A short lesson in how business models do not apply in public education

Council member Jason Holleman pulled me in on Sunday when he quoted one of the finest expositors of the relationship between public education and democracy, John Dewey, in his Tennessean column. Dewey's may be a hard pill to swallow for the "collaborative culture" in Nashville, which eschews conflict usually by ignoring those who bring it to light. However, it is no less true in genteel Music City: conflict is the gadfly of the critical reflection necessary to growth. Both minimizing and denying conflict, instead of acknowledging it and working towards mutual understanding, instigate nothing. Instead, they lead to hubris, atrophy and neglect as they destroy authentic community.

But I could go on and on about kick-ass Dewey quotes to the point of diversion.

The really important statements by CM Holleman are:

Speaking out is an essential responsibility of democratic leaders. To describe such leadership as “freelancing,” reflects a misunderstanding of the role of elected officials. We work for the people who’ve elected us. If we limit that work to the minutes of official meetings, we abdicate a critical responsibility to protect the public interest.

The Chamber of Commerce’s recent Report Card critiqued such advocacy as being inconsistent with the policy governance model the Board adopted. Respectfully, the Chamber may need a reminder on the nature of democracy and the expectations of elected officials.

Expecting only public praise and private criticism in the name of “policy governance” undermines the essential protections of free speech in general and, more specifically, erodes the relationship between constituents and their elected officials.

CM Holleman is responding to the Chamber's education committee, which accused the Metro Nashville Public School Board of "freelancing" instead of acquiescing to an idea of "unity" contrived from the strictures of their own business models for fixing what they deem as "dysfunction." The fallacy is the unexamined assumption that everything is better if operating like a business ideal. Commentators of many stripes have pointed out that all kinds of societal projects would break apart under the weight of corporate logic.

Here is the specific critique in the Chamber's "report card" to which CM Holleman's op-ed is responding:

Over the past year, it is clear that the Metro school board has struggled to articulate a common vision for the school system. This may be due, in part, to significant turnover on the board. As of August 2014, five of the nine members had served fewer than two years. Even more disruptively, some board members routinely criticize their director of schools through social media and news media articles between official board meetings, creating a perception of dysfunction and lack of leadership. Given these dynamics, we believe the board would be wise to invest more time and resources toward becoming a more cohesive governing body. We recommend that the school board recommit its adherence to policy governance by engaging in ongoing professional development. Engaging an outside trainer on a regular basis to work with the board on updating its policy governance model would ensure all members, regardless of length of tenure, have a thorough understanding of the model. In addition, these ongoing sessions could be designed to help the board accomplish necessary tasks, such as coming to consensus on expectations for their next director of schools.

Before we consider the merits the report card's argument, keep this mind: the Chamber of Commerce is a powerful lobby group that exerts pressure on local government to address their special interests. Methods they have used to collect data used to exert influence in the past were overseen by public relations and marketing firms, not independent researchers. The report itself is funded by sponsors and corporate partners listed on page 2. Whatever detached objectivity the Chamber may claim for its data now has to be qualified by its subjective use of money and power supplying and potentially biasing report results.

Such funding mechanisms for lobbying remind me of how public-private partnerships produce economic impact studies that are generally more reliable for influencing opinions than for discerning the truth.

Now to the merits of the arguments. It is frankly hypocritical for a business group to criticize a government body for a high turnover rate when the former has been shaken by unstable economies. Nashville has been beset by layoffs in recent years at some of the region's largest employers. Many here have witnessed laid off employees asked to leave immediately and escorted out by security guards. What kind of hits are long-term institutional knowledge taking in the private sector right now? Are local corporations not now hiring temporary workers and contracting out projects so that they avoid paying benefits and payroll taxes on full-time employees? Are businesses setting examples of low turnover rates in the first place?

On on that point, the education committee's choice to lob darts with terms like "freelancing" and "disruptively" so pejoratively at dissenting school board members is interesting, given trendy "disruptive innovation" and the hard-core realities of the economic system. The "sharing economy" in vogue now emphasizes "freelance" or contingent workforce, which could be the norm in a few years. So, is freelancing bad or good? One of the co-chairs of he education committee, Jackson Miller (who himself takes to social media to debate privatization of public education), has a background in the tech sector, which has "an appetite for disruptive ideas." So, is "disruption" bad or good?

The Chamber of Commerce's harsher judgments are based on ideas that are not even enduringly real in its own limited world. To speak so unambiguously, so moralistically to public education leaders is disingenuous. And frankly, the Chamber engages annually in its own pet projects (witness charter schools and corporately sponsored "academies") that disrupt and freelance in public education. Pot meet kettle.

