How I plan to vote in the District 1 School Board race

As a North Nashville parent, I am generally unenthused and unenergized by the campaigns in the District 1 School Board race. Ed Kindall has faced ethics questions in the past, including the cell phone drama of a few years ago. Sharon Gentry has struck me in the past as undiplomatic. She was a little too cavalier about and dismissive of parents' concerns at one community meeting in Hope Gardens for me to take her at her current promise that she will be a voice for "ALL parents" (emphasis hers) if we vote for her. At least one parent wrote me feeling ignored by Ms. Gentry after a personal appeal.

While both Kindall and Gentry did the right thing two years ago and voted against Jesse Register's plan to privatize Metro Schools service workers, the union representing those workers unambiguously endorses Mr. Kindall:

“He’s often the only one in the school board meetings who asks the tough questions and tries to hold Dr. Register accountable,” said Cordelia Howard, a school secretary, in the SEIU’s announcement.

Lately, Sharon Gentry has said and done nothing to change my sense of ambivalence about her, and she seems less willing to speak truth to power. In fact, she talks about public schools as if she is now one of those ideologues who believes the school district should be managed like a business, right down to reciting jargon about "portfolios":

What are your priorities for the Metro School system as a whole?

Fostering more proactive methods for including charter schools into the choice portfolio for MNPS that focuses on identify charter school programs that help address the needs within the district.

It is straight out of the Chamber's school reform playbook. Keep in mind that Ms. Gentry is also married to Howard Gentry, who has had close professional ties to the Nashville Chamber of Commerce. She received large campaign donations from Chamber big shots in the past. This all seems to beholden her to an organization which is setting up shop and hawking its products in Metro Nashville Public Schools.

The goal of maximizing private profits is not always commensurable with democratic values of public education. Financial and personal ties to the Chamber of Commerce suggest to me that a candidate will be more prone to cow to the special business interests who treat children as more a future compliant labor force than a potential democratic citizenry. In that vein, John Dewey knew what he was talking about 100 years ago in Democracy and Education:

Democracy cannot flourish where the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses, and, for the higher education of the few, the traditions of a specialized cultivated class. The notion that the "essentials" of elementary education are ... mechanically treated, is based upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic ideals. Unconsciously it assumes that these ideals are unrealizable; it assumes that in the future, as in the past, getting a livelihood, "making a living," must dignify for most men and women doing things which are not significant, freely chosen, and ennobling to those who do them; doing things which serve ends unrecognized by those engaged in them, carried on under the direction of others for the sake of pecuniary reward.

It is pecuniary reward (plainly put, "the big money score") that the Chamber of Commerce is committed to and the means by which it sells others on supporting its narrow goals.

I believe a school board candidate should strive toward a larger vision of public education than selling it to private charter school companies or reducing it to "Academies" for vocational training. Sharon Gentry strikes me as just a bit too zealous about charter schools and a lot too embedded with the Chamber's business class to exert herself toward the larger vision. I'm not saying that I believe fervently that Mr. Kindall will not resort to old-school political patronage or to supporting charter schools, but I do believe that the Chamber's influence begs to be checked and balanced, that Jesse Register ought to continue to be held accountable and that Mr. Kindall is more likely to do both than is Ms. Gentry.

Cast my ballot yesterday

Only 2 votes cast.

No real choices for Mayor and Vice Mayor and neither Dean nor Neighbors deserve my vote (I voted for Dean last time around). The at-Large incumbents have behaved like either tools or tanglefoots. The at-Large challengers have not presented any viable alternative. They look to be either cookie-cutter conservatives or selectively progressive Deanie babies. The "good enough" this time was not to waste votes on those who have not represented my interests.

Another year of prosaic Nashville Neighborhood Defense Fund endorsements

Apparently the NNDF lobby group founded by former CM John Summers has decided to kiss the mayoral ring this year and give Karl Dean their endorsement rather than rocking the boat. And outside of their Burkley Allen endorsement, there really is not much in this slate that is inspired. The Mayor and Vice Mayor tabs leave me underwhelmed. Even NNDF's "urge" to the Mayor seems insipid even as it is devoid of any realism about this administration:

Council candidates ardently welcome conservative business group's endorsements

During a chat with Megan Barry soon after her 2007 election over coffee, she told me that a star-chamber-like panel of members of the Nashville Business Coalition had called candidates in one-by-one to grill them with litmus test questions about allowing unregulated LED advertisement signs in neighborhoods. I had not paid much attention to them, but I came away from our chat with the impression that NBC is the extremist wing of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, which itself is not exactly averse to opposing regulation of business.

Some of NBC's tests for local candidates include the latter's preferential option for untrammeled business growth:

A simpler explanation suffices

Dem Party blogger Braisted wrings his hands over the local service union's local endorsements and tries to portray them as conservative because they weren't embracing his candidates. He also compares them to the other unions in an attempt to single them out for their lack of conformity.

