Late Sunday evening came news that the Chamber of Commerce has penned a letter to the MNPS School Board, chastising them for being responsible for a $3.4 million loss of funds in the wake of the Great Hearst dust-up. Via the Tennessean:
Injecting itself squarely into Metro’s ongoing fight with the state over Great Hearts Academies, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce is calling for the Metro school board to somehow resolve its loss of $3.4 million in state education funds without pursuing legal action.
In a sharply worded letter hand-delivered to school board members Friday and Saturday, the chamber expressed “deep disappointment” over the district’s deduction of state funds, a penalty Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman carried out last week following the board’s September rejection of Great Hearts’ charter school application.
The chamber, a key partner with Metro schools that had previously stayed out of the feud, characterized the board’s “mishandling” of its fiduciary responsibility as “especially galling” for those in the business community who have advocated for tax increases to “fully fund” the district’s budget.
“While we believe that all the parties share some blame for the recent impasse, ultimately the accountability for the school system resides with the Metropolitan Board of Education,” reads the letter, penned by businessman Orrin Ingram, who chairs the chamber’s Education 2020 program.
“Accordingly, the school board is responsible for the restoration of the $3.4 million to MNPS from the state in a way that does not waste further effort and taxpayer money.”
There’s a lot longer post to be written about the whole Great Hearts thing, and I’m really hoping to find the time sometime soon, but it feels necessary to comment on this development.
I am disappointed that the Chamber felt the need to pile on the Board, and baffled that no one at the Chamber thought it worth calling out the State Department of Education or the Governor on this one (well, maybe not that baffled). It would be just as easy, and to my mind, a lot more fair, to pen a letter to Governor Haslam and Commissioner Huffman asking them why a political power match blown way out of proportion is worth punishing MNPS students.
I get it. The State is pissed. How dare the MNPS Board flaunt the directives of the State Board of Education. Fine. I’m sure that point has been made hundreds of times, in various ways and tones of voice, through direct and indirect channels. That point has been made at face-to-face meetings, and, I’m sure, in heated phone calls and email exchanges (well, given the number of open records requests as of late, maybe not email).
Be that as it may, the Governor (because, ultimately the buck stops with him) and the Commissioner are acting petulantly. Let’s not pretend that there’s not a legitimate argument to be had here. As others have pointed out a number of times, the State Board had a Motion on the floor during the Great Hearts meeting that would have sent back an order to approve with NO contingencies, full stop. That Motion was not approved. What was approved was a remand with contingencies. What that actually means is really anybody’s guess. It’s about as clear as mud.
That being the case, it’s silly to pretend that this is all cut-and-dried and the Board is clearly and flagrantly in the wrong, deserving of censure.
To my mind, the mature thing to do would have been to have a closed door meeting to figure out a way that both parties could back away. The State doesn’t need to be in the business of making up penalties for slapping down the locals when they don’t agree with what they’ve done, to the detriment of public school children. The only reason there hasn’t been more fuss about this is because it’s Nashville, and many legislators/state bureaucrats have no problem kicking Nashville in the teeth every now and again.
So where do we go from here?
The bottom line is that this is an opportunity for the Board to re-take the narrative and be the adult in the room. The State wants to punish us even though the statute is vague and the remand was oblique? Fine. We owe a duty to the students of Nashville to do what’s best for them – all of them. That’s what we’ll continue to do.
It’s time for someone to take the high road (cost us though it may), and I think the Board has an opportunity to show that the State has been throwing a temper tantrum, but that we’ve determined to move on with the business of educating our children, since Governor Haslam has apparently changed his mind about that. It’ll be an interesting Board meeting tonight.
Filed under: Budget, Charter Schools, Lawsuits, School Board, School Funding Tagged: $3.4 million, Commissioner Huffman, Governor Haslam, Great Hearts, hissy fit, Nashville Chamber of Commerce, Orrin Ingram, power struggles, temper tantrum
