Bruce please expand your concern to teachers and administrators who either send their children to private schools or live in a different county. It's like a chef who won't eat his or her own food.

I believe most people who make this argument understand that there are many reasons for choosing public school over private that have nothing to do with either political conviction or a belief that the zoned school provides the best possible education. (Cost comes to mind first, of course, but there are others.) Why is it so hard to believe that there are also reasons for choosing private school that have nothing to do with a lack of commitment to public schools? Or even a belief that the zoned school can't provide a good education?

After 10 years in Metro-- during which our children were taught by wonderful teachers, provided with adequate technology, and educated according to a mostly effective curriculum-- we took our kids out of the system because the school could not protect one of them from constant and unprovoked bullying. Until your child comes home from school every single day weeping because the entire class has refused to sit with him at lunch or play with him at recess, because other children hiss at him whenever he walks past-- "nerd!" "loser!" "fag"-- and this behavior continues for an entire school year despite regular parental consultations with the classroom teacher and school counselor, I dare say you don't know what you would do about your political convictions regarding public schools. Or maybe you do. But for me, it will always be impossible to choose an ideal over a suffering human being, especially one whose safety and happiness are in my charge.

I'm offended when I hear other parents argue, and they have, that such a decision makes me one of the city's "elite" who have "abandoned" the system. It's a reductive, narrow minded argument, and it's a rude way to treat a fellow citizen. I don't know why Karl Dean and Alan Coverstone have chosen private schools, but I don't assume they are elitists in doing so. And running for school board doesn't strike me as a very effective way to "abandon" the school system.

Bruce --

Very well done. Needed to be said. Coverstone's been getting a pass on this kind of thing for way too long.

For all the Bruce Barry bashers out there on the right, I will repeat what I have always said is Bruce's most admirable quality: that when it comes to public education, at least he puts his money where his mouth is.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Margaret, but I fear you are largely missing my point (perhaps I didn't express it clearly enough). My 'political convictions' about public schools wouldn't trump a child's abject misery in a situation such as you describe. I can imagine a number of circumstances where a parent's decision to go private is a reasonable personal choice that suits personal circumstances, and I can see myself in that circumstance. I certainly did not argue that the act of choosing to send a kid to private school makes you (or Karl Dean or Alan Coverstone or anyone else) some sort of off-putting "elite." The problem is not that going private produces elites; the problem is that elites go private: Those who are influential (because, for instance, they are well-connected, well-heeled, and seek elective office in the jurisdiction that runs the public schools) contribute to neglect of the system by avoiding it, and owe constituents an explanation as to why they choose not to use a system that most parents in the city have no option to avoid. In your comment you offered a concrete and somewhat detailed explanation of what led you to exit the system, not some vague "it's what we think is best" platitude. You were kind enought to share your reasons; I happen to think that elected officials who govern the city and the school system, and those who wish to serve in those roles, are ethically obliged to do so.

I gave you my reasons, yes, but I didn't sign my last name to my post-- not because I don't stand by them, but because they are potentially embarrassing to my child and so I prefer to keep them private. Which you may grant is my right as someone who is not seeking elected office. But I'm willing to concede that someone who is running for public office might be equally reluctant to reveal an experience that has legitimately soured him or her on some part of public education.

And it needn't be a reason that embarrasses the family; it might be a reason that embarrasses the school system. I have a friend whose third grader was a student in the classroom of a teacher so thoroughly incompetent that she could not herself spell correctly many of the words on the third-grade spelling list. Is that the kind of example you could provide if you were running for public office? Of course not. It would be political suicide to say that there are demonstrably incompetent teachers in Metro who, because they are tenured, will nonetheless be teaching as long as they care to teach.

It's all well and good to say that when people of means leave the system they contribute to its decay, but in fact there's little reason to believe that their staying *in* the system would actually help all that much. Yes, there might be more parents volunteering with the tutoring program or helping to raise money for library books, but those are relatively minor boons that benefit an individual school. What's ailing Metro schools is much larger than any problem that can be aided by a bake sale or an hour of story time. Involved parents-- no matter how wealthy, educated, or passionate-- cannot rid the system of incompetent teachers, or prevent system resources from being diverted to ridiculous "improvement" efforts like requiring standard school attire, or fight pedagogically unsound requirements like the cancelling of recess to allow for more standardized test-prep time, or reduce the number of students in each class, or require adequate resources for special-ed students, or meet any of the many other urgent needs of Metro schools. To do those things, you have to be more than an involved parent. You have to become, just for one example, a school board member.

It's all well and good to say that when people of means leave the system they contribute to its decay, but in fact there's little reason to believe that their staying *in* the system would actually help all that much....Involved parents--no matter how wealthy, educated, or passionate--cannot...

