Nashville News Blog

Wow -- that's a pretty broad reading of the state of mind exception. I can't imagine the memo itself would actually come in to evidence without Garcia testifying (and maybe not even then), but I guess we'll see. It doesn't matter quite as much now, though, with Thompson doing such a good job of bringing in all the points the memo made. Pretty wild accusations in there, if you ask me.

A real eye-opener, this piece: I don't think I've ever seen "Pedro Garcia" and "principled stand" in the same sentence before.

Exactly, BBB.

Sorry Boyd, the premise of all your questions is faulty. We won't go back to the old zones. The plaintiffs are asking for the school board to draw up a new plan that's acceptable to both sides. Believe it or not, some cities actually strive to create more diversity, not less, because that's what decades of studies have told them they should do. In addition, Boyd, it's illegal to use race as a factor in drawing up a student assignment plan. Whether the school board did that or not is an issue that hasn't been decided yet, of course. But there's certainly some evidence to that effect, and there are plenty of good reasons for a judge to hear this case. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer it if our school board obeyed the law.

"In addition, Boyd, it's illegal to use race as a factor in drawing up a student assignment plan."

Right, but what is so striking is how stupid some of the board have apparently been in using race as a rationale when poverty should have been the real rationale. Statistically speaking, poor school districts, whether they be black, brown, or white, perform worse than rich ones. Hence the disparity between Williamson and Davidson county schools. So busing in kids to schools outside their neighborhood, as they do in my kids mostly white school, should focus on economic needs, not race, even if most of those kids are black or Latino.

Mr. Woods, yes some cities strive to create more diversity, but no one has addressed the current reality that Metro Public Schools as a system comes no where close to reflecting the diversity of the county, and in fact is completely opposite of the demographics of the county, due primarily to a tradition of white flight. We are tending to focus on issues within a single cluster, but at no point have the plaintiffs or other critics addressed issues of diversity system wide. Are their flaws in the plan? Probably, based on limitations of facilities, community demographics, and political realities. The Task Force and the Board were confronted with a variety of voices, many of which (in other clusters at least) supported the notion of their kids attending schools in their surrounding neighborhoods. The issues are huge, and it is easy for us to be armchair quarterbacks with sketchy information in front of us and question the motives and intent of what seems to us now as a bad plan.

Finally, why should we trust ANYTHING Garcia says? Did he ever do anything to engender trust in our community? Did he ever express anything other than disdain for us country bumpkins here in Nashville who were less than overwhelmed by his brilliance, especially when the results he promised failed to be realized? What gives him any more authority to be heard than folks who have given themselves to the betterment of our community for most of their lives with no contract or significant financial renumeration? Folks seem to want to think that this letter is a "smoking gun," but in fact it is simple a "he said, she said" and knowing her history, her faith, and her values, I'll put my money on Marsha Warden's account of what happened.

"The issues are huge, and it is easy for us to be armchair quarterbacks with sketchy information in front of us and question the motives and intent of what seems to us now as a bad plan."

But it's not clear the board did any serious thinking about the issues (which as you note are huge). There was a task force, true, but the task force was composed mostly of non-board members. And the board members only saw the final report 45 minutes before they made their decision. The district is even basing its defense on the premise that they needed to rush into a new plan.

The benefits of neighborhood schools, voluntary and involuntary segregation, how to further our goal of diversity, how to give parents more freedom of choice and opportunities for involvement in their children's education. These are big issues around which the whole community should have been involved in discussion. I'm not going to take Garcia's word on anything, but to suggest that this was a well thought out decision and critics are just playing armchair quarterback is unfair.

Something that has me stumped - If it's illegal to use race in drawing up school zones, does that make bussing to integrate by race per se illegal? In a city with residential segregation, like Nashville, how do you draw school zones without the board discussing race?

Aside from the merits of the law suit, here's something that's been troubling me that I'd like to hear other thoughts on. This quote from one of the plaintiffs was in this morning's Tennessean: "She is a quiet, smart student," said Lewis, who also has custody of five other grandchildren. "I don't want her being influenced by the neighborhood kids."

