Posted on 02/24/2011 6:42:59 AM PST by GailA
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - A Shelby County Commissioner stormed out of a meeting on the proposed Memphis City Schools/Shelby County Schools merger Wednesday, telling reporters the Commission was wasting taxpayer dollars.
As always, members of the local Memphis media stood outside the Shelby County Commission committee room during their attorney-client privilege meeting. But in the middle of the meeting, Commissioner Terry Roland left, frustrated.
"I'm going to let you all know," he said. "I'm going to let the folks know everything that's going on behind these closed doors."
Roland said he was obligated to let his District 4 constituents know about a costly injustice.
"Five hundred and ten dollars an hour," he said, claiming how much taxpayers had spent for the two hour meeting. "Folks! Ya'll are paying for this right now."
Commissioners hired a private attorney to represent the Commission on Memphis and Shelby County school merger matters.
"We're hiring lawyers to sue ourselves, which is absolutely crazy," Roland said. "We've got a word for that up in North Shelby County. It's called ignorance."
But some commissioners contend that having the county attorney representing both the commission and the mayor on the school merger matters would be a conflict. The majority of the commission supports the merger. though the mayor does not.
"Why are we spending this tremendous amount of money on these attorneys when we have all these attorneys here that are very capable?" Roland asked.
(Excerpt) Read more at wmctv.com ...
Memphis has surrendered it's school charter...they want to run the entire county school system...they were NOT happy with ruining their own schools now they want to ruin the county schools. Which they would control in about 3 years. Which means MORE TAXES, and a dumbing down of the educational system for the county schools, and a possible return of busing because of inequality in the 'new system'.
ping
ping
County wide school mergers are a bad idea in most cases. They’re usually a means of combining a failing district with one that’s doing well.
BINGO! Memphis has some of the worst schools in the state. County scores high.
All this will do is more flight out of the county.
And will the successful district bring up the failing district? To my knowledge, that has never happened before.
Will the failing district bring the successful one down into the gutter with it? Vegas oddsmakers have that as a stone-cold lock.
Its also harder for the unionistas to control multiple districts. You might want to spread this around. Its an instruction manual for union takeover of school boards.
“Electing your employer” (School board election manual)
MEA PAC NEA fund
http://www.meaexposed.org/documents/SchoolBrdElectManual07.pdf
I’ve been watching this for a while. Not really a merger, is it? It’s more like dereliction of duty by the City.
Gail, you are correct, this is all about expanding the tax base so that they can raise the taxes on the county properties and lower them (slightly) on city properties.
About 10 years ago, Oregon’s legislature forced unification of schools (consolidation of all districts into K-12). This forced unification was pressed under the “economy-of-scale/efficiency” banner. Parental involvement, test scores, graduation rates have all suffered. Bigger is rarely better where education is involved. School board members were involved/concerns parents/patrons.....now they have become politicians. Fight all expansion. Small/local should become/remain the default.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.