Nashville News Blog

From Scene staff writer Ron Wynn:

Tonight the education organization Societas Docta holds its annual Nefertiti Awards and scholarship banquet at the Sheraton Music City Hotel, 777 McGavock Pike. A reception begins at 6:30 p.m., followed by the banquet at 7. This year's theme is "Impacting Tomorrow with Women Who Make A Difference."

Tonight's event honors Dr. Valerie Montgomery-Rice, founder of the Center for Women's Health Research at Meharry Medical College. The center is the first of its kind anywhere in the country devoted to research and examination of the disparate impact of various diseases on women of color, and Rice has emerged as a national voice and key figure in the field of reproductive endocrinology. The evening's speaker will be Dr. Gwendolyn Lee, national president of The Links, Inc.

​The two sides in the never-ending Metro school rezoning case are wrangling now over what's allowed in as evidence and what's not from their two-week federal hearing last November. As from the beginning, the notorious Pedro Garcia memos are the key evidence in question. The case most likely hinges on whether Judge John Nixon allows himself to consider the memos or whether he decides to pretend they don't exist.

In the memos, Garcia painted the rezoning plan as some kind of white racist plot to resegregate schools. Metro dismisses his complaints as sour grapes. "... Dr. Garcia's memoranda are classic 'parting shots' designed to (1) paint him in a good light, and (2) smear the Metropolitan Government," Metro says in its motion to strike the memos.

The memos contain hearsay and even layers of hearsay with a healthy dose of naked speculation tossed in for good measure. Still, Nixon might use a loophole in the rules of evidence to allow it all. For instance, as Pith's favorite education blogger, the esteemed Nashville Jefferson, explains, hearsay is allowed if it's an admission by an opponent in your lawsuit. To qualify, Garcia needs to have been the superintendent when he wrote the memos. The plaintiffs contend he prepared one of them three days before the school board severed his contract in 2008. But Metro claims that's not proven. Nashville Jeff sums up the situation nicely:

Ultimately, it's going to be a tough call -- if judges want to let in a key piece of evidence, then they can often find a way to make it fit. If they don't, then things like this are pretty easy to exclude.

​USA Today has picked up on a Nashville story about zero tolerance, publicizing the tale of 17-year-old Taylor Cummings, an MLK Magnet School student and athlete who's been kicked out of school -- with a semester left to graduate -- all for writing an "angry message" on his Facebook page:

​School officials in Cheatham County have adopted a clever strategy to defend against the ACLU lawsuit accusing them of trying to force their students to love Jesus. They cop to just about all the ACLU's allegations, but say they don't do any of that anymore. That renders this case moot, as the lawyers say.

Does this mean they're prepared to settle? That's the guess of education blogger Nashville Jefferson, whose work Pith reads religiously (ha!). In the county's answer to the ACLU lawsuit, officials admit that bibles were distributed to kids, a cross once was displayed in a classroom, there indeed have been prayers at graduation ceremonies, and also something called "an inspiration moment" occurred at one high school. It's probably best that we don't know what happened there.

​A little-noticed sentence in the brand-new "First to the Top Act" might wind up putting Mayor Karl Dean in control of failing schools in Nashville. That's according to the excellent education blogger Nashville Jefferson who has studied the statute and offers his analysis here.

One section gives the state commissioner of education the power to take over failing schools and operate them himself or hand them off to someone else to run. Here's the sentence that Nashville Jeff thinks authorizes mayoral control:

​State Republican Party chairman Chris Devaney is criticizing the 11 Democrats who dared to vote against Gov. Phil Bredesen's K-12 education reforms Friday night in the special session:

"Tonight, a number of Democrats turned their back on Tennessee's children, teachers, and administrators when they voted against legislation aimed at putting our education system back on track. The reforms passed by the General Assembly are major steps in the right direction as we work to improve our schools that consistently rank amongst the lowest in the country. By not supporting these reforms, these Democrats demonstrated they are content with the status quo despite the fact that students across the state are forced to rely on an education system that is failing them."

OK, we'll ask the obvious question: What about the two Republicans who voted no--Sen. Mae Beavers and Rep. Susan Lynn, both from Mount Juliet? Are they content with failing schools too?

Democrats generally opposed the reforms because they don't think it's necessarily fair to judge teachers on student test scores. They were standing with teachers who opposed the legislation. But Beavers and Lynn? They think the federal government's trying to turn us all into commie rats and this Race to the Top cash is the camel's nose or something like that. With these loopy lawmakers on his side, Devaney probably should keep his mouth shut.

