Frank Daniels III

fdanielsiii@tennessean.com

We are familiar with the first stage of a relationship, whether personal or professional, the “Honeymoon Period” is the time when we are too dazzled to care, or even notice, that we are ignoring an immutable fact of life, that nobody, and no relationship, is perfect.

Metro Nashville Director of Schools Shawn Joseph, who started work on July 1, might be experiencing one of the shortest honeymoons I’ve seen, raising questions about Nashville’s commitment to building a school system that meets the needs of every child who comes through its doors seeking to learn and grow.

Who’s in charge?

Business consultant Jeremy Marchant calls stage two the “Power Struggle Stage,” which he describes like this:

“Pretty soon there is trouble in paradise,” he writes on his Emotional Intelligence at Work website.

“What is happening,” he writes, “is that each person in the relationship is now fighting to ensure their needs are met from the relationship—fighting to be in control of it.”

Director in charge

In 2015, the Metro school board struggled with a process to find a replacement for director Jesse Register, and to most observers, the board epitomized dysfunction.

After Mayor Megan Barry was elected, the board began a more deliberate and inclusive process to choose a new chief. There was broad agreement on the requirements, including the willingness to pay what it took to bring the right kind of leader here.

It took just 30 minutes for the Metro school board to unanimously choose Joseph, a traditional schools advocate, from six finalists, and it quickly approved his contract.

Joseph understood that the school board regularly went around Register to engage his management team on a range of issues and problems, and the new director did not want that to continue. Paragraph six in Joseph’s contract states:

“The Board, individually and collectively, shall promptly refer to the Director, orally or in writing, for his study and recommendation any and all criticisms, complaints, suggestions, communications or other comments regarding the Director’s performance of his duties of the operation of MNPS. Individual board members agree that they will not give direction to the Director or any employee of MNPS regarding the management of the District or the solution of specific problems ....”

In addition to his annual pay ($285,000) and the provision of a full-size automobile, his contract also stipulates that he “shall select all personnel…”

Joseph was determined that he would be a strong and independent superintendent, and his contract reflected that intent.

The board raised no objections to the terms, and publicly praised the deal in May.

Once signed, Joseph went to work almost immediately, six weeks before his July 1 start date. He met with teachers and parents; got involved in a new principal selection process; and changed the community conversation between leadership and the community. In his first official week on the job, he tapped four dozen school and community leaders to help steer change.

Five months later, the picture is not so cheery, with some school board members chaffing at the deal they struck and criticism bubbling from parents and others.

Angry teachers

Diane Ravitch, the New York University professor of education and former assistant secretary of education under Lamar Alexander who has become one of the nation’s chief articulators for teachers and others opposed to education “reform,” posted to her blog:

“Nashville, you have a problem.”

Yes, mam, we do, all kinds.

In this particular case, Ravitch was riffing on a September blog post by Nashville’s Dad Gone Wild, TC Weber, a Metro schools parent who writes interestingly and informatively from his perspective on education, and particularly in support of teachers and against the district’s emphasis on charter schools.

Weber, who had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all the spending at central office since July 1, is unhappy with who Joseph’s new senior management team is (three of the four are new hires from out of state), and what they are being paid. And contrasts the expenditures to skimping on classroom resources and teacher travel bans.

“To put things in context,” he wrote, “the previous Number 2 person in the district, responsible for creating an academy model that has won national accolades, earned only $154k a year until he left the district in April. Just 5 months later, there are now 12 people making over that amount. Perhaps the district pay schedule was way out of line, but that is a significant difference, and if so, I’m not sure that it’s one that should be rectified in one year. Especially when teachers have been asked to be patient for so long.”

Weber posed, “Seems like we are focusing more on the comfort of adults new to MNPS than the children of MNPS.”

On Oct. 5, Weber posted more criticism of Joseph, including highlighting how much money Joseph was committing to indoctrinating the central office administrative team and school board with training from the Arbinger Institute.

Agenda

It will be interesting to see where this questioning of the new director goes, and whether there is an agenda behind it.

The challenges that Joseph, his team, and the school board face to make schools more effective at helping our children learn and grow are steep enough. But efforts to change the future for these kids will fail if the adults are fighting each other instead of fighting for our children.

Reach Frank Daniels III:fdanielsiii@tennessean.com, 615-881-7039, or on Twitter @fdanielsii