I'm not going to defend SEIU's endorsements because I don't agree with them. However, it is plain to me that the problem of a union not falling in lockstep with other unions on Metro endorsements may have more to do with the vacuum of populism among the council's social progressives, who seem more likely to ingratiate themselves to Karl Dean than represent communities. Dean's newly discovered "neighborhoods" fundraising focus will not change his autocratic, exclusive style of leadership that sucks up the rather feeble, utterly reliant leadership styles on the Metro Council.

About those TEPid endorsements

I doubt very seriously that Tennessee Equality Project places much stock in my opinions of their political moves, but I'm thankful to have a blog to be able to note the curious logic of some of their endorsements. According to the Tennessean, they endorsed Karl Dean for Mayor (no surprise given that they held a campaign fundraiser for him long before his re-election campaign even launched). The curiosity here is that Karl Dean has made no effort to have Metro government join TEP's lawsuit against the state's suppression of the Metro non-discrimination ordinance (even more curiously, Tennessean blogger Michael Cass made it sound like the ordinance was initiated by the council under the influence of TEP when it seems to me that there were at least a couple of CMs leading the charge in the wake of Belmont).

Vanderbilt study defies Stand for Children assumptions?

Stand for Children endorsed Karl Dean recently from its appointed position as "advocate" for Metro Public Schools. But a Boston educator does not endorse Stand for Children's agenda, which is not even adopted for private school kids:

The re-emergence of Stand for Children would be great news for our children if studies supported its positions, including its inequitable and ineffective teacher evaluation plan. A study by Vanderbilt University in 2010 concluded such an approach is not effective.

The educational history of Stand for Children leader Jonah Edelman is instructive. He attended the exclusive Sidwell Friends School in Washington, where President Obama sends his children. Recently, a faculty member at Sidwell Friends was quoted as saying that the school does not consider student test scores helpful in determining a teacher’s effectiveness.

Every child has a right to the same thoughtful, creative education that Edelman received at the hands of teachers who weren’t shackled to incessant fill-in-the-bubble standardized testing. Kids deserve better from those who claim to stand for them.

Bill Schechter Brookline The writer is a retired public school teacher.

The more I consider their agenda, the more I wonder whether SFC is bent on maintaining an educational caste system.

Slop jar politics*: how an advocacy non-profit has a sweet role with Metro Schools and can endorse Karl Dean

Since blogging on the Stand for Children organization's endorsement of Karl Dean for Mayor after having enjoyed their political advocacy assignment with One Nashville, I received some questions from readers on whether nonprofits are allowed to endorse candidates. Nonprofits, of course, enjoy tax-exempt status, which gives them a financial advantage in the political arena if they are allowed to lobby and influence.

If there were just one legal category of non-profits this would all be a simple matter. But there are more than one. Stand for Children is actually two distinct nonprofit organizations (or I guess you may call it one organization with two distinct faces). It is structured as both a 501(c)(3) organization and a 501(c)(4). The 501(c)(3) goes by the name "Stand for Children Leadership Center." That organization (or sub-organization?) may not legally endorse Karl Dean:

The Dean Machine expands with nonprofit advocacy organization's endorsement

The Nashville Chapter of Stand for Children, which describes itself as a "grassroots advocacy" organization for public schools, announced its endorsement of Karl Dean for Mayor saying:

Mayor Dean has demonstrated amazing commitment to our public schools. During one of the most economically trying times in our history, Mayor Dean has fully funded the schools budget every year since he has been in office. He listens to community and parent input

Except that the statement is somewhat disingenuous as the Nashville City Paper recently pointed out regarding 300 teacher displacements and the loss of federal funds:

the positions of 334 teachers — covering Metro elementary, middle and high schools — have been eliminated prior to next school year, with district officials hoping to relocate affected teachers to other schools. But there’s no guarantee that will happen — it boils down to a still-unknown number of openings elsewhere ....

The reality of eliminated teaching positions has gone largely underreported in Nashville, perhaps in part because Mayor Karl Dean has announced intentions to fully fund Metro schools.

Dean’s budget proposal for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which awaits Metro Council approval, supports schools financially to the level requested by the Metro Nashville Board of Education. However, the mayor and school board’s plan does not cover more than $30 million in depleted federal stimulus monies and approximately $10 million in vanishing federal-jobs program dollars. Official have known this day was coming, and it’s resulting in more than 300 terminated positions.

So, stating it as "fully-funded" is overstating the case, but this is an election year and organizations are jockeying for positions of influence on Karl Dean's coattails.

