Here's an inconvenient question for the Scene bloggers. Who is the old zoning plan actually serving? Pearl-Cohn students make adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the state standards, while students from the same area score worse at Hillwood and Hillwood is under corrective action standing. So explain again why these students are served by riding across town to Hillwood? Just by physically being present in West Nashville?

I don't like everything the Chamber of Commerce advocates (most of its members probably voted for Bush in the last two elections, for one thing).

But I don't think it's an evil organization seeking to somehow dominate the city's school board, as the Scene's Jeff Woods and Matt Pulle seem to think.

As was clearly stated in the meeting where the zoning plan was presented, each member of the school board selected a member of the task force that developed the zoning plan.

Like a lot of parents whose kids are in Metro schools or would be if Metro schools delivered a good education, I care a lot more about whether I can send my child to a Metro school with any confidence that he will get a good education by objective standards than I do about the trumped up political issue upon which this post focuses.

Finally, busing was never a good idea, although it at least made some sense years ago, when the separate but unequal schools African Americans attended were poorly maintained and equipped with textbooks and equipment cast off from white schools.

Now, they're all poorly maintained and poorly equipped, a fact Mr. Woods conveniently ignores in this post. The problem now is not racial segregation; it's class segregation, as everyone who can get out of Metro schools is doing that either by moving to another county or choosing a private school.

One of the biggest predictors of success for kids is parents who are involved in their education at home and in their school, and low-income parents who depend on public transporation are effectively cut off from any involvement in their child's school if their child ends up at a school way across town, since taking a bus to a night PTA meeting is next to impossible and taxis in Nashville cost more than they do in New York.

And bussing is a particularly bad idea for elementary school kids based on simple logistics. In Nashville, kids can be bussed 20 miles one way -- a long drive in city traffic -- and kids who spend more than two hours a day waiting for a riding a bus don't have much time for studying, play or extracurricular activities. As far as high school is concerned, I think the doors should be open anywhere in the system if you qualify for a program you're interested in at the school, can get there on the city bus or provide your own transporation. Not everybody WANTS to attend college, and some schools should become vocational magnets with programs design to prepare people to enter the workforce. Here's where involvement of members of the Chamber of Commerce could actually help.

Mr. Woods, please spend a week sitting in classrooms at every public schools in town designated a failure by the already low state achievement standards before you write any more about public education.

Does anyone think the school board is going to keep its promise to spend $5 million more every year on Pearl-Cohn schools?

Actually, I do believe that the money will be spent on Pearl Cohn. So much has been publicly staked on that promise, I think the Pearl Cohn cluster will, under the new plan, actually stand to be more protected from budget ups and downs than any other part of the city. Can I also say that to keep referring to positions on this plan as being either for or against segregation is just a way to try to scare anyone who supports it from speaking out, for fear of being labeled? That's pretty damn tiresome, and it's a very lazy way of making an argument.

We'd feel a little better about the plan if elected officials like Maynard, Thompson and Kindall--along with the NAACP--didn't think it was drawn in a Mississippi courthouse somewhere.

Does the Scene have a problem with focusing on the issue of whether the time students of all races, genders and classes spend in MNPS classrooms yields good results?

Do kids who attend MNPS schools come out of elementary school with basic skills, prepared to develop analytical skills and study the hard sciences in junior high and high school? Have they started studying a foreign language with any degree of seriousness?

Do they graduate from high school?

If they graduate, are they prepared to go to college or a reputable vocational school (rather than the predatory ones or to get a job?

Pedro Garcia is gone.

The idea that his departure had anything to do with racism or his going to the mat to oppose the zoning plan is as absurd as the idea that the Chamber of Commerce has somehow planted a whole slate of Manchurian Candidates on the school board for the express purpose of undermining racial equality.

It's sad that the Scene would dignify Dr. Garcia's conveniently leaked letter with any coverage.

Dr. Garcia is gone. The zoning plan, which may be imperfect, but which does reflect an honest attempt to use Metro's existing facilities and place kids closer to their homes, passed.

Diversity cannot be the only goal of Nashville's public schools. If it is, the only likely scenario is the busing of kids from, in your words "blighted neighborhoods" into schools in other neighborhoods bereft of any middle class kids, because their parents have left the public schools based on their justifiable fear that their kids won't get a good grounding in reading, grammar, math, geography and other important skills, and because the disciplinary environment in the classroom isn't conducive to learning.

I'd be interested in seeing a poll of how many Metro teachers at all schools have been physically assaulted by a student during their tenure as an MNPS teacher, and how many of these teachers feel like the school system supported them in any way in addressing the incident so it wouldn't happen again.

MattP said:
We'd feel a little better about the plan if elected officials like Maynard, Thompson and Kindall--along with the NAACP--didn't think it was drawn in a Mississippi courthouse somewhere.

