Lean Left

The Mayor o Memphis wants to stop funding city schools You read that correctly: in 2006, Herenton wants to cease funding city schools. Under Tennessee law, the county is responsible for funding the schools, not the city. Technically, the city can withdraw funding anytime it wants and the county must take over operations. Of course, they do not have to fund the schools at the same level as the city did.

This move is almost certainly going to be a disaster. The entire Shelby County school system, including Memphis, is a mess. The Memphis schools don’t, as a group, do well for lots of reasons — including the fact that they have sub standard equipment and supplies, the legacy of which is haunting both the city and the county. Because the county illegally short-changed the city school system, for every dollar it spends on new school construction in the county, it must give the city three dollars. That has saddled the county with an enormous amount of debt, and produced schools, that while they do better in most standardized tests, are often much more crowded than city schools, and are beginning to suffer some facility problems. Neither school system does a great job of educating children, and both school systems have structural handicaps that complicate there tasks.

School system consolidation would go a long way to correcting those structural problems (having school boards that cared more about education and less about school prayer and their privileges would help also, but that’s a rant for another day). It would save both systems money, it would allow the city and county to better allocate students to schools (there a some under-utilized city schools near the county border that could be used to relieve overcrowding), and it would remove the 3-1 formula that so hampers the county.

But this is not the way to go about it. The county schools recently slashed their budgets because the county government could not approve a miniscule property tax increase. Asking them to take over the city schools would probably result in even less funding per school — especially since the city would not be contributing anything to the transition costs. Second, this all but guarantees that the city schools would receive second class treatment. The county is reluctant to merge with the city school system, partly for fear of losing control, partly for fear of the effect it would have on test scores and that those test scores would have on funding (No Child Left Untested is never far form consideration in discussions about schools), partly over uncertainty about the financial gains, and, yes, racism also plays a part. Dumping the school system on the county without its consent would only exacerbate those tensions, and guarantee that city school children would suffer.

Now, having said that, the county does need a push of some kind. They have an allergic reaction to even discussing this solution, despite the problems that the split system exacerbates year after year after year. But I cannot imagine that this is the right push. it comes across as the tactic of a bully, and no one likes to be bullied. Herenton has made it clear for months now that he intends this term to be the term that he gets school consolidation. He is gambling that pressure the county into taking over the schools and not suffer politically for the inevitable problems such a forced merger would create.

He is wrong. If the city school suffer, if the property taxes skyrocket, if the school system tanks, there will be plenty of anger to go around.