The City of Memphis is slashing its funding for public schools by 78%. You read that number right. 78%.
Wow. That’s pretty bold. And the city wants to push that number up to 100%.*
The plan is to put the entire burden on the county. Why? The argument is that right now CITY residents pay a higher share of the COUNTY school system than COUNTY resident’s pay for the CITY school system.
If the county handled ALL the funding, then everybody would pay an equal share into both systems (even though they were only in one district or the other). Sound fair?
It’s great deal for the city. Maintain an autonomous school district and pay $0 for it. It doesn’t get much better than that. Or much more ridiculous. But state law doesn’t require a city to pay a penny for schools, only a county. So the City of Memphis may well be within its legal rights.
So now the county should say, “Hey, Memphis! If you’re not going to pay for it, you don’t get to have it. We’re taking over your school system!” Right? Right?
Except the county doesn’t want it. By having a city school district separate from its county school district, Shelby County gets to quarantine pretty much all its poorest neighborhoods and failing schools into a separate school system that is someone else’s problem.** Terrible idea. Terrible leadership. And really, really terrible for the kids left behind in those failing schools.
We should be very glad that Nashville is a Metro government with a Metro school system. Our failing schools are a shared responsibility – and passing the buck is not solving the problem. Remember that when voting for the Metro School Board this August. We need leaders that represent everyone and are willing to tackle the city’s biggest problems, no matter what district they come from. The last thing we need to do is replicate the mess they have in Memphis.
- Calvin Rye
*The city’s share of the city school budget is about 10%, so it would result in an overall 7.8% decrease in school funding if the county doesn’t pick up the slack.
**In Memphis, there is a large number of city residents who attribute this to racism on the part of the county residents. As someone who grew up in Memphis, personally I believe it’s much more about selfishness than race. County residents just don’t want to deal with (or pay for) the problems caused by urban poverty.
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