Update: Well, it turns out Lynn changed her vote to yes. She was against the bill before she was for it. She gives some weird reasoning on her blog. More likely, somebody explained to her that her Democratic state Senate opponent would club her with this vote, so she changed it. Now, she'll catch grief, not only for her original no vote, but for flip-flopping.

Here's our Q&A with the governor today on his deal with the Tennessee Education Association to mandate the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations and also on his hopes for improving colleges and universities. In higher education, Bredesen wants to tie state money to graduation rates, which are pathetic in this state. Only 44 percent of students at four-year schools graduate and only 12 percent at community colleges.

Last night, we asked how long it would take the Tennessee Education Association to cave in to Gov. Phil Bredesen's demands. The answer: Not long at all. The House Education Committee is meeting even as we speak to hear the compromise deal that will grease the skids for Bredesen's special session to end this week.

The state Board of Education held a quick meeting today to approve the deal's outlines. According to Rick Locker, here it is:

The legislature is in special session--with Gov. Phil Bredesen asking for sweeping changes to improve academics at the state's universities, among other reforms--but the biggest buzz at the Capitol today is Lane Kiffin's resignation as Tennessee's football coach.

In the House, lawmakers let their feelings flow against Kiffin, pretending to consider a resolution honoring the coach and then loudly rejecting it. A couple of hours later, a press availability with Bredesen was dominated by the topic.

The geeky governor, who couldn't care less about sports, seemed nonplussed and dismissed the whole affair with a flip "big deal." He seemed not to know Kiffin's name, referring to the coach once as "this person." Bredesen also laughed off the so-called student riot depicted in the video above. He revealed that, as a Harvard student, he was chased around campus by police. "I mean, this is college," he said.

Here's the Q&A:

​Here's the only outstanding question in the special legislative session that's just begun: How long before the teachers' union completely knuckles under to the governor's demands?

Bredesen's high-pressure gambit -- giving lawmakers one week to act, with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money on the line -- puts the Tennessee Education Association in a nearly impossible position. Either the TEA caves and accepts legislation that's anathema to much of its membership, or the union looks like the villain in the loss of cash in the Obama administration's Race to the Top competition.

"We're in an indefensible position," one legislative friend of the TEA tells Pith.

​The morning newspapers are casting it as an attempt by Gov. Phil Bredesen to steamroll the state teachers' union in next week's special legislative session. He will "push ahead," without the Tennessee Education Association's full support, to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores. "I believe it will get done," he says, sounding tough. But the governor, pragmatic as always, actually is giving a little to the TEA to avoid a big fight that could result in the special session's failure.

The issue is how much weight to give value-added test scores in deciding teacher tenure. The governor says most of the decision should be based on the scores. The TEA thinks that's way too much. Bredesen offered to let the state school board decide. The TEA objected because that would be tantamount to letting the governor decide. The Bredesen-appointed board is a rubber-stamp.

Now, Bredesen says he'll agree to let the legislature create an independent advisory committee to determine how to evaluate teachers. It's the obvious solution to an impasse that could have jeopardized hundreds of millions of dollars in the Obama administration's Race to the Top competition.

The governor gets what he wants--the state's Race to the Top application is stronger because test scores will be used, at least to some extent, in the evaluations. The TEA, on the other hand, saves face with its membership. The union was in an impossible position, threatened with the blame for the loss of federal cash. Under the circumstances, the TEA couldn't take a hard line against the use of test scores. Some concerns remain, including who sits on the advisory panel, but this looks like a deal in the making.

Here's Gov. Phil Bredesen on the third stop of his statewide tour to drum up support for his battle with the teachers' union in next week's special session. Previously, in Memphis, Bredesen danced a little jig on a key point of disagreement with the Tennessee Education Association--how much weight to give student test scores in evaluating teachers--and he exaggerated his backing from an important legislator, House Democratic caucus chairman Mike Turner.

​It's like a game of Whac-A-Mole. The ACLU smacks down one violation of religious freedom only to watch another one pop up at some other Tennessee school. In the latest, the ACLU threatened to sue and Wilson County succumbed, agreeing to stop allowing the distribution of Bibles to students during school hours.

