Metro Pulse/Citybeat

Comment
on this story

Seven Days

Wednesday, March 20
The Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority agrees to a plan to house Sheriff Tim Hutchison's six homeless helicopters at McGhee Tyson Airport, but only if he pays past-due bills at Downtown Island Airport. Doesn't the sheriff have a measly $15,000 laying around in some unaudited account to pay those bills?

Thursday, March 21
A study ordered by the state Legislature two years ago concludes that black and Hispanic drivers are stopped and searched by police way more often than whites, but that doesn't necessarily indicate that racial profiling is being employed. No, no, surely not.

Friday, March 22
A 15-year-old student at Christian Academy of Knoxville is caught with a loaded pistol at school. The incident isn't deemed a threat to other students. Police indicate it's more like a "show-and-tell deal gone bad."

Sunday, March 24
Before the NASCAR championship race on the infamous, fender-bending, high-banked, half-mile track at Bristol, Tenn., last season's series champ Jeff Gordon says, "It's like putting 43 cars in a blender and pushing the 'liquefy' button." Can't improve much on that.

Monday, March 25
The Lady Vols head for women's basketball's Final Four by disposing of Vanderbilt. That should teach the NCAA to seed UT below Vandy in a regional tournament. A pouting Pat Summitt is a dangerous Pat Summitt.
The state learns that its state park closings will cause $2.6 million in federal funding to be sent to cities and counties whose parks are open. The state's response: "Yipe."

Tuesday, March 26
A state House of Representatives committee comes up with a plan that would reopen the state parks immediately. An accompanying memo to the federal government: "Send the checks here."

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
Spring is in the air, and a young man's fancy turns to boats and guns. At least in East Tennessee it does. This shot comes from the display banner on the store front of Fox & Company on Dutch Valley Road, who have been the "Boating & Shooting Headquarters for 55 Years." The first right identification came from Steve Mauney of Knoxville. For his geographical acumen, Steve wins a copy of Losing Gemma, a novel by Katy Gardener.

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

KNOX COUNTY DEVELOPMENT CORP.
Thursday March 28
11:30 a.m.
Family Investment Center
400 Harriet Tubman St.
Monthly board meeting.

CENTRAL BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
Thursday March 28
5 p.m.
Fairbanks
607 Market St.
Listening session for public comment and sharing of ideas on downtown issues.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
Wednesday April 3
6:30 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Small Assembly Room
400 Main Ave.
Public workshop to review goals, issues and policies for a cellular tower plan.

KNOXVILLE CITY COUNCIL
Thursday April 4
5:30 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Large Assembly Room
400 Main Ave.
Workshop session for discussion of the Market Square redevelopment plan.

Eraser Heads

School board races revolve around money, standards, Lindsey

The five seats up for election on the Knox County Board of Education this year have produced an unusually volatile group of candidates and issues. But that's no surprise. The nine-member school board has been unusually volatile itself over the past few years, engaging in hostile political and legal battles with Knox County Commission and standing firm behind its sometimes controversial superintendent, Charles Lindsey.

Because Lindsey is hired by the board (under the state law that scrapped elected superintendents in the 1990s), he is inevitably a factor in this year's races. And because a majority of board seats is on the line, the outcome of those races will have a lot to say about the future of both Lindsey and the entire school system.

All the incumbents vying to keep their seats have drawn challengers. The only person running unopposed is a newcomer: Former County Commissioner Robert Bratton has a smooth solo ride to the 9th District seat currently occupied by board Chairman Jim McClain, who is retiring this year. The hot topics vary a little from district to district, but there are common themes that unite them: a need for greater cooperation between the board and County Commission, a concern for better teacher salaries and benefits, and a desire to make Knox County academically competitive with the best schools in the region (and, some say, the world). As always, the differences are in the details. Here's an overview of each race:

1st District
Sam Anderson vs. Gary Gordon

The 1st District is the county's only majority-black district. It includes the inner-city magnet schools—Austin-East High School, Vine Middle School, Sarah Moore Greene and Green elementary schools—along with Spring Hill Elementary, Chilhowee Intermediate and Holston Middle. Incumbent Sam Anderson, a former school board chairman, is the longest-serving member of the current board. He joined it in 1988, just after the county took over the former city school system. In a twist, he is being challenged by the man who more or less preceded him. Gary Gordon, a consultant with a master's degree in public policy, was the last inner-city representative on the old city school board.

But if the two men, who are both 48, have a shared history, they disagree significantly on what that history represents. Anderson says the city school system closed down because it was failing, nowhere more so than in the schools that served its low-income students. "The inner city schools were an abomination," says Anderson, who is director of Knoxville's Parks and Recreation Department and has an education master's degree of his own. "They were falling down, they were rodent-infested...it was a crime what was going on."

