Tag Archives: Shelby County Schools

Posted on by

Memphis Lift Issues Statement on Court Hearing, School System Audit

With a hearing today on a potential state takeover of Memphis schools, a parent advocacy group calling itself Memphis Life released a statement about recent audit findings.

In a statement provided to the media, Sarah Carpenter, Executive Director of Memphis Lift, said:

“While lawyers argue over what to call this report, Memphis parents are focused on what it uncovered. The state’s independent forensic audit identified $54.2 million in transactions consistent with evidence of potential fraud, waste or abuse, another $65.1 million involving potential violations of district policies and procedures, and widespread failures in governance, contracting, oversight and accountability. Those findings cannot be explained away with legal technicalities.

“The people bringing this lawsuit are trying to divert attention from the real issue. Based on an annual per-pupil allocation of $12,773, $54.2 million is equivalent to an entire year of MSCS’s budgeted investment in more than 4,200 students. Imagine 4,200 Memphis children standing together and then tell their parents that the money that could have supported their education is too small to matter.

“Call it an audit, a review or a consulting engagement. Parents call it proof that the system failed to protect money intended to educate children. The question is not whether $54.2 million looks small compared with a multibillion-dollar budget. The question is how many students those dollars could have served and why the adults responsible for protecting those resources failed to do so.”

A judge previously issued an order pausing the state’s planned takeover of Memphis schools by way of a state-appointed board.

BLOCKED: Judge Temporarily Halts State Takeover of Memphis Schools

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Are Robots the Teachers of Tomorrow?

Jerri Green’s Plan for Schools

Posted on by

Shelby County Sues Over State Takeover of Schools

The Shelby County government is challenging the state’s takeover of public schools in Memphis. A new state law passed this year created a state-appointed “Board of Managers” to oversee the Shelby County School Board.

This unelected board, appointed by politicians from Nashville, has the power to usurp decisions made by the elected leaders of the Shelby County Schools.

Tennessee Lookout reports on the lawsuit:


The Shelby County government sued Tennessee lawmakers in federal court last week, hoping to regain local control over the board that oversees the Memphis school system. 

State lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year disbanding the locally elected Memphis Shelby County Schools board and replacing it with a nine-member one, all appointed by Republican leaders in the state. 

Lawyers for Shelby County argued in their complaint that the law “dismantles” the structure that allows “110,000 children and their families to have a voice in the most consequential local decisions affecting their daily lives.” 

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Civil Rights Complaints Filed Against TN DCS

School Vouchers and the TN Governor’s Race

Posted on by

Another State Takeover of Memphis Schools

Tennessee’s top policymakers don’t trust Memphis. Especially when it comes to running schools. They showed it with the Achievement School District. And, they are showing it now with a new oversight board – appointed by politicians in Nashville like Gov. Bill Lee and House Speaker Cameron Sexton.

Here’s the thing: The ideas of these old, white men failed when it was called the ASD and they will fail again.

And the ASD just kept failing. Subsequent education chiefs tried a variety of ASD heads and an array of ever-vaguening goal statements, and yet by 2024, they were still nowhere. Under four different state education commissioners, helmed by five different leaders,and aimed at shifting sets of goals and strategies, the Achievement School District never accomplished the kind of dramatic school turnarounds that its supporters aspired to.

State takeovers mostly fail. They use the wrong metric for failure, the wrong diagnosis, the wrong pool of “expertise,” the wrong motivation, and the wrong timetable, and Tennessee’s ASD, with its dogged over-a-decade unsuccessful flailing, provides one of the most thorough debunking of takeovers.

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Trump’s Beautifully Bad Idea for Schools

What’s Going on with the American Library Association?

Posted on by

Unfinished Business

Feagins attempts Memphis comeback by way of courts

Marie Feagins wants a judge to order the Memphis-Shelby County School Board to reinstall her as Director of Schools.

Chalkbeat reports:

Former Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins is now suing a board member for personal defamation in an ongoing lawsuit over her January firing after less than 10 months on the job.

Feagins testified on Tuesday in Shelby County Circuit Court, where Judge Robert Childers considered Feagins’ request for a preliminary injunction, which would overturn the board vote to terminate her contract and reinstate her as district leader as the lawsuit plays out.

“I came here to do a job, and we have unfinished business,” Feagins said on the stand. “I didn’t come to sue the school district.”

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Kentucky’s Teacher Pension Problem

How School Vouchers Destroy State Budgets

Posted on by

State Takeover of Memphis Schools: Not Yet

But district faces continued pressure, scrutiny from meddling lawmakers

Most of Tennessee’s legislators are not from Memphis/Shelby County, but that hasn’t stopped a cadre of them from attempting to tell the elected leaders of Memphis how to run their schools.

As the General Assembly ended its business this year, legislation that would have allowed the state to takeover Memphis-Shelby County Schools stalled:

Memphis-Shelby County Schools narrowly avoided legislation that would have expanded state control over its elected school board and budget. But lawmakers intend to bring that bill back — and other efforts to audit the district and potentially change the timing of its school board elections have advanced.

Though versions of state intervention bills passed in the House and Senate, the chambers could not reconcile them before the Tennessee General Assembly adjourned on Tuesday. Each bill called for a state-appointed oversight board whose members would be paid by the school district, but the two versions differed on what powers it gave that board, and the thresholds that would trigger state intervention.

