“If it’s a choice between a difficult truth and a simple lie, people will take the lie every time. Even if it kills them.”
― Paul Murray

It’s been a difficult week, but not for the suspected reasons.

This week I lost a dear friend and a musical hero.

It feels a little odd to call Shane MacGowan, a hero. Maybe that says as much about me as it does about him.

MacGowan was the lead voice of the Pogues, a band that artfully mixed the best elements of punk rock and traditional Irish music. As talented as the man was, his personal life was the polar opposite. A drunk, an addict, and a brawler with a penchant for the literary arts, he seemed like a caricature brought to life from the pages of Irish folklore. But, all you have to do is listen to Fairytale of New York – arguably the best Christmas song ever written – or Dirty Old Town, and you’ll get it.

MacGowan lived life on his terms, despite the toll inflicted on his health and wealth. There’s something about knowing that people like him still exist in this modern world, that gave me a certain sense of comfort and optimism.

My friend, Frank Sass, was cut from similar cloth. It was a poet’s life for both.

There have been few live engineers in Music City that could match Frank, but he was just as often a bull in a china shop. He ruled his stage with an iron fist, with well-defined expectations that were seldom delivered with a velvet glove.

However, once he knew that you brought the same level of commitment as he, you couldn’t ask for a better ally. He may have often exuded the air of a curmudgeon, but underneath was a man who loved art and the people who made it.

We worked together for about 5 years, but we were friends for much longer. During those years, I’ve been on the receiving end of both his ire and his grace – sometimes on the same day. He delivered both with the same intensity.

Like MacGowan, I considered him a force of nature and one whose passing will make the world a lot less interesting.

You can’t talk about a poet without talking about their muse. Both men were blessed with the love of a good woman. MacGowan had Victoria Mary Clark, while for Frank it was Lisa Sass. Frank and Lisa were high school sweethearts and for the 30 years I knew them, she was a rock for him. I suspect neither would have flown to their respective heights without the love of the women. Sounds cliche, but rings true.

My prayers are with them this week.

Godspeed to Shane and Frank, life was seldom dull with the two of you right around the corner. Just know that you both brought tremendous joy.

– – –

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee kicked off the gift-giving season this week, dropping a large package in the lap of the state’s Democrats. However, the question remains whether they are capable of unwrapping it or not.

Lee is proposing a universal voucher plan, or as he calls it, an Education Freedom Scholarship, that would hypothetically provide money for every kid in the state to attend the school of their choice.

With the announcements, the gates were flung open and the waves of hyperbole rolled forth.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee, who some strange reason was invited to the Governors show, called it part of a “conservative education revolution”.

I’m still trying to decipher that one. Sanders went on to add that she is “proud of the fact that Governor Lee is recreating some of the same successes” seen in Arkansas, which she noted was recently ranked the fourth best state for education freedom.

Freedom is nice, but shouldn’t it come with some success. Arkansas’s education system is currently ranked 33rd in the country, two slots behind Tennessee, which sits at 31. I always tell my kids, that who you associate yourself with is important. Seems that lesson would apply here.

The anti-voucher forces were out in force as well.

“What this is is a coupon program for rich families who do not want to pay the full price of tuition,” said Sen. London Lamar of Memphis, leader of the Senate Democratic caucus. As if no lower-middle-class families are working multiple jobs to send Johnny and Susie to private school. Why don’t they deserve a little help?

Metro Nashville Public Schools Board chair Rachel Elrod sent a blistering statement to The Tennessean, “It is moral and fiscal malpractice for Tennessee to dismantle and destabilize public education,” Elrod said. “The state started education privatization in Nashville and Memphis, and it is now spreading across the state.”

On the flip side, Beacon Center CEO Justin Own released a statement in support of the bill, “Parents everywhere deserve true educational freedom, and Tennesseans across the political spectrum agree… Beacon has long advocated for expanding parental choice, and we are grateful the governor is leading the charge to make it happen in 2024.”

2024?

So he and his tribe are proposing to have this up and running by the start of school 8 months from now?

Apparently, none of y’all have kids. Because if you did, you’d know the idea of reviewing options, collecting information to apply, filling out the application, waiting for acceptance, applying to the school, being accepted by the school, and figuring out changes to the family schedule, all while trying to keep food on the table and enjoy some kind of family life, ain’t going to happen in that short a time frame.

But let’s pull back for a minute and consider the most important thing that Lee said at his presser, ““The final details of this legislation aren’t worked out,” the Governor told reporters after his announcement. “This is Day One. This will be a legislative effort.”

Presently all he has to offer is a nice flyer that lays out some debatable statistics.

The gist of Lee’s argument appears to be, that a lot of states are doing this so we should too.