Gordon, who was on the city board for just the final 18 months of its existence, prefers to focus on what's happened since then—which, he says, is not nearly enough. He brandishes statistics sheets quoting the state report card grades for many of the schools in the district, which are filled with F's and D's. Despite significant renovations at most of the schools and the introduction of magnet programs, Gordon thinks the county has never tried hard enough to engage black students. He's bothered by what he sees as a self-fulfilling expectation that students in lower-income communities simply won't perform as well.

"That argument becomes kind of disingenuous," he says. "You're assuming that those kids at Sarah Moore Greene, Green, the schools in that district, that they all live in the projects, that they've got a momma and no daddy, and all of that. That's not the case."

Anderson acknowledges the schools aren't everything he'd like them to be. But given the poor conditions of the schools, the political upheavals caused by the school system's "desegregation plan" in the early 1990s, and the steep learning curve the county had to go through, he doubts things could have happened much faster. "It took a lot longer to get back to normal than I thought it would," he says. "Four years ago, I did not really think the magnet program would ever be [fully] implemented." He's particularly excited about the new Project GRAD, a program that uses public and private funding to provide college tuition assistance to students in low-income areas who graduate with good grades. "When the school system bought into Project GRAD, that made me commit to four more years [on the board]," Anderson says.

Not surprisingly, Gordon is less impressed by Project GRAD, which he fears will be a feel-good exercise that will not significantly boost student achievement. He notes that when he attended Vine in the late 1960s, it was regularly sending students on to private academies like Philips Exeter and Andover. Gordon himself got a scholarship to Webb High School, from which he graduated and went on to Tufts University. He argues that lowered expectations for inner-city students have made that kind of achievement rare. His own daughter attends Webb: "I really wish I had faith in the Knox County School System to effectively educate my child. But I can't play Russian Roulette with my child's future."

Anderson's children do attend the public schools. "For the people who have children in school and the people who are involved in the school system, it's a great system," he says.

4th District
Margaret Maddox vs. Dan Murphy

Maybe the most closely watched race of the year pits a veteran board member against a well-funded challenger in one of the county's most prosperous, educated districts. Margaret Maddox has been on the board since 1990 and is finishing her third term. A former pediatric nurse who now serves as executive director of the county-funded East Tennessee Discovery Center, the 55-year-old Maddox is also a former board chair. Dan Murphy, 46, is an accounting professor at the University of Tennessee who has been active in parent-teacher groups at his childrens' schools.

The 4th District includes West High School, along with Rocky Hill and Sequoyah elementary schools. Maddox has survived tempestuous rezonings in the district that moved many students from Bearden to West and has been a strong supporter of Lindsey. Like most incumbents, she says she doesn't always agree with the superintendent, but she makes her concerns known to him in private.

Murphy, who has support from many of the district's big-name political donors, takes the current board to task for its battles with County Commission. "I think the political stature of the school board is very low in the community, and that is very unfortunate because that only hurts the 52,000 students out there," he says.

Drawing on his accounting background, Murphy also calls for better fiscal management. A series of problems over the past few years—including mismanagement of food services funding and a miscalculation of state special education money last year—have raised questions about the system's finance department. Murphy thinks it's crucial to boost confidence in Central Office's competence before trying to make a case for increased school funding. Maddox, on the other hand, notes that all of those problems were uncovered by school personnel themselves.

Regarding the lawsuit with County Commission, which revolves around whether the school board should have to submit individual spending items for Commission approval, Maddox sees it as a positive step. "I look at the lawsuit as a solution, for County Commission and for us, for there to be those clearly defined duties and responsibilities."

Murphy also advocates greater allowance for parental and community participation in school decisions. "People want to be told what the schools are going to do," he says. "They aren't given a sense of empowerment in decisions...It leads to apathy, it leads to a sense of disenfranchisement, and more importantly, it leads to sub-optimal decision-making." He promises to hold town-hall meetings at each school in the district twice a year to invite input.

Maddox, for her part, points to Lindsey's much-trumpeted template for a World Class School System as her primary concern. "For the first time, I think we've got a vision in place for the future of education in Knox County," she says. "...The vision that's been laid out in that template is something that needs to be understood by the community, embraced by the community. I want to be part of that."

6th District
Diane Jablonski vs. Chuck James

The board-Commission battles are also at the forefront in the 6th District, which encompasses the populous Farragut schools, as well as Hardin Valley Elementary School. It has been represented for the past eight years by Diane Jablonski, 56, a detail-oriented former PTA activist. She is among the most outspoken board members, especially when it comes to County Commission.

"I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are confused by what exactly is going on," she says of the two bodies' lawsuits. "I don't think the true essence of what's going on has been reported."

