What do you think about the Memphis city school situation?

Memphis voted to give up their school charter and hand it to the county. The people who live in the county are not happy about it. Now various cities out in the county are hoping to break away and have their own school districts. Here is a story in the NY Times about it the overall situation, and here is an article in the local Memphis paper about the cities in the county breaking away. The local paper, the Commercial Appeal, has done many articles on the school topic if you care to search for more information.

If you live out in the middle class suburbs near a city that has a lot of poor people and their schools don’t do well, would you not want the merger? In Memphis, on the surface, it seems very related to race, Memphis schools are primarily black, but probably the cities out in the county would not be happy to intergrate the schools districts no matter what, even if everyone was white, since the city schools are underperforming. I would say probably most of Memphis’ black citizens feel it is racism that the county does not want the responsibility of Memphis city students.

One of the fears is now Memphis citizens will be able to vote for the county schoolboard. People have been rumbling about busing, but I don’t think busing is a concern, it just isn’t done anymore I don’t think? I have also heard people say that now the county scores will go down, the school district will be ranked worse than it is now.

I’m curious what your impressions are on the matter, and if you have seen this happen in other cities.