Here's how it worked in Wilson County. In an annual scene not too much unlike something out of Afghanistan, fifth-graders were herded into a gym where a teacher spoke in glowing terms about the first time she was given a Bible. She then called up each row of children to retrieve a Bible from a basket full of them.

The teacher explained that taking a Bible was not necessary or mandatory. But guess what? At least one child took a Bible only because she felt pressured and was afraid her classmates would ostracize her if she didn't. Her parents complained to the ACLU, which hit this mole directly on the head.

"Decisions about religion should be left in the hands of families and faith communities, not public school officials," said Edmund J. Schmidt III, an ACLU cooperating attorney. "The vital constitutional principle of religious liberty is best protected when the government stays out of religion. Students and their families cannot feel comfortable expressing their religious beliefs when their teachers and administrators are imposing their own particular religious beliefs."

Recommended reading: Principals and teachers should check out this handy ACLU brochure outlining which religious activities are permitted and which aren't at public schools in the land of the free.

Karen Johnson

​In the student rezoning case in federal court, Metro's lawyers pop out of their seats with objections at the mere mention of the possibility the Chamber of Commerce might have tried to influence the school board. It's as if they actually think the judge will believe that the Chamber didn't push for the new student assignment plan. Please.

The Chamber gave great wads of campaign cash to supporters of the rezoning plan. It even endorsed and funded an obscure candidate named Cordenus Eddings to run against Ed Kindall, one of the plan's more vigorous opponents. It was the first time he faced a challenger in more than two decades on the board.

The reclusive Eddings, who wouldn't talk to reporters and named a convicted felon as her campaign treasurer, lost but made a race out of it with Chamber cash.

The Chamber really loves Antioch's Karen Johnson. She was the only black board member to vote for the plan, which passed 5-4.

​It has been a big week for the plaintiffs in the trial of the federal lawsuit against Nashville's new student assignment plan. Let's review:

Expert witnesses testified the plan isolates hundreds more children by race and socioeconomic status and contradicts decades of social science on how to teach poor urban kids. That research shows students learn less in schools where poverty is concentrated. That's because teachers are overwhelmed by all the problems these children face--poor health, hunger, drugs, gangs and violence, and a culture that scorns education. Poor students learn more in middle-class settings where aspirations are higher and the teachers typically are more experienced, these witnesses said. Neighborhood schools actually hinder learning for children in poverty-stricken, high-crime sections of the city.

Given all that, why did the school board adopt the rezoning plan? The plaintiffs think they know the answer: White school board members were knuckling under to pressure from white parents and the Chamber of Commerce to end the busing of black children from north Nashville to Hillwood's schools.

​He's baaaaaack. And just when you hoped you'd surely heard the last of Pedro Garcia nearly two years after his ouster as schools director.

One of Garcia's now-infamous memos, which he left behind like ticking time bombs, has blown up in the trial of the NAACP-backed lawsuit accusing the school board of illegally discriminating against black children in the new student assignment plan. In the memo, Garcia paints the school board as a gang of conniving segregationists who tossed him out on the street for taking a principled stand against racism.

​Eleven years after winning release from desegregation decrees, Nashville's school officials are being dragged back into federal court beginning today to face accusations they're discriminating against black children. The issue is whether race was a consideration in the student assignment plan that went into effect this school year, and much of the city's white officialdom is on trial.

Did school board chairman David Fox openly advocate segregation in community meetings? Did he say, as the plaintiffs' attorneys allege, that we should "put African American students back in north Nashville where they live?"

​The evidence has arrived: Pearl-Cohn students are getting the shaft under the rezoning plan. They're still more likely to be taught by inexperienced teachers despite new pay incentives to attract staff to the high-poverty schools.

If school board members were really focused like lasers on improving schools for the city's poor black children, as they constantly claim, then they'd cancel the rezoning plan at their next meeting. Obviously, Nashville is offering a substandard education to Pearl-Cohn's kids. But then, the school board already knew or should have known this would happen.

When they adopted the plan, board members promised to spend $5 million a year to pay teachers more and to add an array of social services to Pearl-Cohn schools. But none of that was likely to help, according to research by Vanderbilt education professors Claire Smrekar and Ellen Goldring.

State Rep. Mike Turner

​In this week's Scene, I write about a secret meeting that may play an important part in the NAACP-supported lawsuit against the city's new student assignment plan. The meeting gathered some of the city's most prominent black leaders with Chamber of Commerce president Ralph Schulz and state House Democratic caucus chair Mike Turner, a member of the task force that recommended the rezoning plan to the school board.

