan” followed by another $500,000 in 2019.
Stalin loved this trick, but in a five-year contract that Hamilton County is coerced to sign with the state, McQueen must know she will have no say after she departs her position after the first year. That’s when you see the hammer-and-cycle … or, as they say in the horror movies, “when the gorilla gets you in the end!”
And let me point this out, my friend, the next Tennessee governor ain’t about to touch anybody who can’t deliver … I don’t care who is her friend in Knoxville. Results are not McQueen’s strong suit.
The five schools Candice has stealthily eyed are most certainly in need of our attention. We know that far better than anyone outside of Hamilton County’s confines. But, if you’ll send Cissy (your lovely wife) down to tour any of the five with me instead of the state Department of Education “photo-op” crowd, Mrs. Haslam will be amazed by the truth. I can convince her and any doubters who may accompany her, this in short order, that we are most definitely “making progress” in our most-challenged poverty neighborhoods. I have personally seen it, I can prove it, and her eyes can confirm it.
To be totally frank, public education in Chattanooga has fallen badly in 10 of the last 11 years. Suffice it to say, in polite-speak, the last three superintendents have left prematurely in the last 10 and our School Board leadership has failed. But in the last year, with an intense light directed at public education due to public outrage, our County Department of Education has worked tirelessly to straighten out what we readily admit was a mess. If progress is needed to free our five hijacked schools, we can prove it is well underway. We have progress at our hijacked schools!
What so many are beginning to realize is that the face of education is changing dramatically. It is time for us to recognize “the total child.” In Memphis, Superintendent Hopson wants to begin 12-month schools. This would be a Godsend, not just educationally but morally and ethically as well. We have children in our iZones who don’t eat after we provide breakfast and lunch each day. We have children who need, and want, and deserve structured “day care,” for lack of a better term.
I fear those in Nashville Ivory Towers cannot understand judging one and all by one test is a foolish exercise. Rather than put these schools in the now-doomed Achievement School District, we need to temper any five-year decision with far-reaching caution.
The new Washington budget allegedly calls for a $1 billion (with a ‘b’) cut to Title 1 monies. Sir, 46 of our 76 district schools are designated Title 1. They will most definitely need to be redefined. Any five-year plan is outrageous when you factor in the unknown consequences that will certainly accompany any federal education overhaul.
Tonight the Hamilton County School Board will narrow down the nine “finalists” to become our next Superintendent to five “final finalists.” (Whoa, you are in politics, far be it for me to explain!) They will soon schedule personal interviews, tours, and give four “first runner-ups) a little thrill. The “pick” will peacock sometime in mid-June and it is only fair she has a chance to take Candice’s pulse (0.00) before we are forced to answer an ultimatum “where ‘no’ is not an option.” (Beautiful, Just beautiful.)
Please Governor, I ask only that you place Candice McQueen’s terribly-tilted ultimatum to the Hamilton County School Board in front of your brother Jim and ask for his honest evaluation. “Big Jim,” your daddy, would not have tolerated this for five seconds and I know this because I have followed the Haslam men for 50 years.
McQueen had picked a group out of Boston to help chart our course when, in fact, they have only a two-year model to show. If they were the greatest miracle drug ever, not even the FDA would approve such a ridiculous rush. There is no possible way they can assure success in Chattanooga because they have no basis for fact. And, remember, this is the same member of your cabinet that has failed the state’s students’ final grades for the past three consecutive years. There is no way you’d let her pick your gall stones doctor.
Bill, forgive me if I sound harsh but desperate men employ desperate measures. I feel sorry for you and Cissy, that McQueen has placed you and your cabinet under such a pall. It may be time for Mrs. Haslam to summon Candice to the mansion, to pour hot tea and tell her in Mrs. Haslam’s most motherly words, “Quit acting like you are a Democrat. It is embarrassing. You mustn’t be so foolish and reckless.”
I join you in the hope Mrs. Haslam will have some success with Candice McQueen.
They are dedicating our new Children’s Hospital down here in a couple of weeks and I hope to see you there. It will be magnificent and a great credit to our region. It will serve every child in a 100-mile radius, including the 2,600 at the five iZone schools now imperiled by Candice McQueen. These are our very weakest children. They don’t need any more trauma. Set these children free!
Let’s talk some time about who you want to follow you. Your successor must be able to move the banner forward and our state must progress and thrive. This is where we live and Communist ideology will never work here.
You can count on me, Roy*
NOTE: * -- When Civil War hero J.E.B. Stuart would ride into battle, he cultivated a cavalier image (red-lined gray cape, yellow sash, hat cocked to the side with an ostrich plume, red flower in his lapel, often sporting cologne). He was sometimes called the “Knight” because he inspired Southern morale and was such a good rider on his equally-fabled horse, “Skylark.” Born on a Virginia plantation and a graduate of West Point, “Jeb” was widely considered to be the best cavalry officer ever ‘foaled’ in the United States. He was also the only man who could – or dared – make Stonewall Jackson laugh. At the end of every message to General Lee, he would sign each the same way, to the delight of the entire Confederacy, “You can count on me, Jeb.”
royexum@aol.com