Matt:

I'm disappointed in Jerry Maynard's knee-jerk reaction to this plan.

But I'm not surprised by Ed Kindall and George Thompson, who have done more between them to impede progress in Metro schools than Dr. Garcia did during the nadir or his administration. One "insider" in Metro schools said that the two of them actually maintained their power if Metro schools continued to fail by appearing to represent the downtrodden. Kindall's rude behavior throughout the school board meeting was inexcusable - he stomped out in a petulant huff after the vote -- and the unruly behavior of his little chorus of supporters who could be heard clearly in the televised meeting explains a lot about the discipline problems plaguing Metro classrooms.

I'm disappointed because Kindall and Thompson tried to turn this into a race issue instead of talking about what we need to do to make Metro school's good enough so that everyone wants to send their kids there.

Their idea seems to be that it's everyone's public duty to send their kids to substandard schools to achieve the goal of integration.

But children only have one shot at an education, and most parents I know aren't willing to blow that chance by sending their child to a school where classes are too large, teachers are overworked because of lots of bureaucratic, some teachers are so poorly educated you find yourself correcting the grammar in the letters they send home, discipline problems are frequent, the building is ugly, poorly ventilated, dirty and crowded; other parents don't have books in their homes, read to their children, emphasize education as an important or valuable accomplishment, limit their children's (or their own) TV viewing or electronic-game-playing, or help their kids with homework, or even insist that their kids do homework; resources are limited, recess is either abolished or limited -- a disaster for grade school aged kids -- and many parents can't or won't support the school or make sure their children get there on time, having eaten a decent breakfast.

Keep focusing on this statistic: 70% of Metro students on free or reduced lunches. These students are both black and white, what they have in common is that they're poor. And what this statistic shows is that the middle class has already left the Metro school building.

Ed Kindall and George Thompson want you to believe that this is because of white flight.

That might indeed have been the case during desegregation, but we're now 30 years out, and it's because Metro's schools don't perform well, because there are gangs at some (one of the big reason more people in West Meade won't send their children to Hillwood is the school's reputation for gang activity), and because there's not enough of a critical mass of parents with the resources and the know-how to support the school.

Jeff, I agree that the board should have delayed the vote, if, for nothing else, the fact that they just got the revised plan a week before the vote.
But I think you're missing a fact that the mayor and chamber might understand.
The middle class is quickly fleeing Metro schools. We've lost 16,000 middle class students in the past 10 years.
Let's look at Hillwood's statistics to make a point. In 2000, about 200 students were bused in from N. Nashville. Hillwood's population was 26% black, 67% white. More importantly, Hillwood's population was 21% Free and Reduced Lunch.
Around this time, zoning was changed. They doubled the amount of students from N. Nashville who were zoned for Hillwood. I'm sure, in part, they were looking at the success of Hillsboro for inspiration. But while Hillsboro had done a good job of drawing in middle class students from across the district (including several from my neighborhood which is zoned for Hillwood), Hillwood has not. In fact, Hillwood has lost 200 middle class students since 2002. The number of white students at Hillsboro has stayed pretty much the same.
I would love it if the Scene explored why that is. I think I have an idea. Hillsboro High School is a neighborhood school. The "neighborhood" includes Edgehill, a predominately black area, but it is only 4 miles away, and there is a city bus stop right in front of the school.
On the other hand, if you live in N. Nashville, like many of my students do, you have a 10 mile drive to Hillwood. The bus stop is a half-mile walk to the school. It's an even farther distance to some of the elementary and middle schools in the district, such as Harpeth Valley or Bellevue Middle.
I'd love for the Scene to explore what's happened to the middle class in MNPS. Where have they gone? And why? Lord knows the board isn't interested...And what's the consequences?
And, as far as Maynard, Thompson, and Kindall go, the people that Thompson and Kindall put on the task force agreed to this. And, if they were so opposed to it, why didn't they start immediately proposing an alternative plan, or organizing the troops, as one might say?
Please, someone go to Pearl-Cohn and Hillwood, look around (and not just in the "special" classrooms you're led to), and tell me what you see. Talk to parents. I'll tell you what happened when we took my students to Hillwood for a visit: When they entered the cafeteria, gang signs started flying. Our advanced students, of all colors, were shocked at the gang bangin' that occurred while the School Resource Officers stood around and told them to stop.
What you are going to see happen, Jeff, is that, in 10 years, you won't have to worry about diversity at Hillwood. By then, all the middle class, of all ethnicities and religions, won't be there. What you will have is a bunch of poor students who live too far away from school to really participate.

Another thing, has anyone considered the fact that the reason Hillwood has more AP courses to be because it is TWICE the size of Pearl-Cohn? Pearl-Cohn has a little over 600 students, while Hillwood has around 1350.

