A small crowd gathered at J.F. Kennedy Middle School Monday night for another of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce's school board forums, this time featuring District 6 candidates Cheryl Mayes, the incumbent school board chair, and Tyese Hunter.
Here are three takeaways:
1) Experience is a double-edged sword: When asked what distinguished her most from her opponent, Mayes cited her experience on the school board. That's true, but it's not clear whether it will prove to be a strength or a weakness for her re-election campaign.
Throughout Tuesday's forum, Mayes' experience allowed her to give detailed explanations of the school board's system of policy governance, the dynamics of the board's relationship with the Service Employees International Union, and the Academic Performance Framework. Those were countered, however, by simple but impassioned and clearly resonant statements from Hunter about the need for high expectations and better performance from Metro schools. Consider the responses from each to a question about what the district should do about schools that consistently underperform at the 'Target' level," which is the lowest level in the district's APF.
Hunter: I have to admit. This question bothered me. I struggled with the fact that we can create a question that says ‘consistently underperform.’ This tells you that we have a huge problem within our system. We cannot wait until our schools have failed over and over and over again. This, to me, reflects school board failure at a high level. We need to aggressively address underperformance. This is the reason why I’m running for school board because I live in District 6 Antioch for 20 years, and our schools have been underperforming at target level year after year. If this happens, if a child is in first grade and the school consistently underperforms for four years, what happens when they go to middle school, then what happens when they go to high school. It’s too late. We have to set high expectations and we really have to get in and do something. Mayes: The academic performance framework is not a new tool. It has actually been used by metro schools since the 2010-2011 school year. MNPS already monitors these rankings, especially any of those that fall below achieving not at the target level but any school that falls below achieving. If any school falls below achieving, the district has to first determine why. In order to do that, there are several factors that should be considered, such as: a change in school leadership; high transient rate in that area; or student population; or a high first time EL population.One of the things we have to consider is that Metro Nashville has one-third of the entire EL population in the state of Tennessee. So we consistently see our EL population go up. Before we make accusations about a school that’s underperforming, we need to understand why that school is not performing to the highest level. And again it goes back to a lot of different factors. If you don’t consider the factors that are involved in the scores, then you are not doing right by the children.
Mayes did make several statements about the need for schools in the Antioch area and the district in general to "step it up" but give her position as the school board chair, she was often in the position of explaining if not defending the board and the situation facing the district's schools. She faces the difficult dynamic of school board elections: the incumbent is often put in the position of representing schools as they are, while the outside challenger represents schools as they could be.
2) Expectations, expectations, expectations:
Tyese Hunter's flyers bear the slogan "No Excuses," a phrase she repeated several times Monday night, along with calls for higher expectations among Metro's schools. It's a familiar school board campaign theme for a couple of reasons — schools could always be better, and in a district where trying to navigate the school system is a constant concern for parents, it's guaranteed to hit home. So expect to hear it a lot from Hunter.
It's not that Cheryl Mayes doesn't want schools to improve. She said as much multiple times Monday night. But again, her position as the incumbent and school board chair, seems to have her in the more difficult position of trying to identify progress that's been made and explaining the challenges. And explanation isn't an excuse, but it can sometimes come off like one. Particularly when your opponent is running on No Excuses.
3) Labels don’t matter — or do they?
As charter schools have become a divisive part of the education discussion in Nashville, one question has gained significance in politics and across dining room tables: Where do your kids go to school?
Monday night's forum revealed one strange side effect of that question, and the increasing weight it carries.
Both candidates expressed support for charter schools, in one way or another. Hunter said “parents don’t really care about the label of the school. We just expect more.” Mayes emphasized that charter schools are public schools, and said "as a district, we would be remiss if we did not continue to offer choice options to every single child and parent in this district. Charter schools are one of those options.”
But despite arguing that the type of school is less important than the education a child gets in that school, Mayes would later go out of her way to tout her public school bona fides. In her closing statement she described herself to the crowd as "proud parent of three public high school students,” adding that she was also a “public school graduate” and labeling herself as a “public school advocate.” Hunter shared that her three children attend Cane Ridge Elementary, Nashville Prep, and Hillsboro High School.
Mayes' response in particular illustrates the affect that the charter school push has had on education politics in Nashville. As far as one can tell, Mayes sincerely supports making charter schools an important part of Nashville's education landscape. Beyond that, political pressure from a very active pro-charter crowd might push a board member in that direction as well. But she also makes a bid to have it both ways. Charter schools are public schools, she says, before making it clear the she and her children were invested in public schools. It's not clear whether that reveals Mayes overstating her support for charter schools, compensating politically for that support, or something else. But you can bet she won't be the last school board candidate to find herself twisting into that public-charter pretzel shape.
