June 16, 2005

A Visionary's Vision

Earlier today Bill Hobbs posted an email from one of his readers, Bill R., who wrote in response to Bruce Barry's post at Pith in the Wind the other day.

Barry, in reference to Councilman Crafton's presentation on school spending and performance, stated that "performance measures compiled by the state for each county are so numerous that you can pull out numbers to support just about any conclusion you would like to justify." Of course, this was right after pulling out his own numbers to support the conclusion he wanted to justify...which was essentially downplaying the mediocrity of Nashville's public schools despite the fact that they receive more money per pupil (average daily attendance) than the state average by almost $2000 (it's even above the national average). His conclusion seemed to be...damn the performance, just give them more money.

This seems to be the prevalent attitude among the "tax-first, deal with problems later" people. They admit that the schools are underperforming, but why should that get in the way of throwing more money at them? As Bill R. put it, "I have heard that doing the same thing over and over again, getting a bad result each time, and then repeating the actions with expectations of some better outcome is often a warning sign of mental instability. Just throwing money at school systems has not improved them."

As I said before, the Metro school system doesn't need more funding. I had said that they needed a change in leadership, but I've come to the conclusion that in order for real change, something more drastic has to be done. In his email to Hobbs, Bill R. made a comment that really hit home...

Perhaps school systems – which in their present forms are holdovers from the days of the Industrial Revolution – should be completely revamped. A school board that consists of the parents of the children in school would be helpful, too: no professional educators and no bureaucrats allowed on the board. (Now there’s a radical idea!)

A "radical" idea indeed. A complete revamp of a school organization...not just with the school board but with the entire organization. However, such a "radical" move would require the vision of a true visionary...the likes of what Nashville doesn't seem to have right now.

Mayor Purcell does have a great vision for the city of Nashville, but does he have what it takes to truly become a real visionary and go down a path of restructuring a school system (which even he has criticized) that's so entrenched in status quo mediocrity and ineptitude? Mind you, I'm not talking about the teachers here...they are the ones who are right where the rubber meets the road. I'm talking about the leadership and bureaucracy of the school system that bogs down the entire machine.

If someone had the guts and vision to take on such a task they could put Nashville at the forefront as a model of modern education in a "big" city. However, the perceived downsides are enormous. Such a process would create a political war that would be difficult to weather, but in the end the payoffs would be huge.

Would such a thing ever happen (or even be considered)? I seriously doubt it. As with anything in government, change is long and tedious...most of the time it doesn't even happen and just ends up getting worse. Perhaps that's a reason why true visionaries are rarely seen running for public office anymore.

Real change is needed, and fleecing taxpayers for more money to throw at the system is not going to fix it. Are there any visionaries in Nashville?

Probably not.

Comments:

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I agree about the school board issue. Right now it's mainly used as a launching point for a political career of some sort... you don't have to know anything about the school or about education, you only have to live within the district. (At least that's how it is here in PA)

Posted by: Mary at June 17, 2005 10:33 AM