I find it interesting that, in the recent past, Pith has made a mockery of Councilmembers who speak up about education, claiming they should not be involved in education policy. And now Pith is lambasting Councilmembers for not saying anything about this latest policy shift.

So which one is it going to be, Pith?

Kudos once again to Anonymous and MNPS Mother for posts that actually bring some depth and dimension to this discussion rather than the let's-not-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-our-story approach that the Scene seems to be taking here.

Anonymous, you pegged it but were probably too generous in describing Woods' post merely as "lazy."

"Rolling back racial progress?" What racial progress would that be? As mentioned before (but not by the Scene), Pearl Cohn is already 88% black. How much more segregated can it get? This is the "progress" that is being undermined? White's Creek is 84.6% black. Maplewood is 80.8% black.

On MNPS' website, you can find data on racial composition of each school, and you can also see how the composition has trended over the past four years. (Jeff and Matt, you ought to look at it sometime.) I looked at data for all of the zoned high schools. In every single one, the percentage of black students has risen over the past four years, while the percentage of white students has declined. In 2003-4, for example, 39% of Hillwood students were black; now it's 46%. The percentage of white students there declines from 51% to 44%. Clearly, the schools were already becoming more segregated. And it's not because more white kids are going to magnet schools (the data for Hume-Fogg and MLK show similar increases in the overall percentage of black students and declines in white students.) It ought to be clear that more white families are leaving a failing system, leaving it with a composition that is increasingly segregated by race and socioeconomic status. It should also be pretty clear to anyone who talks to parents who are exiting the system that it's not because they refuse to attend a school with a sizable percentage of children of color. It's because they don't want to attend schools where chaos makes achievement difficult. As an example, I talked to a couple this weekend whose son, who will be a freshman in the fall, is zoned for Stratford. They're going to bite the financial bullet and send their child to Father Ryan. Even if you had never spent much time around Stratford, you can understand much of their decision just from the statistics. Nearly one in 5 students at Stratford is classified as special ed (compare to 0.6% at MLK). Only 43% of the students attend school at least 95% of the time. Nearly half of the students enter or leave after the 2nd week of school (compared to 31% at Hillsboro).

Yet some of the school board members are unusually untroubled by the increasing segregation of our schools under the existing, failed arrangement. If you asked them to list what they view as the five most pressing priorities for MNPS, bringing middle- and upper-middle class white families back into the schools would rank about 11th. I've never been able to get an explanation from them or Pedro Garcia why this is. It is very tempting to speculate that, in the case of some board members, it's because they cling to the view that most of the white flight reflects simple racism. It's tempting to speculate that, in the case of Mr. Kindall, it's because increasing involvement by white parents would threaten his long position as a kingmaker with outsized influence (a position that it looked for all the world as though he were attempting to strengthen with his 11th-hour maneuver last Tuesday).

So we come back to the question: We're resegregating the schools? Compared to what?

Jeff, I can empathize with those who question whether the promised money to Pearl Cohn actually will be delivered. I can understand why those of an older generation like Mr. Kindall, who grew up in segregated schools, would be suspicious of all promises. I do agree with Anonymous that the money will be delivered this time; too much has been promised and, unlike the 1950s and 1960s, a majority of the board members are black. In any event, the overriding question for me is why people like Mr. Kindall (and the leadership of the NAACP) remain so invested in a system that already is pretty segregated by race, and even more segregated by class, and that has clearly failed so many children of all colors.

To Matt's comment, it does give me pause that Jerry Maynard is against the plan. I voted for him, I value his opinion, and I like what he has done overall so far. For reasons that I hope are clear from this and other posts, it bothers me very little that Kindall and Thompson oppose the plan. My bigger wonder is why more people don't view him as Mr. Status Quo. He has been on the board -- what? -- 28 years? Nobody on this board has had more opportunities to advocate for improvements, and yet none are more invested in the current failure of a system.

"We'd feel a little better about the plan if elected officials like Maynard, Thompson and Kindall--along with the NAACP--didn't think it was drawn in a Mississippi courthouse somewhere."

Honestly.

Thompson and Kindall, who have both served on the Board longer than anybody, have zero credibility. They are Mr. Status Quo I and Mr. Status Quo 2. They serve only their personal, dated agendas. Scene writers, who once brought intelligence to important discussions, have dropped the ball on this one. I think it was MPulle who noted in a prior post how the education blogs get the most discussion. Well. Duh... There is a vacuum to be filled. As has been so eloquently addressed, the issue is not racism or segregation or white flight. The people playing those cards are the ones being divisive.

By the way, while all the focus has been on the changes to Hillwood and Pearl-Cohn, there are lots of other little changes in the rezoning plan that actually increase racial diversity in some schools.