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Lee’s Tennessee wins South’s Race to the Bottom

A Note on the End of the Department of Education

Posted on by

What to do About Shelby County Schools?

The legislature seems determined to subvert democracy

Chalkbeat reports that a pair of possible “solutions” are floating around – plans that would allow the General Assembly to intervene in Shelby County Schools:

One proposal in the House would take power away from the elected school board for at least four years, giving oversight of the school district to a state-appointed board of local residents. A proposal in the Senate would give the Shelby County Commission greater control over the school district — at a time when commissioners have already proposed creating an advisory board to consult with the school board.

MORE EDUCATION NEWS

Evidence from Ohio Suggests Vouchers Harm Kids

Money Matters for Schools

MORE TENNESSEE NEWS

Faith Leaders Stand Up for Trans Kids

Pot for Potholes?

Posted on by

Memphis-Shelby County Announces it Will Not Arm Teachers

District rejects legislative plan to put more guns in schools

Officials in Memphis have announced that their school system will not allow teachers to carry guns at school, despite a legislative decision that would allow districts to permit teachers who receive certain training to carry firearms on school grounds.

Seems Like a Bad Idea

“We will not allow teachers to carry guns in our schools,” said Superintendent Marie N. Feagins, adding that the law is “controversial.”

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said “schools are for learning.”

“… And emergency situations should be handled by trained officers,” Bonner said. 

“And the district has made it a priority to keep them that way through security upgrades and updates,” MPD Interim Chief C.J. Davis continued.

MORE TENNESSEE NEWS

Tennessee Teacher Pay Lags Behind Neighboring States

Ed Commissioner Abuses Tuition Waiver Program

Posted on by

Is That All?

Memphis-Shelby County Schools has a new budget proposal that offers teachers a 2% raise plus a $1500 retention bonus.

While this sounds nice – it IS more money, it really begs the question: Is that all?

Chalkbeat has more on the details of the nearly $2 billion budget proposal:

Memphis-Shelby County Schools teachers would receive a 2% pay raise and $1,500 retention bonuses as part of the $1.93 billion proposed budget approved by school board members Tuesday.

Fulfilling Superintendent Joris Ray’s promises earlier this year to invest in educators, the 2022-23 budget would also funnel nearly $12 million into educators’ tiered pay scale and add a new step on the scale for principals.

The budget, passed on a 5-0 vote, also directs $3.5 million to bump up the district’s contribution to employee health insurance premiums to 70% from 66%, and $3 million to raises for substitute teachers. 

While a 2% raise and a $1500 salary increase are nice moves, that’s simply not enough.

It’s unfortunate that Bill Lee’s TISA plan and current funding scheme aren’t dedicating more to public schools We currently have a surplus in excess of $3 billion at the state level and yet still struggle to fund public schools.

It’s a matter of priorities.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

Posted on by

Judge: Lee’s Action on Masks Interferes with Safe Access to Schools

A federal judge today blocked Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order allowing parents to opt-out of mask mandates in schools.

WTVC-NewsChannel9 has more:

U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman issued the preliminary injunction after parents of students with health conditions argued that the Republican governor’s executive order endangered their children and hurt their ability to attend in-person classes by allowing others to opt-out of a mask mandate

In the ruling, Lipman wrote that the ability to safely access schools was a guaranteed right and that the executive order impedes this right.

“Plaintiffs offered sufficient evidence at this stage to demonstrate that the Executive Order interferes with Plaintiffs’ ability to safely access their schools,” the judge wrote.

Chalkbeat has additional reporting:

“It is that unmasked presence that creates the danger to these plaintiffs,” she wrote. “Universal masking is a reasonable accommodation that the governor’s executive order refuses to make available to schools, school systems and, in this case, the Shelby County Health Department.”

Friday’s ruling only affects Shelby County, where the executive order was in effect from Aug. 16 to Sept. 3, when it was blocked by the court’s temporary restraining order. Gov. Bill Lee’s order still stands in other counties.

“The public interest certainly recognizes the rights of parents,” she said, “but a universal masking requirement to protect students’ health does not significantly impact their ability to direct their education any more than would a uniform policy or requiring that students receive certain vaccinations before attending school.”

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes reporting education news possible.

Posted on by

Teaching Vacancies Up in Shelby County

The number of teaching position vacancies in Shelby County has increased since the start of the school year, reports Chalkbeat:

The Memphis district started the school year with 217 unfilled teaching jobs on Aug. 9, and that number has grown to 227 as of Monday, the district’s human resources chief, Yolanda Martin, said. That represents a dramatic increase in vacancies from around this time last year, when the district had just 63 unfilled positions as of the first day of school.

The rise in openings follows a wave of teacher resignations. Since May, 367 district educators have resigned from their positions, Martin told school board members during a committee meeting on Monday. The district saw a similar figure last year: 389 teachers resigned during the 2019-20 school year.

Normally, I’d write about teacher pay (which is abysmal in TN) or remind readers that COVID-19 has been especially demanding. I might point out the repeated warnings about a teacher shortage. Or, note that all the “disruption” sought by so called “ed reformers” is really disruptive – to kids, teachers, schools, and families.

But, I’m just going to stop. The story is there. Teachers are leaving. The job is incredibly challenging. And there have been people shouting about this crisis coming for years now.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.