At the meeting, Turner described his reasons for supporting the rezoning plan in stark racial terms, according to a Scene source.

The source tells the Scene that Turner informed the assembled leaders they were "causing trouble." "You need to get on board with this," Turner supposedly said. "Everybody's for this. Look, this is the way to have neighborhood schools, which everybody wants including the blacks in town. This rezoning plan will put the whites in their neighborhood schools and the blacks in their neighborhood schools, and everybody will be better off. We've got a few blacks in my district, and they just love this idea.'

"And then literally," the source says, "literally, he said, 'I talk to blacks in my district, and they're some of my best friends.' "

Turner hotly disputes this account as "a lie," and at least two others at the meeting don't remember him saying that, either. Regardless, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the NAACP lawsuit, Larry Woods, says he'll try to use it as evidence of the city's racial motivation in drawing up the rezoning plan.

(Oh to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. Also, Schulz supposedly got all hot and bothered and went on a rant, denying he's a "red-necked segregationist." )

Now here's a little tidbit that's not in the Scene article. In an attempt to protect Turner, Democrats tried to talk me out of writing about this meeting, and even the usually loquacious Woods wouldn't cough up Turner's name. Won Choi, co-chairman of the Nashville NAACP's education committee and also a big local Democrat, went so far as to offer to tip me to developments in the lawsuit if I wouldn't write about Turner and the meeting.

The moral of this story? The NAACP is determined to bring racial equality to Nashville, um, except when it might make a prominent Democrat look bad.

* Note to Won Choi: It'll take more than a few lame news tips to stop the mighty Pith in the Wind's relentless pursuit of the truth. How about drinks at Morton's?

​The NAACP's lawsuit against Nashville's student rezoning plan started ignominiously for Metro school officials today. A half dozen Metro lawyers were forced to appear before U.S. District Judge William Haynes to try to explain why, in obvious violation of state law, John Early Middle School still lacks textbooks three weeks after students have returned. The NAACP's lawyer, Larry Woods, took full advantage of the media attention.

"The Metro school board doesn't do anything but tell lies about this," Woods declared. "They want black children kept in north Nashville where white people don't have to see them or think about them."

Among these unfortunate children, he says, is the daughter of the lead plaintiffs in his lawsuit. The sixth-grade daughter of Frances and Jeffrey Spurlock was denied enrollment in Bellevue Middle School and forced to attend John Early instead.

Woods asked the judge to reassign the Spurlock girl to Bellevue and to order Metro to deliver textbooks to John Early immediately.

If the city is spending $6 million a year to improve inner-city schools, a key ingredient in the rezoning plan, "then why don't we have textbooks for the sixth grade at John Early," Woods demanded to know. "Where's the extra resources they promised? They can't even get schoolbooks into north Nashville.

"I don't understand why every school board member didn't back their cars up to the Tennessee state schoolbook warehouse and deliver these books to these schools already."

Haynes granted both the NAACP's demands after an hour-long hearing in which Metro lawyers tried to dismiss the situation as an unfortunate, yet commonplace snafu. Metro lawyer Jim Charles blamed John Early's principal.

"She didn't order enough books," he told the judge, adding later "she didn't order them in a timely fashion."

He insisted Metro could deliver textbooks to the school by Friday. "Tonight would be a lot better," Woods snapped.

The judge was nonplussed. "Where is the book depository? You mean you can't get a bus to go out there or a car or a van to go out and get these books?" he asked before ordering the textbooks brought to the school within 24 hours.

The meat of the lawsuit--that the school board, acting in cahoots with the Chamber of Commerce, conspired to consign black children to substandard schools to please suburban whites--will be heard later. The case has been assigned to a new judge, Haynes told the courtroom in a final piece of bad news for the school board. It's John Nixon, one of the most liberal federal judges ever to sit on the bench in Tennessee.

See Th e Tennessean ... Channel 2 ... Channel 4.

​The NAACP filed its long-awaited lawsuit (Spurlock v. Fox & School Board) yesterday challenging Nashville's school rezoning plan that stopped the busing of hundreds of inner-city black children to the white suburbs. The lawsuit may not win in federal court, but the story that's told in the complaint ought to shock the city into action.

