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Elections are messy. This summer’s Nashville school board races were especially nasty.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into five races from out-of-state special interests, directed by the national education reform group Stand for Children. The objective: Attack incumbents and elect a slate of candidates to support unabated growth of publicly funded, privately run charter schools.
Fortunately, students, parents and teachers saw through the ruse — and public education won. Now, it’s time for the school board to get back to business and support our new director of schools, Dr. Shawn Joseph, as he and his team begin developing a plan for turning around struggling schools.
For my part, I’ll reflect on my tone during the campaign.
After being subjected to brutal and baseless attacks by Stand for Children and a web of affiliated individuals and groups, I decided to fight back. Maybe I fought back too hard. But the campaign is over, and I have committed to Mayor Megan Barry and others that I’ll do my part to cool down the overheated rhetoric.
Charter school advocates need to do the same.
During my first term on the school board, they organized bullhorn protests against me and other board members on the front lawn of the Metro Nashville Public Schools’ Central Office. They hired political operatives to shout us down at board meetings and prowl social media to pick fights.
They hired lobbyists to push hostile legislation. They hired public-relations firms to tear down board members who are charter skeptics.
In the weeks leading up to my re-election, they flooded voters’ mailboxes in south and southeast Nashville with an estimated 150,000 negative mail pieces attacking me. They even engaged a private investigator to harass me.
Looking ahead: It’s time for the nonstop charter harassment to stop. Nashville’s voters have spoken. Voters want the school board to double down on existing schools, not privatize the school system.
During my second term on the school board, I’m going to refocus on the important issues that too often are eclipsed by charters and the media’s obsession with who said what on Facebook or Twitter. Let’s talk about real issues for a change.
For starters, I’m calling for a city-wide conversation about how we can provide the highest-quality educational services to our youngest New Americans. In the schools I represent, 43 percent of the students do not speak English.
Let’s also have a big discussion about expanding high-quality early childhood education. Every student and family who needs a pre-kindergarten seat should get one.
Let’s ensure that MNPS is doing authentic and extensive community engagement on complex issues such as school rezonings. And, on behalf of Nashville’s students and taxpayers, let’s push the state of Tennessee for our fair share of education funding.
For the first time in nearly a decade, the mayor, the school board and the Metro Council are all rowing in the same direction. Our schools are under new management by a leader and a team of experts who are thinking and acting with a sense of urgency — in pursuit of large-scale improvement. And the voters have given the school board its marching orders.
Let’s seize on this moment to lift up public education, and reject efforts to tear it down. We have important work to do in the weeks and months and years ahead. Onward.
Will Pinkston represents south and southeast Nashville on the Metro Nashville Board of Public Education.
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