One of the plaintiffs, herself a North Nashville resident, is motivated in her desire to enroll her grandchild at Bellevue Middle by a desire to keep that child away from the influence of the neighborhood kids in North Nashville. Does this make this particular plaintiff less sympathetic? Is she any different from a Bellevue resident who wants to keep her child away from the same influences? Setting aside the past and present zoning plans for a moment - How do we as a city assign students given the reality that many people in this city perceive there to be a tough cohort of children that they want to "shield" their kids from? Whether this perception is right or wrong, I think it accounts for more of the kids in private school in this county than any academic concerns. If middle class "flight" continues, it will not matter one bit how zones are drawn. How do we deal with that?

I think what we have here commenting on this post are a bunch of people who have never lived in a housing project. This might enlighten you:

From 2002 through 2004, Vanderbilt's Claire Smrekar and Ellen Goldring studied schools in poor Nashville neighborhoods that already had been given extra money for the same things promised Pearl-Cohn—nurses, guidance counselors and smaller class sizes. Their research paints a devastating picture of the effects of poverty on Nashville children.

In one elementary school, identified only by the pseudonym Olive by the researchers to encourage parents and teachers to speak freely, all the students lived in two adjacent housing projects extending side-by-side, four blocks northward. In a single year alone, 576 serious crimes—murders, rapes, robberies, car thefts—were committed there. More than 70 percent of the children were from single-parent households.

Only about one in five families owned a car, and the median income was $11,349. Out of 1,300 residents over the age of 25, only 31 had a college degree. The population was 92 percent black.

"In critical ways," Smrekar and Goldring reported, "these neighborhood conditions roll into Olive's school corridors and classrooms with a penetrating influence and effect, shaping the interactions, norms and expectations of students, families and school staff."

One teacher said of students, "They see a lot of fights.... They talk about all the gambling and the throwing dice and the stuff that goes on out there, the betting. I had a child last year who came in late because she said, 'Someone got shot outside my house and my mom didn't want me to leave until the cops were all gone.' "

Another teacher said, "They come in from the weekend and tell me how this person has been shot, in the middle of the street, how they have to run in and take cover and everything. It is like a war, a battle over there in that neighborhood and they are trying to survive. That is why we have so many young children being, trying to be adult, trying to lead, and the problems that we have here are because over there in the neighborhood, they are learning to survive."

That teacher continued, "There are children in this building who have witnessed one parent murder another. There were children here whose parent was in prison for trying to kill one of their younger brothers and sisters.

"These children see a lot of trauma. They see a lot, they know a lot of death. They know a lot of people getting shot and getting killed. A lot of them have relatives in jail, relatives on the way to jail. I had a little boy who saw a lot of domestic violence, so they see a lot of trauma. They talk about it a lot of times."

Despite the additional services provided at the schools, the researchers found, "the penetrating and punishing effects of neighborhood poverty undercut these efforts." Because of the difficulties at the schools, teachers were typically less experienced, and turnover was high. Test scores didn't go up. The students weren't learning any better.

One guidance counselor told them, "We have so much here, and it still isn't enough."

Before 1998, when court-ordered busing ended in Nashville, Olive school was racially balanced. Teachers said things were better then. The students from the housing projects found role models in other children at the school.

"I really believe if children come into a diverse classroom, they model each other," one teacher said. "You'll find them looking and seeing the children who are getting the praises and they start to mimic that because they want to be noticed right away."

Another teacher put it bluntly, "I think it needs to be diverse, both economically and culturally. If we are living in a diverse nation and world, we need to have that here as well. They need to know what is going on out there, not just drugs, alcohol, prostitution and new babies."

Smrekar and Goldring reported their findings to the task force appointed by the school board to study rezoning issues. The task force unanimously recommended the plan eventually adopted by the board.

Board members have never explained to the satisfaction of critics why they approved the rezoning plan even while knowing that it's basically the opposite of what educators would advise.