But more to CM Holleman's point, the report card reflects an unabashed bias to take the power away from parents, teachers, principals, and voters and leave it to the whims of special interest groups and hired consultants (who stand to economically benefit from the report card's recommendation). Business lobby groups should be one among many voices with influence over the school board. PTOs, neighborhood groups, and community-based organizations, even if they do not have a lock on wealth approaching that of the Chamber, should have equal influence.

However, inviting more stakeholders leads to more dissent and the actual messiness of democracy. As if we have any other legitimate choice. To insist a democratically obligated board should subscribe to some cleanly-projected, top-down, squabble-free, market-based ideal that rarely even exists in the marketplace is partial, unreasonable and plain foolish.

In the spirit of Dewey, public education is supposed to develop children into critically thinking participants in a robust democracy that encompasses dissent as well as obedience. We do Nashville's children a disservice if we pretend--even on their behalf--that democracy is uncomplicated by dissent. What may seem like a good business model (dependence, docility, submissiveness, etc) is not always a good education model.

In What Bunker Is Mayor Dean Huddled?

Jackson Miller wonders where Karl Dean is during Nashville's recent run on gas stations, which exacerbated an already slim fuel supply. He also has some good advice for Dean, who probably should have embraced his leadership role in our city by talking to distributors, massaging the media, and hitting the airwaves to reassure Nashvillians, many of whom may also be in shock over last week's stock market crash.

I have wondered where Karl Dean goes when he doesn't care about or doesn't want to deal with specific issues. Jackson refers us to a more general concern on which Nashville's Mayor should have gotten out front and lead Nashvillians away from knee-jerk panic. He may not be capable of doing that.

Amen to that. And the blogosphere is a little too maudlin about it, too.

The Russert coverage shows that the TV News Media takes themselves way too seriously.

- - Jackson Miller tells it like it is via Twitter

Jackson Has Me Breaking Out Pirsig

Jackson Miller is lately blogging his way through one of my all-time favorite books, Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Jackson's reflections and quotes had me pulling out my old beaten-up, ear-marked, and highlighted copy and musing over my favorite quotes. Here's a good one:

Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the physic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. It's this understanding of Quality as revealed by stuckness which so often makes self-taught mechanics so superior to institute-trained men who have learned how to handle everything except a new situation.

Thanks for reminding me, Jackson.

Metroblogging Rumor

The always resourceful Jackson Miller writes today of a rumor that Metroblogging may just be coming to Nashville. Metroblogging, which calls itself "the largest and fastest growing network of city-specific blogs on the Web," coordinates the efforts of clusters of regional bloggers in the form of hyper-local blogs called "Metblogs." It also provides a worldwide connection for hyper-local bloggers. Sounds great, and there's plenty of room for the expansion of hyper-local blogging in Nashville.

Or The IRS Could Provide Emergency Tax Advisors And They Could Quickly Extend Filing Deadlines

It's a shame when Katrina victims get used as bait for advancing other political agendas. Did anyone really expect that working through the tax filing process in a hurricane-ravaged area would be any easier than working through any other challenge? Did anyone realistically expect that hurricane victims would not need some sort of federal help with tax preparation this time around? It's not clear to me that the professor addresses the real cause of the problem in the article he links, which is:

After Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana, Congress responded in September by passing the Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act, which included a batch of tax provisions designed to help victims of the storm. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act, which offers up tax incentives specifically geared toward businesses, was passed in December .... But for taxpayers who have never claimed more than the standard deduction, the hurricane losses they'll be entitled to will likely create a steep learning curve.

So, congressional relief is more of a candidate for blame than the federal tax code, but in my opinion Dr. Cornwall went after the tax code to score some points for his conservative-minded wing of the business community.

But I do not think that congressional relief is blameworthy, either. The relief is needed. That's the whole point. If the administration fails to provide beaucoup help to gulf coast taxpayers who were the victims of natural disaster, then it would amount to the continuing inept response of the Bush White House to people in dire need; it would just be the extension of FEMA by other means.

Jackson Miller warned us locally a long time ago that solving Katrina victims' problems had more to do with available revenues to pay for solutions than anything else. Relief costs money; long-term relief costs more money. Yet, as Jackson pointed out, the costs of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts would have paid for congressional relief for Katrina victims. You can reform the tax code all you want, but "fiscal stupidity" continues to fail victims who need strategic federal help in navigating the tax relief already put in place by Congress. But FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have demonstrated over and over that the executive branch's political will to aid the region is lacking. Why should we expect anything different from the IRS?