In her view, the central issue has always been whether the school board has final say over spending the money that Commission allots to the school system. "A great deal of the resentment on the part of the school board has kind of been because we always feel as if we're being treated like second-class citizens." Although the nuances of Chancellor Sharon Bell's recent ruling in the lawsuit have yet to be fully interpreted, Jablonski sees it as an affirmation of the board's decision-making power.

She is being challenged by Chuck James, a 40-year-old master plumber who works for Knox County Parks and Recreation. A political neophyte who has been encouraged by more seasoned hands (a fund-raiser last week was attended by several county commissioners, as well as 9th District candidate Robert Bratton and Circuit Court Clerk Cathy Quist), James says, "People are tired of the lawsuits, the waste of money. That's the main issue."

He's also not happy with Lindsey's aggressive public profile. "To me, he's not doing the job he should be doing," he says. "He's playing politics too. If he wants to be political, then he should be a political, elected official." James supports more money for teacher salaries, but he says the school system should look in-house first to make sure it's managing its finances well.

Jablonski agrees there may need to be changes in the finance department. But she's supportive of Lindsey overall. "He keeps the board very well informed," she says. "He runs a lot of his critical decisions past people, he discusses them. Sometimes he comes out stronger than I'd like him to come out, sometimes he takes a tack I don't necessarily agree with. But I think the majority of the decisions he makes are the right ones."

7th District
Diane Dozier vs. Donnie Ellis

The 7th District, which includes Fountain City, Halls and now Powell, has been a hotbed of school board discontent ever since Lindsey was hired over interim Superintendent Roy Mullins. Mullins is a veteran administrator who is well loved in the north and northeast parts of the county, and his snubbing was seen as one of the causes of 8th District board member Steve Hunley's defeat two years ago. The banner of discontent has been taken up in this race by Donnie Ellis, a real estate appraiser who has never run for office.

He's facing one-term incumbent Diane Dozier, a longtime parent activist who proudly points to improvements at several schools in the district during the past four years. "The Brickey [Elementary School] project has been launched," she says. "That's a $16 million project, and we are pouring footers." She's concerned about continued crowding at Halls High School and other buildings, but overall she's optimistic about the school system's direction and leadership.

That's a sharp contrast to Ellis, the only one of the candidates running who bluntly says he would fire Lindsey if he got the chance. "That's the sentiment in the 7th District," Ellis says. He says people are unhappy with Lindsey's political maneuvering and have been upset by several of his administrative appointments, including the removal of Jerry Sharp as principal at Gibbs High School.

But Dozier says, "Dr. Lindsey is doing the job he was hired to do. We wanted to move education in Knox County to a higher level, and I believe that's what we're doing—slowly, as the budget will allow."

Dozier herself comes in for criticism from Ellis, who volunteers in several area schools through Kiwanis Key Clubs. "We never see our school board member," he complains. Both candidates have children who graduated from Halls High School.

"I have never known of him to be in the schools, personally," Dozier responds. "I find it very strange that someone who doesn't have children in the schools...has never been involved in any way, suddenly wants to be on school board."

Ellis puts the difference between the two most starkly: "If [voters] are happy with things then yes, vote for Diane. If they're not happy with things, vote for me."

9th District
Robert Bratton

The sole contender to fill the South Knoxville seat left open by McClain's retirement is Bratton, a former county commissioner and one-time state legislative candidate. At 39, Bratton will be the youngest member of the school board, and he should be an interesting addition. During his years on County Commission, he made a name as both a firebrand and an almost obsessive stickler for details. With no one opposing him, Bratton—who works in community relations for the local PBS affiliates—could coast into office on homilies and platitudes. But that's not his style.

Asked about the World Class School System plan, for example, Bratton snaps, "That is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of in my life...Why muddy the water by talking about a World Class School System? Rather than a World Class School System, I want it to be an East Tennessee class school system."

He's not necessarily opposed to Lindsey's ideas for reform, but he thinks they need to be packaged and promoted in a way people can understand—by making Knox County competitive with well regarded local systems like Oak Ridge and Maryville, rather than holding them to an ambiguous global standard.

His single biggest goal is to improve teacher pay and benefits. Like most other candidates, he bemoans Knox County's constant hemorrhaging of its best teachers to higher-paying systems.

As for relations with Commission, Bratton thinks he'll bring a credibility no current school board members have: he has actually sat on Commission and voted to raise property taxes, the biggest political risk any local politician can take. "They can't point a finger at me and say, 'You haven't done this,'" he says.

One thing he does promise is to try to impose some structure on school board meetings. He was famous among his Commission colleagues for educating them on the finer points of Robert's Rules of Order. "[The school board] is so disorganized, it just kills me to watch them," he says. "I just think you ought to operate in an orderly fashion."

—Jesse Fox Mayshark