Under the plan, which is supposed to provide school choice, a sixth-grade honor student has been denied enrollment at Bellevue Middle School and forced to attend John Early Middle School. There, along with her classmates, she hasn't gotten her first textbook now three weeks into the school year. Unsupervised students bully and threaten her to the point that she cries every day, according to the lawsuit. The girl is afraid to go the restroom at school "because of the vicious threats against her." From the lawsuit:

Tennessee state law requires free textbooks for enrolled students and has so provided since the early 1950s. Even during the ugly, harsh pre-Brown days, racially segregated schools for black students received textbooks (though out of date and battered). Now under the defendants rezoning plan in 2009, there are no textbooks for black students at John Early Middle School of any kind or nature. Despite the many promises by the defendants of extra resources and extra millions of dollars, John Early Middle School does not have textbooks to assign and give to their students.

The girl's mother asked teachers why there were no textbooks. "One teacher said, 'we just don't have enough books so we won't be assigning them.' Another teacher said 'we were only given one set of books so we keep them at each desk for each class to use.' Another teacher said 'we pray for books but we only have a classroom set.' "

When the school board voted 5-4 for this plan, officials promised extra money and extra resources for schools in the Pearl-Cohn cluster. They also promised parents could continue to send their children to schools in the suburbs even if they were rezoned. According to the lawsuit, neither promise has been kept. School officials so far aren't saying much about this, and we imagine they'll fall back on the old trick of telling the media they can't comment on pending litigation. But if these allegations are true, that won't work. Parents deserve an explanation now, and so does everyone in this city for that matter. As the lawsuit says:

The truth of what is happening at John Early Middle School exposes the Nashville rezoning plan as the segregationist fraud that it is. The failure of the defendants to take action to provide necessary and critically important school books at John Early Middle School is further evidence of their wrongful and illegal intent to re-segregate the Nashville schools.

The numbers are in, and to what will likely be a lot of people's surprise, Metro public schools have met the "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) requirements under federal No-Child-Left-Behind rules for academic performance based on standardized test results released today by the state education department. This is the first time in six years that AYP goals have been met. The school system now moves from "restructuring" to "improving" status, and the immediate threat of a state takeover that might have put Mayor Karl Dean in direct charge of the system is averted.

In this strained analogy, Karl Dean plays the role of Mrs. Iselin, first made famous by Angela Lansbury.

Tonight Metro Council gets a chance to inspect the eight candidates for school board. Judging will be based on three criteria: gait, musculature, and the fierceness with which they attack a life-size cardboard-cutout of Pedro Garcia.

The Blue Ribbon favorite in this crowded field is Kay Simmons, former executive director for the Nashville Alliance. Simmons' resume is impressive. With more than 35 years of education experience, both public and private, it's no wonder sources are telling Pith she's the lead dog in the pack. Credentials aside, though, some are still grumbling that Simmons' choice is not her own.

There are two related angles to this Manchurian Candidate conspiracy theory. Here's how they break down...

Georgia O'Keeffe's "Radiator Building--Night, New York"

In a case that seems to have dragged on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever, Fisk University may finally get to sell a 50 percent interest in its renowned Alfred Stieglitz Collection to Wal-Mart heiress Alice L. Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. From a story posted last night on the New York Times website:

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum cannot try to block the sale of an art collection donated by O'Keeffe to Fisk University in Nashville 50 years ago, a Tennessee appeals court ruled Wednesday....

The university, which has longstanding financial difficulties, has arranged to share ownership of the collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which is preparing to open in Bentonville, Ark., and was founded by Alice L. Walton, an heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune. Crystal Bridges will pay $30 million, which O'Keeffe Museum officials have said is a bargain price, and the collection will alternate locations every two years.

Fisk must still win permission in a lower court to sell an interest in the collection, a violation of the terms of the original gift. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum had argued that it should take possession of the entire collection if Fisk violates any of those terms, but offered to drop its opposition if it could buy "Radiator Building -- Night, New York," a key O'Keeffe work in the collection. Saul Cohen, the president of the O'Keeffe Museum, said Wednesday he could not comment because he had not yet had time to study the court ruling.

Considering that the two most valuable paintings in the collection (the "Radiator" painting and Marsden Hartley's "Painting No. 3") are worth anywhere from $20 million to $30 million according to various estimates, and that the other 99 pieces include works by Picasso, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and Diego Rivera to name a few, it would seem the O'Keeffe Museum is right--Walton would be getting a bargain. But then again, the Wal-Mart heiress, whose net worth is estimated at $17.6 billion, knows a thing or two about buying in volume at rock-bottom prices. At least these artworks weren't made in a Chinese sweatshop (that we know of, anyway). But if you're wandering through your neighborhood Supercenter and hear, "50 percent off Renoir on Aisle 3," it's cause for serious concern.