My answer is, that a lot of people used to try and smoke banana peels because they allegedly got you high. They didn’t and the fact that a lot of people thought they did, didn’t make it a good idea.

Over the next month, legislators will amend the hell out whatever bill eventually emerges. Some of the ideas will be good, and some…not so much.

One thing that would concern me, is the unintended consequences on small communities.

Around 60% of Tennessee’s school districts serve less than 5000 kids. As such, options are limited, and nobody is suddenly going to open a competing school in those districts when opportunities in the suburbs remain untapped.

Now, depending on the language of the final bill, an online school could possibly swoop in and snag up students from across the state. In that case, would Lee, a strong critic of online classes suddenly support remote education?

Ignoring that scenario for now, what happens when the car salesman in Meigs County decides that he can sell cars in Murfreesboro, and if the state is going to give him the means to send his kid to private school there, why not move to Murfreesboro?

Enough of those types of decisions could have a dramatic effect on a community tax base. Fewer people contributing to the city’s tax base means those who remain will be required to commit more.

Initially, Lee’s proposal will send low-income kids to the front of the eligibility line. I find myself asking, why do the needs of poor kids supersede those of others?

Why is a family that only exists above the poverty line due to the hard work and sacrifice of the parents, any less worthy of help than the poor?

Most of us aspire to wealth, yet we turn around and dismiss the needs of those kids who just happen to be born into wealthy families. As if the mere presence of wealth is a panache to everything.

The reality is that universal school choice is coming. Society has continually splintered over the last forty years and there is no indication of a reversal.

When I was young, we all read Time and Newsweek. We all got our news from Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. We read the same books and listened to much of the same music.

We don’t anymore.

We all get our news from different outlets that cater to our perceptions. Music and book subgenera have their own subgenera. Our families look different, and our lifestyles reflect a plethora of different choices.

Why would we assume that our schools should continue to look like they did forty years ago, with all of us attending a similar model and receiving the same information from the same source? It’s nice nostalgia but it’s not reality.

The trick is in designing a system that best serves the most people without preconceived notions. That starts with defining public education.

What are the essential non-negotiables?

It can’t be that it is one governed by an elected body because those already don’t exist universally.

I do think that a primary cache should be that all schools considered public schools be held to the same measures of accountability? If we are going to subject traditional schools to an A-F grading system, then whatever comes next should be subject to the same.

I do think public schools need to recognize that they serve all students, not just the ones that adhere to a preferred social agenda.

At some point, we are going to have to have an honest conversation about indoctrination. The reality is that schools have always been used for social indoctrination,

Economists Oded Galor and Omer Moav argue that Prussian factory-style schools caught on across the West as the spread of industrialization created a need for compliant, literate workers. Industrialists led the charge to adopt universal education in the US, UK, and elsewhere in Europe. Factory owners were among the biggest champions for the Elementary Education Act 1870, which made education universally available in England.

To quote from an article by Allison Schrager, “The transition to factory work was unpleasant, to put it mildly. The idea that men had to show up and take orders from a boss—someone they were not even related to—was demeaning and emasculating. Factory conditions were often terrible and completely changed how people organized their days. Time was no longer their own.”

In the 1830s, Horace Mann, a Massachusetts legislator and secretary of that state’s board of education, began to advocate for the creation of public schools that would be universally available to all children, free of charge, and funded by the state. He and his supporters argued that a public investment in education would benefit the whole nation by transforming children into literate, moral, and productive citizens

According to a paper written by the Center on Education Policy:

Common school advocates emphasized the knowledge, civic, and economic benefits of public schooling. Common schools would teach the “three R’s” (reading, writing, arithmetic), along with other subjects such as history, geography, grammar, and rhetoric. A strong dose of moral instruction would also be provided to instill civic virtues. Educating children of the poor and middle classes would prepare them to obtain good jobs, proponents argued, and thereby strengthen the nation’s economic position. In addition to preparing students for citizenship and work, education was seen by some reformers as a means for people to achieve happiness and fulfillment.

Reformers argued that common schools would not truly serve as a unifying force if private schools drew off substantial numbers of students, resources, and parental support from the most advantaged groups. In order to succeed, a system of common schooling would have to enroll sufficient numbers of children from all social classes, including the most affluent and well- educated families. This idea met with resistance from many Americans who did not want to pay to educate other people’s children. And some passionate advocates of common schools did not interpret a “universal” system of public education as being equally available to children of all races and ethnicities.

Advocates saw universal education as a means to eliminate poverty, crime, and other social problems. Some early leaders argued that the costs of properly educating children in public schools would be far less than the expenses of punishing and jailing criminals and coping with problems stemming from poverty.

That’s a description of public education 200 years ago.

Do I think teachers are twirling their mustaches and plotting to turn little Johnny into a closet communist?

