Memphis City Schools suck

Or at least that is the general census among most of the people. There are a few good schools, but if you listened to the main conservative pundit in town you would think that they are the worst schools in America. The problem is that the county schools, if you listen to the same pundit, are great.

All of this just follows the typical pattern in most major cities in America. The mayor in Memphis came up with the idea of consolidating the city schools with the country schools. The city would surrender it's charter to the county, and the county would take over.

One of the problems with the idea is that this may be illegal. Another problem is that the one pundit I listen to says it will not work. This is where the pundit seems to contradict himself. The schools are bad, so they should not close. I personally do not have kids in either system, so I do not care what they do.

It would seem that a shared services department would help both systems. The county would reap the larger numbers of the city students when buying goods and securing contracts. The city, well I am not sure what they would gain.

Update: I have figured out what the Memphis city gains from consolidating (it is primarily the mayor pushing for it). They would not have to fund any of the schools in the city. All funding for the city schools would come from the county. If the schools systems merged, the county by law would have to level up the money spent on city school students and the county would also have to make up the funding that the city would stop paying. This was from an interview with a person who works for the county, on the news this morning.

The city would save about 80 million dollars. Of course their taxes would not go down, and they would lose control over the schools. Yes it is true the county has more money, but it is not fair for the county to pay for the city schools. If this does go through, you can expect riots at some point in time from the city.




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