I disagree sharply with the assertion that involved parents, no matter how well situated or influential, cannot have an effect on some of these outcomes. As a kind of illustration, take the recent abdication of Pedro Garcia. In the last round of school board elections, we had civic movers and shakers, few if any of whom were personally and directly involved in the system as public school parents, investing copious political capital and economic resources into defeating school board members who saw Garcia's charade for what it was and concluded it was time for him to go. A whole lot of parents in the system and many teachers and administrators understood the system's manifest dysfunction and saw through the administration's cynical manipulation of staff morale and academic outcomes, but they lacked the political clout to overcome the Chamber crowd's slavish devotion to their man Garcia. Fast forward a couple of years and you have a system in near receivership, the director sent packing, and less satisfaction and more flight to privates than ever. Do parents who bail on the school system bear some responsibility for this nonsense and a lot of the other silly "improvement" efforts you listed, when their presence and activism might have played a meaningful role in helping prevent it in the first place? You bet they do.

Sure, any one family's departure won't make much difference, but public education is fundamentally a collective action problem. The ease with which one person can mollify his or her own conscience by focusing on the finite consequences of individual choice masks the reality that when a lot of people make the same choice, collective outcomes (including harms) ensue.

Thanks again, Bruce. I see examples all over the city of how parents have made a difference in our public schools right now: Lockeland, Carter Lawrence, Jones Paideia, Glendale,Croft,Two Rivers, West End, Hull Jackson. It takes a critical mass of parents and teachers working with the principal to make a school work. I can remember when Hume Fogg and MLK started and involved parents were painting and repairing buildings and begging fellow parents to take a risk and send their children to schools in downtown Nashville.

This isn't about a liberal's attempt to mollify her own conscience for bailing on Metro schools. This is about logic. For the 10 years that I *was* a Metro parent I was also a very involved one, at least in the ways that it is possible to be involved at the school level. But there's a difference in being an involved parent and being an activist. You seem to be imagining a scenario in which all the parents of current private school students returned to Metro to become public school activists, and that's just not what would happen. It already doesn't happen, even in Metro schools where the parents are very involved. When people have jobs, and a couple of kids in soccer and Scouts, and needy older parents, and taxes to file and grass to cut and groceries to buy, and whatever else most people have to fit into a day, the idea of taking on an entrenched system that's utterly hostile to parent input doesn't look too appealing. It looks, in fact, like tilting at windmills.

The irony of a metro-sized school district is that it protects the interests of the whole far more successfully than would be the case if Belle Meade and Forest Hills and Green Hills and West Meade and Hillwood, etc., all had their own systems to fund lavishly with their own property taxes while showing no interest in the children of their less-well-off neighbors a few miles away. But at the same time, the scale of such a system makes it unresponsive to parents in any given school. Or parents generally, for that matter. There are a lot of parents in Metro schools already, and they couldn't chase Pedro Garcia away with a stick, as you point out. How would adding more people for him to ignore have changed the outcome at all?

With elected officials, the real question isn't whether they send their children to Metro schools. It's whether they understand that it's in everyone's own self-interest as members of a republic to ensure that the future voters of this country are educated, that it's the moral obligation of a civilized society to provide all children with the opportunities that a great education offers, and that this kind of education costs a whole lot of money which they should stand ready to provide, whatever the political consequences. Beyond that, if they also show up at a Metro school for PTO night, so much the better. But enrolling kids in public school is not reasonable litmus test for someone running for office in a city whose school system suffers from, in your words, manifest dysfunction.

When educated, thoughtful parents who see the intrinsic value of a liberal education for citizenship, democracy, and a good society tune out, much of the system is left at the mercy of agents of influence who regard the public school system not as a path to opportunity for their kids, but as a vehicle for training their own notion of a future workforce (or reserve army of the unemployed, if you want to get really cynical about it). That kind of thinking, in turn, yields some of the sort of administrative misadventures we've experience over the past several years. Margaret, you seem to believe that more parents of (educational/social/financial) means in the system will make no difference and change none of these outcomes. That's a level of pessimism I happen not to share. I do agree with you that for elected officials, a solid grasp on where the system needs to go might be more important than where they send their kids. But absent a personal connection to the existing system, there is less understanding of both the distance to be traveled and of the plight of those lying trampled in the road along the way.

And let's not forget my original position: I don't think that elected officials have to send their kids to public schools; they have to say candidly and forthrightly why they won't.

I don't like to think of myself as a pessamist on any subject, but about this one I guess I'd have to agree with your assessment. I will say, though, that 10 years of effort that makes no discernible difference at all can beat a lot of optimism out of a person.

But I disagree with your fundamental assumption here-- that the parents of public-school children are in a position to know or care more about what happens in Metro schools than everyone else. It's not inevitable that people who exit the system will also tune out. (Nor, by the way, is everyone *in* the system now tuned in.) I care deeply and I follow events carefully, as I believe all invested citizens must and many already do. (How's that for optimism?) More to the point, however, I don't believe it's fair to assume that political candidates are less likely to feel invested in the public schools merely because they have chosen a private school for one or more of their children.

And let's not forget my own original point: There are some justifiable reasons for departing the Metro school system, but some of them are politically inexpedient to mention, and some of them are just nobody else's business.

And there I think we will simply have to agree to disagree.

Though I *can* agree with you on the spelling of pessimist.

