Municipal Referendums Pass: What Now for Kids?

your final (unofficial) vote totals from the election commission website in the vote to form municipal school districts (yes=vote to form):

Looking back at the absentee votes, the only city that saw a significant change from its early/absentee voting was Lakeland.  Regardless, the change was negligible (92 to 87 percent really isn’t that significant).

A brief impact analysis of how this vote will impact our county’s kids. 

Now that separation is legal at the state level, is it possible that we will see the argument that the suburbs voted to break away for race-based reasons revived?

When this vote is finally certified and organization around the split begins, we are likely to see legal fights over who owns the rights to the buildings.  Either way, money will (or will not) change hands, the end result being less resources for students.

We are also likely to see a significant increase in county property tax once the true cost of the merger comes home to roost in the county.  Commissioner Ritz estimated back in May of 2012 that across all 6 municipalities that voted to form their own district, an average of a $1 property tax increase would be needed to fund the schools (remember: our county commission just failed to pass a 6 CENT property tax increase). This represents well over a 100 percent raise in all cities that just voted to separate.  And if these tax increases don’t go through, this represents just another way that our kids will be disadvantaged when cuts are the end result.

This vote is also likely to further damage the SCS unified district’s efforts to find a strong school leader to take over where Dr. Cash left off.   In my opinion, no quality superintendent in their right mind would want to step into this mess and try to lead a school system who’s boundaries are about to be radically altered.  And even at best, this puts a huge burden on both the SCS unified district’s search and any search conducted by the new school districts.  As a teacher, I want a strong school leader, not an interim leader put in place because we can’t get anyone better.

This vote will also further perpetuate the existing real and perceived separation between county and city residents to the detriment of regional integration.  The inaccurate myth of Memphis as a problem has been perpetuated for entirely too long.  The merger had the potential to move us towards regionalism and working to improve both Memphis and the county, but this represents a huge step backwards.

At the end of the day, the real losers are kids.  As I outlined in my previous post, when adults fight, kids lose.  The turmoil caused by this vote will likely continue to echo around the county for some time, drawing attention away from where our true focus should be; on our children.  At a time when around 5 percent of city school and 20 percent of county students are graduating college ready, we can’t afford to be devoting time and resources anything else.