No.

However, I do think that when scripted lesson plans are utilized, common examples are designed, and when teachers are forced to tightly adhere to those lessons, more than one master is being served.

My overarching point is, that Lee’s proposal is not a revolution or even anything new. At some point, details will emerge. Hopefully, they are better than what’s currently being spouted.

Last year, the Governor and his troops spent a lot of time telling Tennesseans that under the new school funding plan, the money follows the student. This year the message delivered, while promoting multiple funding sources, seems to be that money follows the student as long as they follow the right path.

We have to do better than that.

– – –

The MNPS school board continues to put politics before families. They also continue the pattern of being their own worst enemy.

At this week’s board meeting, three charter schools were up for renewal – Valor Collegiate Academies, KIPP Collegiate High School, and Rocketship Northeast Elementary School.

Valor is universally recognized as one of the best schools in the state, but the MNPS board was not impressed.

“I think it’s pretty clear looking at the students that they are picking and choosing to recruit,” said board member Abigail Tylor. “I see that the vast majority of their students are not economically disadvantaged. They have a very small students with disabilities group.”

Funny that this board often argues how MNPS’s high-performing schools don’t mirror the demographics of the district, but nary a mention of the fact that several schools lack true diversity and are overwhelmingly populated by black students. If you are worried about diversity and equity, you should be worried about universal diversity and equity. This board clearly is not.

I’ve got a long history with Valor Academy and once told founder Todd Dixon that, ‘there was a special place in hell for him.” I’ve since had to eat my words and old crow tastes no better than fresh crow. Valor’s renewal should have been a simple thank you for your service and proceed.

For KIPP, the review committee saw areas for academic improvement. Which led Tylor to express, “”For us to have to say ‘we’re just going to continue to allow them to do the same or worse than us’ and give them a pass, when let’s be honest, nobody’s given MNPS a pass for having the same grouping of children and struggling … what could our schools do if we had more, if we had the ability, if we had the resources, if we had the autonomy to do the things they have and if we had private groups coming in and giving us extra money,”

Really? Nobody is giving Glencliff a pass when they repeatedly have a graduation rate below 70%. Nobody is giving MNPS a pass when the district’s graduation rate lags 10 points behind the rest of the state.

Nobody is giving MNPS a pass when the city government consistently gives them more money for fewer students?

Speaking of money, it’s worth mentioning that Dr. Joseph was partially run out of town for having five chiefs earning $185K a year. Currently, there are 9 chiefs earning 200K a year. If the district had more money would they be able to increase that number to 12 chiefs at $220K?

There’s never enough money, except when there is enough money.

At least Valor and KIPP were renewed. Rocketship did not fare as well. This was Board Chair Elrod’s opportunity to shine.

She said the school received $6.8 million per year in taxpayer money and had a chronic absenteeism rate of 41.5%.

“They have a low success rate, it’s actually below ours, though I know that we’re not striving for mediocrity. We really do want exceptional,” Elrod said. “They are not outperforming the district.”

Yeah, I know…to deconstruct that statement would take a while, but it reads well in a newspaper.

The board voted to deny Rocketship’s renewal even though they earned the review committee’s recommendation of approval. So who’s being served here?

What do you think happens next?

First of all, they supplied justification for the existence of the state’s Public Charter School Commission.

Secondly, Rocketship is likely to have the local decision overturned by the PCSB. Especially armed with the local reviewer’s recommendation.

Thirdly, every voucher proponent in the country is going to use this action as a reason why we have to provide a way out of traditional schools.

Lastly, MNPS Director Adrienne Battle said the surrounding five elementary schools in the area could handle the nearly 525 students if the school were to close. What makes her, or the board think that those kids are just going to show up at the local school option just because you closed their school.

How many are going to explore the voucher pathway?

How many are going to transfer to another charter school? Changing schools means a disruption in family life, a disruption not everyone has the resources to navigate.

But hey, that’s all secondary to drumming up revenue for the home team.

And butts in the seat equal cash in the bank.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

– – –

Here’s an interesting closer for you. Former Lee advisor Blake Harris, who most recently served as senior political adviser to Senator Tim Scott, will lead Fight Right, a new super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Iowa. According to Politico, the group launched last week with a $980,000 television ad buy likening GOP rival Nikki Haley to Hillary Clinton.

Let’s not forget, our old pal Penny Schwinn is working remotely for the University of Florida. Schwinn is earning just under $400k for her work.

Maybe this is all a pathway for Lee to get on the DeSantis ticket.

In any case, it seems in Tennessee, all roads lead to Florida.

– – –

Time to rattle the cup a little bit before I head out the door.

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If you’d like less opinion and more news, check out my writing for The Tennessee Star. It’s a bit drier but equally informative.

Categories: Education