For example:

• The percentage of black students at Eakin Elementary (one of the very best) will increase from 28% to 35% with a net gain of 46 black students.
• At West End Middle School, the percentage of black students goes from 49% to 53%.
• Many other schools, especially in the Hillsboro Cluster, have no change or virtually none.
• The big change at Hillwood HS is not that they would add a bunch of white students (they would pick up only 5) but that it would decrease the number of black students by 473, assuming that none of those who are rezoned exercised their choice to stay at Hillwood. The percentage of black students there would decrease from 49% to 24%.
• As mentioned in previous posts, reading the plan (and here's a question: Has anyone on the Scene's staff actually read the damn plan?) makes clear that many of these schools already were segregated as hell. The main change is not the percentages in the racial mix but the number of black kids who will be concentrated in these schools. For example, the plan shows that Buena Vista Elementary now has a 100% black enrollment (the one white child who goes there now doesn't show up as a full percent). Under the new plan, there will be 5 Hispanic kids and 15 white kids, making the percentage of black enrollment 95%. But the number of black students will increase by 63. Park Avenue Elementary will go from being mostly segregated (78% black) to almost entirely segregated (96%) with an addition of 363 black students and an outflow of 37 white students.
Bass Middle School will go from 63% black to 66% black but will have 30 fewer students. Why was it acceptable to Mr. Kindall and the NAACP that some of these schools were so heavily segregated to start with?
• When you look at the plan, some of the added resources that are supposed to go to disadvantaged schools are pretty solid -- especially the idea of incentive pay for teachers to go there. This is becoming a "best practice" in places like NYC, where they have seen some real achievement gains in mostly segregated schools. (I would like to see the board and the new superintendent push even more to get experienced teachers into these schools, because it has been shown to make a significant difference.)

All in all, it looks to me like this plan is a nudge in the direction of the neighborhood schools concept. I think it's a rather gross exaggeration to label it a resegregation plan. It's also unfair to label this a "separate but equal" plan because it's pretty clear that the task force is trying to endow some of the most challenged schools with EXTRA resources (like more social workers -- a resource in these schools that's like the plumbing or electrical infrastructure of a house, offering no curb appeal but hugely important to the value of the place).

I think another thing that gets lost in the discussion of this imperfect plan is that there is no perfect plan. There's not even a close-to-perfect plan. The needs in this system currently are too great. It should be remembered here that the board and task force were not tasked with devising a plan to optimize racial diversity; they were tasked to devise a plan to improve the usage of MNPS' facilities. Addressing the utilization problem, unfortunately, also creates some pain in the area of racial diversity -- although I think that pain is being exaggerated by those who casually dismiss the plan as "resegregation" and "devised in Mississippi." There is no easy path to better schools in Nashville. There will be lots of painful choices, as this plan shows.

Were I a board member, I think I would have voted to defer an overall vote on the plan for another 2 weeks or a month. I would have done this not out of regard for Mr. Kindall's attempt (at least it seemed like such to me) to derail or hijack the process but so more study could have been given to the financial impact and also so that more attempt could be made to address the concerns of the NAACP and other leaders and see if it was possible to build more consensus. But it looks to me like the task force made a very honest effort to meet the objectives they were tasked with meeting while reducing the resultant pain of rezoning and attempting to ensure that students are in situations where they can succeed.

Whether or not you believe that the "cure" of the plan is worse than the "disease" of poorly utilized facilities (in a system featuring many schools that were already segregated), I think it's the height of knee-jerkism to brand the work of this task force as segregationist or as a reflection of string-pulling by puppeteers in the Chamber of Commerce. It would be particularly irresponsible if such charges came from railbirds who hadn't even studied the damn plan.

PS: If you Scene fellers are looking for another scandal to get the public juiced about, here's one idea: Did you know that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn contains multiple uses of the N-word, yet is widely assigned for schoolchildren to read?

BoydBiggs, please do run for the school board sometime when the BOE is not the impotent shell it has become.

Obviously you have not read the current definition of resegregation.
Majority black schools = good.
Majority white schools = bad.

In the olden days, segregation was defined as not being able to attend any given school solely because of your racial makeup.

Today in modern times desegregation means you can choose what school you want to attend because of your racial makeup - and the people whose school you can choose to attend - well their choices are not so much. Because they're the wrong color.

Gotta keep up Biggs! :)

A lot of old white/black dichotomy going on here: I wonder what other immigrant families think. Constantly people sort and classify, it seems to be the nature of being human,ie human nature.

Private schools and surrounding county suburban schools are: majority white schools=good. Sure folks who have want to escape crime and urban decay but so do most parents if they had the resources, regardless of income and skin color.

The point with this whole rezoning plan decision was its timing. There are elections and the tension between Bellevue and North Nashville and the Charlotte corridor has been going on for at least three generations. And now there is more given Eric Crafton and his "english first" mentality.

Doesn't anyone want to learn to live together? As the astronauts tell us from space there are no clear boundries, it's just one beautiful big blue marble.