Claire Smrekar and Ellen Goldring are exactly right, as are both Jeff and Larry Woods. What we are talking about here is basic fairness. What we are talking about is the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Ed, which clearly and simply declared that separate is by definition unequal.
A "neighborhood" school plan may make middle-class white parents more comfortable, and God knows parents are tigers, i.e., fierce and cunning and relentless predators, when it comes to their children.
But what does a neighborhood school plan do to the children whose neighborhood is as these two excellent scholars describe? Equity, basic fairness, demands that those kids also get a chance to escape the trap of poverty and crime.
Any complacent ass who believes the cream can rise to the top in such an environment is delusional. Anyone who thinks that neighborhood schools are all autumn leaves on the street and picket fences with mama waiting at home with warm cookies should head out Murfreesboro Road, or into North Nashville for a reality check.
The fact that poverty is still largely a synonym for black and Latino (or ethnic generally) in Nashville is a disgrace.
To those who ask how long we have to keep trying to balance conditions to create equal opportunity, the answer is until it's equal, until the smart, quiet little girl who tries hard can realize her dreams, whether she's rich, poor, white, black.
And BBB has a point. If the Nashville schools were any good at all, they could give every school something so attractive, so alluring, so desirable, that white parents from Oak Hill would be throwing elbows to get in and then demanding to be bused.
But you know what? That takes money. And no one in this city wants to part with a fucking dime to achieve equity, even if in the long run it would make their own lives richer and safer and more comfortable.
Much easier to just take the money, if you've got it, and run to Harpeth Hall, which is what all the influential folks in this town so. The ones who sit on the boards and on the council.
Judge Nixon should totally nail the Nashville Board of Education for trying to pull something so obviously unfair, callous and selfish.

Middle Class Flight is indeed an uncontrollable factor as things stand now. And something needs to be done about that. But proper, pragmatic, correct liberal thinking can fix things. Put a damn stop to it by decree. Nobody moves to a different neighborhood or plops children in private schools without authorization.

There. See? Fixed.

Next, the bussing needs correcting. Currently, there are whole ethnic groups not taken into consideration. Among others--Latinos, Orientals, East Indians, Aboriginals (that's Native-American). Their distribution throughout the educational system must be likewise systematic as the African/European. Tell you what: lets bus every public school student in Tennessee to a central distribution point, then march them onto other busses for the trip to their school facility. Should get them there in time for the free lunches. Then they will have plenty of time to bus back to the DP for the bus ride home.

There. See? Fixed.

Now, names of whole communities in the hinter-lands need to fixed. For example: White House!!!! God Damn! That is intolerably racist. This can be fixed by decree as well. A change to something like “Brown Black Red Yellow White House” might be a place to start.

There. See? Fixed.

(Trouble is, our Saviors residence in Washington is going to have to be changed too. Oh well. Nothing worth doing is easy.)

For all the ballyhoo here about Smrekar and Goldring, the two big revelations cited here from their study ain't exactly revelations.

One: more money by itself doesn't make better schools. Who knew?

Two: Concentrated poverty correlates with low rates of academic success. Well, someone call CNN. It's no secret that the majority of the factors that impact school achievement involve things that occur beyond the walls and reach of our schools. What it boils down to for a lot of kids is a shortage of developmental building blocks in their lives; these aren't necessarily caused by poverty itself, but they correlate with poverty. Put kids with these shortages into most schools, even ones with decent racial diversity, and the odds against their success will still be long. On the other hand, when kids have a critical mass of these resources in their lives, achievement gaps between race and income groups basically disappear. I'm not trying to argue that diversity isn't good or doesn't make any difference. But it sounds like what some here are arguing for based on Goldring and Smrekar is essentially an anti-poverty strategy more than an education strategy.

Garcia's memos and comments on the subject are laughable. Garcia hurt more schools and students while on the job than any board member in recent history. His never ending chess game with principals all over the city made a huge mess that we are still dealing with. Principals who were making a difference in their schools, inner city schools, were forced to move against their will. Why? So he could make political moves and put who he wanted in place. Never mind that it was not a good fit for that school or the people were in over their heads. Metro schools are still paying the price for promotion based on Garcia's misguided "supporter" quotient, particularly in the poorer schools.