So, as long as you have the free quasi-private schools, the magnet schools, to deal with the "truly caring" then, well, all should be happy. As I recall bb sends his to magnet schools.

What's the problem?

Let's get back to the original purpose of this discussion. Coverstone is sending his oldest to USN because he believes HG Hill to be an inferior educational choice. Unfortunately, many of us would agree. His children have never, ever attended a zoned school. This family is magnet or private like so many families in our district. I like Alan and I think he is a good guy. He believes he can help change things and that's great. But he would have a lot more credibility if he ate the home cookin' - if he invested his own offspring. Maybe he should just say, "I don't think my zoned middle school is good enough and I'm running for the BOE because I don't want you, my neighbors, to have to send your child to private like I feel I must. Vote for me and I'll try and make all the zoned middle schools step up to my standards". At least that would be honest and direct.

We need a market driven system. If the public schools want to bring back folks who have left, then they will have to differentiate the product. There has always been a tremendous amount of "shouldism" in MNPS and all public education rather than responding to needs or wants. Private schools have very carefully differentiated to meet demand. People perceive they're getting a better product but not necessarily: it just meets whatever need they have decided they missed whether it be academics, safety, religious instruction. sports or arts emphasis. Public schools need more magnets, charter schools or whatever you want to create so that people feel they have some choice and chose their child's educational community. That's why redrawing district lines creates havoc: many people with children chose to live close to schools they want to attend because of geographical zoning. There might be more productive ways to assign students but no one trys to color outside the lines.

Bruce,

On a side note, I encourage you to check out the voting records of some of the other candidates running against Alan Coverstone. I think it would surprise you that at least one has never even voted in a school board election. You tell me, which is worse, sending your kid to private school while running for a board of education position over public schools or having never cared enough to vote in a previous school board election that you are now asking for that district's vote for the school board?

Bruce, I'm so glad you put this issue into discussion. I live in an area of town with excellent schools, yet know so many of my neighbors (who can honestly only be described as "elites" in every sense) have never set foot in our public schools before diverting their resources and influence into private schools. It's maddening. While Alan Coverstone doesn't seem to fall into that category, the "opting out" and subsequent indifference of Nashville's influential crew is one of the biggest contributors to our system's current woes.

This is the best Pith thread we've had in a long time——substantive and thoughtful. So thanks to everyone involved here.

My little offspring is only a toddler, but when the time comes to decide about his schooling, the only consideration will be what's best for the little person at the center of my and his dad's universe. We would feel no guilt about opting out of public schools if we felt them unworthy, just as some dear friends of ours don't for accepting a scholarship to MBA next year for their son currently in Metro schools.

Just to set the record straight, MBA doesn't award scholarships. They award need-based financial aid. Very generously, very discretely.

And as a long term public school parent and devoted (and exhausted at this point in the year) 13-year volunteer who also opted out to private for one of my kids for three years, I have lots to contribute to this discussion. But I need to devote some time to billable hours, and profesionally catch up from the last month that I have spent nearly every day at Hillsboro, which draws most of its volunteers from the same 20 people who have been doing it for years. They happen to live in the zone, which makes it a good deal easier to get to the school for a volunteer stint or PTSA meeting. It is tough to get parents--or grandparents or godparents or aunties or sisters or whoever is the adult in many children's homes--to invest in a school that is not in their neighborhood. The issue of neighborhood schools must be addressed as must the lack of discipline in the classroom, as well as a reluctance or inability on the part of MNPS to adequately meet the needs of high achievers and highly motivated. Those are three of the issues at the top of my very long and well-earned list of concerns about MNPS. Sorry BB, I know you're looking at me to jump in with both feet, but that's all I have the energy for right now. Need to get back to planning the Baccalaureate service this Sunday and the reception afterwards. Not to mention clean the house for my mother's imminent arrival for my daughter's graduation Monday. Any volunteers?

I am late to this party but want to weigh in. This has been a substantive and constructive dialog thus far. Thanks for getting us started.

As the parent of children enrolled in zoned Metro schools for the past 13 school years, I support Bruce's position that we deserve an explanation from our elected officials who opt out. That might do more than anything to promote a healthy and realistic dialog about the problems with public education and what it will take to fix them. I have little patience with parents and business and government leaders who say they care, who promote forward looking economic, social and political agendas yet who too quickly default to private school options when the time comes to determine where their kids will get an education. Bottom line: nothing could do more to positively change the environment for public education in Nashville if these parents were true stakeholders in this system.

I will conclude by raising a question. Is it time to end academic magnet options? In my experience, these schools siphon off from neighborhood schools the most highly motivated students and their committed parents leaving many neighborhood schools to struggle with the support of a few heroes like Kay. If properly supported, the AP and IB programs that are increasingly available throughout Metro zoned high schools could more than meet the need of the academicly gifted and "lottery lucky" students who attend the magnets. If magnet schools were ended and the resources devoted to those schools spread out over the cluster school groups, we might begin to see more parents invested in successful neighborhood schools that meet the academic needs of all their students.