Nashville School Board member David Fox wants out of a job. At least, that's one upshot of a proposal he made today in a speech before the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce in which the former business journalist asked Gov. Phil Bredesen to allow Mayor Karl Dean to commandeer the city's struggling school system and appoint his own school board. “I request that as soon as practically and legally possible, Governor Bredesen empower the mayor with authority over MNPS and support legislative efforts to give Nashville's mayor the power to appoint all members of the Metro Nashville Board of Education,” the first-term board member said. Fox's proposal, though a radical one in Tennessee, reflects a growing trend toward more centrally run school systems. With abysmal graduation rates and dropping test scores, state legislators across the country have authored legislation handing big-city mayors the authority to call the public education shots. The thinking is they couldn't do any worse than the oft-corrupt and incompetent elected boards who've run their schools into the ground. Mayors in Chicago, Cleveland and New York have taken over their local school districts with largely promising results. Closer to home, Memphis mayor Willie Herenton has asked for control of his troubled school district. We'll have some comments from Dean later today. After the jump, Fox's chamber speech:

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