After He Made Such a Big Friggin' Deal about Not Endorsing

I'm just curious as to why former Vice Mayor Howard Gentry appeared on the front row of long-time Karl Dean supporters behind Mr. Dean during the Mayor Elect's victory speech tonight. He took several hours less than a week ago to distance himself from some senior advisers who endorsed Mr. Dean on Gentry Campaign letterhead, but this evening I spotted him on stage like there was never equivocation. In the end, did he really need to make such a big deal about appearing non-endorsing?


UPDATE: NewsChannel5 has the answer.

VOTE FOR MEGAN BARRY TODAY!

A New Voice

on Metro Council

for Us.

The Gentry Campaign's Non-Endorsement Endorsement [and then Re-Non-Endorsement] of Karl Dean

At some point one has to ask about the letter below--with Howard Gentry's name plastered all over the endorsement of Karl Dean by two of his campaign generals and despite the disclaimer about Mr. Gentry's public neutrality--how is it not a de facto endorsement of Mr. Dean by Mr. Gentry?




UPDATE: At 11:00 p.m., over 6 hours after receiving the Dean non-endorsement endorsement letter above, I received the letter below from the Gentry for Mayor Campaign. It seems to be a re-non-endorsement letter signed with apologies for the e-mail above by Howard Gentry.

The Local Political Blogosphere Belongs to David Briley. The Rest of Us Are Just Visiting.

Liberadio has a list of notable bloggers who have endorsed David Briley. In the comments, WKRN's political blogger, AC Kleinheider, says that he does not think that "any blogger of any kind of repute" has explicitly endorsed anyone but Mr. Briley.

I would also call your attention to two Germantown bloggers who have endorsed David Briley: Sam Davidson and Kate O'.


UPDATE: Hutchmo endorses Briley.

Pull an at-Large Lever for Exton

Besides Megan Barry, I have only one other at-Large endorsement to make, but not because I am trying to encourage voters to pull only two levers in the at-Large race. Instead, my reasoning is based on my perception that only two candidates have made conscious efforts to show up in the North End neighborhoods at various significant events. Hence, I can only endorse those whom I know by their presence. For your other three votes, I encourage you to check out the endorsements of others writers whom you may trust.

The other at-Large candidate whom I am endorsing today is Richard Exton. Mr. Exton has attended at least two Salemtown Neighbors meetings in the past year and I have seen him at several other functions in Germantown. To tell the truth, I have spotted him at a vast and sundry number of happenings around Nashville. He strikes me as hungry to govern and to make personal contact with every Nashvillian whom he may well represent after next week. Others attest to his progressive credentials; as a Realtor and a former President of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, he would bring balance between issues of growth and community that we need to hear from a professional perspective.

You know that I perpetually preach balance. So, I encourage you to join me in voting for Richard Exton, a candidate who will help bring balance and level-headedness back to the Metro Council.

No More Deliberation. My Mind is Made Up. David Briley Should Be Our Next Mayor.

I've been holding out long enough, trying to give Karl Dean and Howard Gentry their fair chances to demonstrate a serious focus on the common interests of the over 600 neighborhood associations that now populate Metro Nashville, but the concerns of both seem to lie elsewhere. So, I'm going to vote for David Briley next week, and let me tell you why.

Every opportunity I have to talk to Mr. Briley, he makes a concerted effort to listen, to chat with me authentically, and to be accountable for what he tells me. We have not agreed on every issue and I have questioned some of his decisions, but I never had a doubt about where he stood or whether he might say one thing and do another. He was honest and forthcoming with me and I appreciate that. I have never seen him evade a difficult question put to him. Such a Mayor would be someone with whom we all could work.

I admit that I wish Mr. Briley would have come out with a stronger, more comprehensive plan for neighborhoods. What we have are more piecemeal indicators--a strong stand for LEED standards in building, a reasonable height restriction bill, and speeches promising to balance growth and infrastructure--that he is more of a "Neighborhoods Mayor" than the others currently running.

However, I did have the chance to look at unreleased plans he had for restructuring the Office of Neighborhoods. I thought that they represented a bold and exciting opportunity for neighborhood feedback on policy that went far beyond what Mayor Purcell offered in the current set-up or what Bob Clement proposed in his idea of a "Neighborhood Advisory Council". But those venturous blueprints never saw the light of publicity. I wish they had.

Nonetheless, David Briley is hands down the best and most qualified person to be our next Mayor. Whether it was the first time he asked me to sit down to lunch in order to listen to my priorities and concerns for Salemtown or the recent time that he beelined to the Council gallery--while our support for a zoning measure was being obfuscated--and asked us straight up how we wanted him to vote, David Briley has reached out to us and included us in the debates that affect us in ways that the other two candidates for whom I might have voted have not.

That is not a tribute to any leverage our local communities might have to command attention. It is a testament to who David Briley is: a consummate leader who is not simply versed in the intricacies of governing, but a man readily attuned and energized by his responsibilities to the communities that he governs.

