Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Professional Educators of Tennessee’s head, J.C. Bowman, in the studio to take a closer look at Tennessee’s NAEP scores, which reveal Davidson, Shelby, and Madison counties’ public schools failing.
Leahy: Right now, in the studio, our very good friend J.C. Bowman, the President of Professional Educators of Tennessee. The alternative to teacher unions for teachers here in Tennessee. On the web, proedtn.org.
J.C., when you come in, we always talk about education, and always have a good time talking about the problems and the possible futures. I want to just bring this to your attention. When I look at this and I look at the reports of who’s doing well, who’s doing poorly – and across the board, Tennessee schools are down. But in particular, three systems are just really, really bad. Madison County, which is Jackson. Davidson County, here. Metro Nashville Public Schools.
But also, the basket case of the basket cases, it seems to me, is the Memphis-Shelby County school system. First, their performance is terrible, and now, everybody there for the former superintendent has resigned. The interim superintendent is on leave.
And now, according to recent reports, the Memphis-Shelby County Schools chief of human resources is under investigation, Dr. Yolanda Martin. So everybody is under investigation. The schools are performing poorly. What is going on down in Shelby County?
Bowman: Number one, they’ve not had stable leadership in a long time, and it’s hard to manage there. That’s why you have so many of the suburbs that have broken off and have started educating their own children and doing that as a part. Once you get to a certain size, the bureaucracy is just overwhelming.
Leahy: What is that size, would you say?
Bowman: They’re over 130,000-plus.
Leahy: Kids?
Bowman: Yes. Three hundred schools!
Leahy: In contrast, what’s Metro Nashville, 70,000, 80,000?
Bowman: Ninety thousand. But it may be down. They’re looking at numbers of about 80,000.
Leahy: Williamson County, what, about 40,000 kids? And so these are very large systems.
Bowman: But Miami-Dade’s, the poster child for urban schools, has been successful.
Leahy: Miami-Dade County [Florida]. Miami-Dade County has a population of about, I think, two and a half million. The school system there is probably, what, 100,000 kids?
Bowman: Oh, no, it’s larger. It’s the second largest, I think, next to New York City.
Leahy: Before you came back to Tennessee, you worked in the Florida Department of Education, correct?
Bowman: Yes, I was Jeb’s chief policy analyst.
Leahy: You were Jeb Bush’s chief policy analyst. He’s been engaged. He didn’t do well in the 2016 presidential election, but he is legitimately interested in educational reform.
Bowman: He is. And he and I part ways on some things. I had a different strategy than he did. But I think when we worked together, I think it was …
Leahy: Are you still pals with Jeb?
Bowman: I am.
Leahy: Can you get him on our show?
Bowman: I can text him.
Leahy: He has an invitation to come on our show.
Bowman: Since he’s left, and really, what he does, he’s kind of the figurehead for his organization and does the fundraising and all that stuff. And his organization, which is very active in Tennessee, they do a lot of stuff.
Leahy: What’s his organization called?
Bowman: Excellence in Education. Edexcel. They are very active here. They get a lot of bright young minds there, and then they come out, and then they go spin out and do a lot of things.
But the problem that I’ve always had with, and I think that a lot of people now, they just lack real-world experience. And so you’re seeing that problem there. And these people telling us how to run our schools …
Leahy: Have never run a school. Or taught in a school.
Bowman: I mean, all due respect to Commissioner Schwinn, she taught two years. She was a principal for one year at a charter start-up. And this kid, they only had a kindergarten class, but she was a principal.
If you really pour down, you look at this have never run a school. I’m not going to pick on people, but again, we’re listening to people.
Leahy: You don’t have to pick on people. But I can pick on them. (Laughs)
Bowman: I’ve just decided I’m going to be a truth-teller. You and I both, this is where we bond. We’re going to call it like it is.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
