A Memphis Merger

In my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee there is presently a heated debate over merging the city school system with the county school system. Consolidation of school districts is a universal topic all over the country. Unfortunately, in Memphis it is a can-of-worms with racial and political overtones, not to mention the educational and financial impact of doing so.

The city school system has racially an 80-90% African-American student population while the county system has a 40% African-American enrollment. The city school board voted suddenly in December to surrender its charter in response to the county system's pursuit of a special school system status. This special school system status would allow the county schools to freeze their boundaries permanently and avoid any future merger with the city schools. It would also establish the county schools’ tax funding responsibility to its own school system and eliminate its present dual financial responsibility to both the city and county schools.

Therefore, the Memphis City School System, without proper forethought and merger planning, reacted to a perceived threat to its future financial and educational viability by a sudden surrender of its charter and forced the county schools to administer both sets of schools. The actual merger approval has not occurred yet pending a city referendum vote as to whether citizens support a surrender of the city school system's charter. In the meantime, the county school board has filed a federal law suit challenging the legality of the city school charter surrender and had their Republican state legislators, who represent the suburbs, to pass a state bill which would delay the merger if approved in the referendum.

More complications to the issue have ensued, but to make a long story short, school system consolidation is never easy. There are a multitude of pros and cons on both sides. How can one rationally list these advantages and disadvantages in a clear manner in order to make an informed decision?

Outcome reports of consolidations that have already happened are one way to study the issue. In my state, the largest cities have all consolidated city and county schools for several years. Memphis is the last large city to succumb because of its racially charged environment and high poverty level.

Consolidations state wide have a mixed review, but most seem to function as or more economically efficient and educationally sound as before. Consolidations in other American cities/counties would probably reveal an array of consequences depending on the circumstances under which the merger occurred.

Other types of merger studies should be reviewed. Some studies of school population size indicate that smaller is better while other studies demonstrate the opposite. Smaller school and school system size seem to offer more individual attention to students and better administrative control. On the other hand, larger school and school system population numbers seem to offer more variety of services to pupils and more educational technology and advanced learning tools.

Merging school systems obviously allows sharing of resources and expertise, pooling of funds, and streamlining of available programs to avoid duplication in effort. It can give the newly consolidated system a more competitive edge by increasing the numbers of students in certain categories, such as the academically, artistically, and athletically talented.

Conversely, it will increase the competition among students in those categories by increasing the number of competitors. A learner who may have excelled and been rewarded in a smaller competitive pool, may only be mediocre with new competitors…thus, a little fish in a big pond. This could create missed opportunities for advancement for those individuals.

In some school mergers, as in Memphis/Shelby County, the perception of the separate but equal syndrome may be eliminated. Because of a disproportional racial and poverty balance between some city and suburban school districts, consolidating the two will bring equal educational opportunities for both. Even though the more economically disadvantaged system receives more state and federal aid to equalize services, the way those funds are implemented may cause a disparity between the two districts.

By contrast, suburban school districts may resent inheriting inner city school problems that did not exist before for them. Often they want to maintain the status quo of how things have always been done. They do not want alternative educational methods that the inner city system has resorted to. They have met state standards and evaluations successfully doing things their own way.

For example, many inner city districts freely use charter and magnet schools as alternatives to traditional school organization which has failed many of their learners in the past. They house many of the discipline-challenged pupils in schools strictly structured to accommodate their needs. Suburban school districts often do not know how to deal with schools like these, much less the learners within them.

The comparison of the positive and negative factors of school consolidation could proceed ad infinitum. Each citizen has his/her own perspective of the situation depending on individual circumstances. In deciding whether to support or not such an action in one’s community, hopefully we each will evaluate what is the greatest good for the greatest number of those affected and not be unduly selfish in our considerations.