Few have governed us as well in the last few years as David Briley. And I believe that few will govern us as well in coming few years. I am going to vote for David Briley, and I hope you will, too.

The Pieces Start Falling Into Place

All of that nanny-our-candidate foam flying around last week makes more sense now. Translate "buzz-kill" as "scattered showers on the editor's pre-endorsement festival of roses roll-out."

Also, is there a mean-spirited "Metro Mafia" pattern developing here? Consider this and this and this. The ostensible lack of openness is troubling to me.

District 19 Candidate Freda Player in Salemtown on Sunday

One of our neighbors on 7th Avenue tells me that she is planning a meet-and-greet for Metro Council candidate Freda Player on Sunday afternoon. More details to come.

My District 19 Endorsement

Picking the right candidate to represent us post-Ludye Wallace is so very important and I did not want to rush into a decision for fear of a repeat Council District 19 performance of the last few years.

Deciding between 3 of the 5 candidates who are running has been difficult. I have been torn between the idea of voting for Erica Gilmore, Freda Player, and David Shaw. They are all strong candidates with outstanding ideas for District 19 and for the North End; as Germantown developer Skip Lawrence put it the other night at the area candidates forum, we would be lucky to have any one of them representing us. Each has made special efforts to reach out to Salemtown and they have attended our association meetings and sat with us on our porches and talked about their ideas.

After the candidates forum I was able to narrow the field to 2: Ms. Gilmore and Ms. Player, both of whom distinguished themselves strongly from the rest of the pack. Ms. Gilmore in particular showed that she is a very capable public speaker who can connect with her audience from the podium.

But I am not allowed to vote for both, and since I must choose one, I have decided to vote for Freda Player, and to encourage others likewise. What sets her apart is that she is able to communicate to me that she sees the specific problems we have at the street level: our ugly highway interchanges, the sight and odor pollution around the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, the diamond-in-the-rough that 100-year-old Morgan Park is.

Ms. Player also hit the ground running over the last few months: she consulted some Metro Departments to see what options the person sitting in the District 19 seat would have. That seems above-and-beyond proactivity on her part. We expect platitudes about education and safety from municipal candidates, but I was taken by surprise by the length to which Ms. Player went to hunt down answers without having even been elected yet.

She strikes me as genuinely hungry to make our community a better place with practical solutions and an energetic will. Whenever I interact with Ms. Player she leaves me with the impression that she will fight the good fight when necessary, even if it is with the strong executive branch.

I realize that I am cutting against some considerable grain in the North End in choosing Ms. Player over Ms. Gilmore, who had campaign signs up and big contributions coming in from these environs early on. But the conventional decisions and established ties of the past few years have not been working for all of us here.

A new vision for our neighborhoods means seeing with new eyes; it means thinking outside of the boxes of inevitability. I have sought and I have thought, and now I believe that the candidate best qualified to defy convention is Freda Player. She has my full and unqualified support.


UPDATE: Salem's Lots seconds that e-motion.

Tennessean Endorses Gilmore for 19; Wants to Clean House in Other District Endorsements

It looks like the Tennessean is in a "throw the bums out" kind of mood with a number of its endorsements of challengers over incumbents running for District Metro Council Seats. After last year's Council performance, I cannot say that I disagree with them.

The Best Reason for Voting for One for Whom I Will Not Be Voting

I have got to hand it to Carol McCullough for the best argument that I have read for supporting a candidate whom I do not support:

To me, the main distinction between the two is: Diane Neighbors is progressive, but not grassroots. Carolyn Baldwin Tucker is grassroots, but not progressive. So, the question becomes, Which matters more to the office of Vice Mayor?

For me, in the end, I'm going with the grassroots. Progressive, in this instance, is about political positions. Grassroots is about process. The Vice Mayor sets the tone for the Council. The level of discussion and debate heard, the level of public participation encouraged are to some measure controlled by the person in that seat. Committee chairmanship is also determined by the Vice Mayor. Who will get appointed? Pro-development members or recently recruited neighborhood leaders (there are several running this term--Yay!).

What keeps me from supporting either of the candidates is the chance that I lay somewhere in the middle of the continuum between clear grassroots sensibilities and unshakable progressive ideas.

However, while I admire Ms. McCullough's argument, I do not go along with her belief that Ms. Tucker will be adroit at handling debate. I've watched her for a long time in Council Meetings and she is not as sharp as a Vice Mayor should be on using parliamentary procedure. I think that the meetings will be more chaotic and long with her as Chair.

Having said that, I admit to sharing Ms. McCullough's concerns about Ms. Neighbors' seemingly cozy relationship to developers at odds with neighborhoods. We need to keep a close eye on her committee appointments. Those are the hammer positions that can cause the growth pendulum to swing too far in the direction of untrammelled, roughshod development.