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May 17, 2005 On May 14th I went to the Dutch Treat Luncheon at the Picadilly Cafeteria on Mt. Moriah. Speaking were David Pickler, Chairman of the Shelby County Board of Education and Wanda Halbert , Chairman of the Memphis Board of Education. I learned several things. 1. According to Mr. Pickler, our hands are tied by the education laws in Tennessee. There is a state law that says that if there are two school districts in a county in Tennessee, that you have to distribute the money in proportion to the Average Daily Attendance (ADA). This is operating funds and Capitol Improvement funds. 2. Also he says you cannot do away with the Memphis Board of Education during a revision of the City Charter because they have a separate charter and you would have to get the approval of the board to do away with their charter. David Pickler says that there would not be any savings in doing that, in the unlikely event that they were willing to give up their charter, due to state law that says that if they gave up the charter, there would be an interim board that would run up to four years and it would be dominated by the larger City School Board and that you would have to bring the County spending up to the City Spending levels which is now some 10 to 15 percent higher. Also operating one school system would not be cheaper than two systems, according to Pickler. 3. Also he says that state law, which designates the ADA, does not allow you to decrease your payments to the School System and that Mayor Herenton could not stop his payments to the Memphis School System as he has proposed. 4. Pickler and Halbert blame much of the spending problems on the federal government due to unfunded mandates which I think is true. The Federal Government has expanded the definition of learning disabilities to such an extent that 20% of the children in the systems fit this definition and these children require much higher spending than those children without disabilities. 5. All in all it is a discouraging situation and the answer lies in the Tennessee Legislature so don’t expect any solutions soon from that bunch of self serving politicians. State politicians seek tax dollars as much as other politicians, but they are also aware that they run the risk of losing political support by advocating higher taxes. They want the higher tax revenues that they can use to enhance their political careers by claiming credit for “improving” public schools and declaring themselves the “education governor” or senator, or whatever. They must, however, from their perspective, deflect taxpayer opposition to their political plans. To deflect taxpayer opposition, a formidable coalition of teachers’ unions, school superintendents, state educational bureaucrats, and state and local politicians is often formed to wage a propaganda campaign to confuse or wear down taxpayer opposition. They typically utilize the strategy of repetition: If you say it often enough, they’ll start to believe it. For example, in Tennessee, per-student public school spending at the primary and secondary levels more than doubled from 1980 to 1990 while student achievement plummeted. This, of course, has been the trend in the U.S. for at least 30 years—spending more and more on public schools for worse and worse results. Yet, in a campaign to raise taxes, the state educational bureaucracy endlessly repeated the argument that the “solution” to declining student performance is more spending. In order to let you study this situation, I have attached two pdf files. One is a document given out by Mr. Pickler concerning the facts and achievements of the Shelby County School System. He is head of the elected school board. The other is copies of the applicable state law. Read it over and let me know what you think. We need to resolve the problem of ADA money which is bankrupting the county with a debt approaching $2 billion dollars. Click here to see David Pickler's Shelby county School report. Click here to see the applicable Tennessee Code law concerning school finances. | Return Home | TODAYS NEWS AND MAIL | MEMPHIS CITY GOVERNMENT NEWS | MEMPHIS CITY COUNCIL NEWS | MLG&W NEWS | SHELBY COUNTY GOVERNMENT | CONTACT US | FAQ Page | MEMPHIS BRIDGE | |
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