Unrelated: This movie looked terrible.

Eight months ago, Jeff Woods was telling Nashville to load up the 12-gauge and put one between the school board's eyes. At the time, they had just voted to install former Chattanooga superintendent Jessie Register as Nashville's newest head educator. The end result of a long, and some might say fruitless, search to replace the disgraced Pedro Garcia.

Now we're halfway through the summer and, by all indications, mere weeks away from learning that the city has failed to meet standards for the sixth straight year. So why would there be any reason to be optimistic about the state of Nashville's public schools?

Well, for starters, there's at least one (and most certainly more than one) incredible principal working in the city. And for seconds, the school board opening left by new charter schools director Alan Coverstone is actually attracting qualified candidates.

Today, former Nashville Alliance for Public Education director Kay Simmons threw her hat into the ring. That means that an unusually high number (seven, including three relative heavyweights: Simmons, Meharry administrator Lee Limbird and State Board of Education lawyer Rich Haglund) have chosen to go after a relatively grimy position, that of the appointed board member.

That many smart people wouldn't volunteer to board a sinking ship...would they?

Who knows what lurks in the minds of strange bedfellows?

From ace correspondent Brenda Butka:

Our councilman, Lonnell Matthews, who has been busy shilling for May Town--in all fairness, he bought the "jobs to north Nashville" argument--is deferring the zoning request before the Council. It's not an unexpected move, since it avoids the very public defeat of this massively unpopular development, and, I suppose, enables the speculators to somewhat truthfully tell the next buyers that the parcel's zoning has never been voted on by the Council.

What's really interesting is Mr. Matthew's reason for deferring: so that "questions involving the TSU Land Gift" can be addressed by both TSU and the May Town team.

Questions? But Tony G. and the Mays, bless their hearts, have frequently and emphatically stated in public, that this gift was unconditional, "a done deal!" And the resonant Dr. Johnson has been eloquent in his public anticipation of the gift and support of May Town, although we have heard nothing from his Board of Regents about their ability or desire to go into business in Bells Bend, or budget adjustments that might make it possible.

Politics does make strange bedfellows, and the nice young man who runs aftercare programs is not exactly the natural ally of deep-pocketed Belle Meade land speculators. (Although Mr. Matthews is fond of fast and shiny cars--but so are many nice young men.) Does this mean there is schism between the sheets? Is Mr. Matthews having second thoughts about the reliability of the assurances we have all been given from all sides of this quid-pro-quo arrangement?

Can politics' strange bedfellows hold each others' feet to the fire? Uh, well, maybe we just need to abandon the bedfellow metaphor--it brings up, at best, questions like "is the room sprinkler-protected?" along with unpromising verbs about what bedfellows occasionally do to each other.

We are most interested in what happens next, and appreciate Mr. Matthews' efforts to gain clarity on the TSU land gift. People in Bells Bend do know that bedfellows, of whatever stripe, don't get much farming done. You gotta get up and get out on the tractor for that. -Brenda Butka

Jesse Register

In a cover-his-ass speech last week that went unnoticed by the media, schools director Jesse Register all but predicted Nashville will fail for the sixth straight year to meet federal achievement standards. The speech is on the school district's website here. Register says:

I want to be very clear and direct with my message today. First, I am not waiting on pins and needles for test scores that will be released in July. Quite frankly, this district needs urgent, dramatic and comprehensive reform regardless of the test scores this summer.

He adds:

Test scores are coming out in four to six weeks and there seems to be a lottery like anticipation of what the results will be. From my perspective, I don't expect to see any radical improvement in test scores, and we may or may not make adequate progress to improve our status as a district. Regardless of the short term outcome, the trends over the past few years show that we have consistently under performed in many areas.

We will not make excuses, but neither do we need to lose perspective. This situation did not come about overnight, and test scores will not change overnight. A sustained and collaborative effort is necessary to achieve the results that we want.

Gail Kerr writes today that Register is so desperate to broadcast this message that the district flack phoned her and asked her to write about the speech. Kerr reached the same conclusion as Pith. If schools fail again this year, the state Education Department can take over the district, fire the school board and everyone else associated with this disaster. Register is lobbying to keep his job.