A Referendum on Garcia
There's a theory gaining ground around town, and we happen to subscribe to it: Mayor Bill Purcell isn't really in favor of the half-cent sales tax increase he has proposed. Instead, proffering it was designed to kill two birds—achieving political coverage for him, the "education mayor" (he can say he asked for more money for schools), at the same time effectively calling for a referendum on Metro schools director Pedro Garcia. Purcell has all but said Garcia's leadership is deficient, like when he recently offered this not-so-subtle censure: "We all know that the promises and expectations established by the school system and school director three years ago have not been met."
Framing more funding for schools in this way—that is, making it incumbent upon voter approval—is tactically brilliant, if somewhat diabolical. Wherever the chips fall, the mayor's hands are clean. If it tanks, he tried. If it passes, he got more money for schools.
And beyond that, Purcell, schooled in political chess as he is, was able to foresee that this campaign over a higher sales tax will become not just a question of more money for schools, but more importantly a question of whether Garcia has a mandate to lead. When people walk into the voting booth, they'll be deciding whether they have confidence in this schools chief, whether they feel comfortable reaching further into their pockets and handing over more green to the guy who came to town four years ago promising results.
Anyone who believes the sales tax referendum is about anything else is just being naive.
We predict the Metro Council will give the green light to a countywide vote on the question of whether to raise our already staggering 9.25 percent consumer levy to the state-allowed maximum of 9.75 percent. At that point, expect a campaign showdown featuring infighting among business constituencies, high-dollar commercials, town hall meetings, mailings, etc. Actually, while it hasn't begun in earnest, we're already seeing the early manifestations of such a denouement.
In the end, we predict, the outcome will determine whether Garcia stays or goes.
In defense of Nevill
Leave it to the Davidson County Republicans to seize on "offensive" cultural commentary when it suits their purposes. They've been making hay over school board member Kathy Nevill's comment during a Metro Council budget hearing last week in which she essentially said Nashville schools face real challenges to academic achievement—namely, that 65 percent of Metro's public school students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Metro Council member Eric Crafton and his GOP allies wasted no time politicizing the comment.
"Basically what they're saying is, if you're a person of color or if you're poor, we're not going to expect you to learn, you can't learn. That's what they're blaming poor performance on. That's not acceptable," Crafton told The City Paper.
During this budget process, the school board has been more misguided than a blind pilot, but Nevill happens to be, first, well meaning and, second, correct. Kids who grow up in less affluent homes with more limited access to educational materials and with parents who are less likely to be educated are, in fact, less likely to be academic achievers than their more prosperous counterparts. Everybody knows that. She didn't say poor kids can't learn; she simply recited this school system's demographic realities.
Nevill was just telling it like it is, and it happens to be relevant to schools funding. There's a difference between saying poor children can't learn and saying that poor children need more system resources to catch up to their more affluent peers. The first is bigotry; the second is simple fact. Metro is an urban system—we must educate the urban poor. If the Davidson County Republicans really want to find something to get bent out of shape about, they should focus on the state's education funding formula, which makes urban systems like Nashville's subsidize rural systems that lack the municipal burdens we must bear. Of course, that would require the Davidson County Republicans—all 12 or 13 of them—to do something other than ghostwrite PowerPoint presentations for Metro Council members like they did for Crafton.
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