The Education Mayor?

Jeff Woods has some choice words for the School Board and Nashville's white progressive leadership, personified by Mayor Karl Dean et al.:

Under pressure from the Chamber of Commerce and their own white constituents a month before elections, they were obviously hell bent on ramming this through, even if it meant pissing off an entire segment of the city ....

No matter how hard the white board members try to dress up this plan, essentially the idea is to fix it so white kids in Hillwood don’t have to go to school with black kids from North Nashville. As the NAACP’s Marilyn Robinson puts it, “They want to keep all the poor, black kids together” ....

Last night’s meeting recalled the dark days of Nashville’s racially polarized past. Toward the end, I almost expected the board to turn fire hoses on the crowd. Here’s a good question: Where were the city’s so-called progressive white leaders in this fight? None felt compelled to take a public stand. Not Karl Dean, Diane Neighbors, Mike Jameson or Ronnie Steine. (Oh wait, Steine's kid goes to USN. What does he care about this?) Thanks guys. That’s leadership! ....

And later in the comments section, Woods again takes aim at Mayor Dean, whose central, winning plank was education:

Speaking of cowardly white liberals, it's particularly galling for the mayor to sit on his hands on this. After yammering incessantly about education during the entire mayoral campaign and forever afterward, he's suddenly struck mute as the school board makes this historic decision ....

I asked the mayor's office for Dean's position on the rezoning. Here's his statement: “I believe everyone involved in this process had very honorable intentions. Clearly it was a difficult decision for the Board of Education. The members of the community task force worked very hard on this plan for a number of months. It's important that we all stay focused on the goal – providing schools in which every student has a chance to succeed.”

Allow me to suggest that Mayor Dean is where he always seems to be on various issues: hiding behind empty platitudes about education that signify the absence of bold leadership.