Nashville News Blog

So let's see. NAACP would be cool with this if the board abandoned the "resegregation" plan. That would take us back to the status quo. Pearl-Cohn would be 88% black instead of 92%. Several of the elementary schools in the Pearl-Cohn cluster would still be almost 100% black. Maplewood and Whites Creek would still be 80% or more black. Hillsboro would have significantly fewer black students, and Hillwood again would have significantly more.

And then everything would be hunky and progressive again?

I can see why the NAACP and the Scene would argue that we need a completely new approach to school assignment. We could have a very interesting discussion on something as radical as allowing complete free choice on school assignment within the district.

But it's more than a little disengenuous to call this a "resegregation" plan when the status quo is already heavily segregated in many of these schools, and when those who are hollering loudest about the bad new plan would be content to return us to the bad old plan.

It's worse than merely reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's actually wasting time in complaining about how those deck chairs have been reshuffled.

One good question to ask Jesse Register is how committed he is to the idea of assigning the best and most experienced teachers to the schools that are struggling most, even if it means finding a way to pay them more for their trouble? It's a strategy that has been proven to work.

Or is the Scene more interested in scoring cheap points? Honestly, how can you guys complain about Phil Valentine when you're taking a page right of his playbook on this issue -- ignoring the complexity of the larger issue for the sake of punching a few hot buttons?

One major oversight in Woods' article and in the NAACP's position is that the rezoning plan was unanimously recommended by a black majority committee. This majority-black committee spent months reviewing the status quo and considered all options before making this unanimous recommendation.
How come no one wants to recall or acknowledge that fact?
It's also true that the issue isn't race - it's poverty. Lots of middle income black families have been fleeing to private schools to avoid having their kids contend with the baggabe that kids in poverty bring to a school environment.
The U.S. Supreme Court has rules that school systems no longer have any duty to consider race in student assignment. We do, though, have a moral duty to consider poverty issues and to provide extra services to those kids, which is what the rezoning plan does.

If they know they won't have the money to spend on Pearl-Cohn, then, yes, they should rescind the plan -- because that was an integral part of the plan. A more face-saving alternative might be to announce that the implementation of the plan is being suspended indefinitely because of the budget shortfall.

In fairness to the board (and it's not easy for me to be fair to the old board), they were tasked with coming up with a plan for more efficient facilities usage, not with a plan that would change the de facto segregation in many areas. True, they could have (and should have) used their task as an opportunity to come up with something truly innovative. But it's not like they decided to pick up this political hot potato merely because some influential people wanted to change the racial mix at Hillwood HS.

And that leads me to one of the other elephants in the room that nobody much seems to talk about. It's true that concentrating low-income students together is a big factor in producing low-performing schools with high dropout rates. On the other hand, nearly 70% of the students in MNPS are low-income enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. When 7 in 10 students are low-income, how exactly do you come up with a formula for school assignment that doesn't create a heavy concentration of low-income kids in our schools? And even if you could come up with a magic formula by which every school in the district was a perfect demographic reflection of the entire district -- with 30% of the kids from middle- or upper-income households -- would that be enough to transform the low-performing schools?

I doubt that it would.

So there are a couple of general directions we can go. We can try to attract more middle- and upper-income families back into the public schools and into Davidson County. (Notwithstanding what some people keep trying to claim, many of those who want to pursue this strategy are motivated by more than a concern for their own kids.)

OR, we can more or less accept the currently reality of a school district that is significantly segregated by race and income and devote unequal resources to the schools that are farthest from offering equal opportunity. It will take partnerships with the business community, and good for Karl Dean for pursuing that (and for recognizing that the bizpigs of the Chamber of Commerce have a stake and an interest in this). It will take more innovation with charter schools (and good for us on that score that Pedro is gone). Michelle Rhee in DC and Joel Klein in NYC are doing some very promising things we should be paying attention to, even though de facto segregation in DC is much more pronounced than in Nashville.

Maybe Register can move the ball forward. But I wonder: Did they hire this guy because he can help bring change, or for the defensive reason that he gets along well with the state officials who are running more of the show?

I think real change here is going to take much bolder leadership than what we're likely to get from the board and director of schools (or from the state, for that matter).

Jeff, here's an idea for the Scene. Why don't you guys make a commitment to this issue the way the Scene once made a commitment to urban planning and design? Give readers a picture of some of the innovation that's taking place around the country, so Nashvillians could get a sense of what things COULD be like here. Champion some specific reforms. While it is illuminating to point out the failures of the school board, they're just the low-hanging fruit. Aim higher.

How is 1 school resegregation? Why is this not about all the schools all over Nashville? This reaks of trying to show muscle power. What is the real agenda here?

Pearl Cohn made AYP, Hillwood did not. And you are complaining about sending kids to Pearl Cohn? I would think that many parents would be fine with sending their kids there -they have many social services that are meant to address issues of poverty. Hillwood does not. They have good sports,Hillwood does not. They are not going to be taken over by the state this summer, as Hillwood is likely to be. Hillwood is no great shakes, this rezoning change is a last ditch effort (probably too late) to make it a community school that can have community support. Hillwood is a failing school on it's last breath and making this solely a racial issue misses the bigger picture. A district is only as good as its weakest link, and that link right now is Hillwood. They have got to get more locally zoned kids in or shut it down.

School choice is a smoke screen. It lets Republicans appear all innovative and serious. In reality, they just don't want to pay taxes to support public schools.

We need radical action, all right. We need public officials who won't tolerate bad teachers and principals. We have the data now to judge their performance. We ought to be acting on it. It ought to scare the hell out of every parent that the state Education Department this summer saw the need to sack so many principals who had been allowed to languish in their jobs for years. What does that tell you about our current system of governance? To begin with, electing the school board is idiotic, but don't get me started.

Ah, I was wondering how long it would take the knuckle-draggers to discover this post.

Here's how Jesse Register is going to pay more to teachers in the Pearl-Cohn cluster. These school will become enhanced option schools, which means kids at these schools go to class an extra 45 minutes a day. It means you pay teachers extra for the extra work they are doing. That equals out to an extra 20 days of work on a teaching salary, which is about a 10 percent raise. This is one way to get around MNEA approving a pay hike for one, and only one, cluster when most of the clusters have very high poverty in their schools.

I hate to be the bearer of news, but has anyone else notice that no one WANTS to be around us as blacks? Everyone can clearly see that we have been suited for, and are comfortable with mediocrity at best. We then get angry because no one else wants mediocrity, so we try and force our bankrupt thinking on everyone else....Hey, Here's an idea! How about we stop trying to make white folks be around us. Let them go! How about we focus our attention like a laser on providing a superior education to our children no matter what the situation. I'd bet the world would come crawling to us to be included in our communities if we'd just get off our knees is this humiliating posture, trying to force others to like us and integrate into our ghetto schools that even WE don't like!