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Charter Schools Proposed
The state of Tennessee has received applications to operate two charter schools in Knox County, but no local group has stepped forward.
An Ohio-based company called Rhea Management Group has made a blanket application to operate Arrington Academy and Caribe Academy charter schools in Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga.
The state has applications for four schools in Nashville, the two in Knoxville, three in Chattanooga and 16 in Memphis, or a total of 25 proposed schools. Schools submit a five year plan and the legislation establishing charter schools requires that students be from low performing public schools. Charter school legislation resulted from lobbying by the Tennessee Charter School Alliance, funded by the Memphis business community upset by the number of failing schools in that city. Memphis has six charter schools operating at present.
Some Groups Do Better
The United Way website lists about 50 Knoxville-based agencies that benefit from the annual drive. But it appears that some groups do much better than others.
The website contains a little over $6 million in grants listed for Knoxville-based organizations in 2004. The list reveals that 42 percent of the $6 million goes to just five groups. The lucky recipients include the American Red Cross at $645,592, Child and Family Tennessee $562,133, Boys and Girls Clubs $571,838, the Boy Scouts/Girls Scouts $397,313 and the YMCA/YWCA $667,860. That totals $2,500,909. The remaining 58 percent of the money is split between 42 other agencies.
Give ‘Til It Hurts
Speaking of giving, they don’t call Tennessee the Volunteer state for nuthin’.
The Catalogue for Philanthropy has released its annual list of the most generous states based on their ability to give. The index of the states in which its citizens are the most generous (i.e. give the highest percentage of their incomes to charity) rank these states in the Top Ten: 1. Miss. 2. Ark. 3. Okla. 4. La. 5. Ala. 6. Tenn. 7. S.D. 8. Utah. 9. S.C. 10. Idaho. These are all low tax states and red states in the current political parlance. The bottom 10 states in generosity are 41. Pa. 42. Mich. 43. Colo. 44. Conn. 45. Minn. 46. Wis. 47. N.J. 48. R.I. 49. Mass. 50. N.H. These states tend to have high taxes and most of them are blue states.
This isn’t an anomaly. The last index had virtually the same states in the top and bottom 10, though the rankings varied. Tennessee was no. 4 in the previous ranking.
The Catalogue for Philanthropy is a Washington based organization supported by various foundations and is dedicated to promoting philanthropy. (www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org)
Ashe Tribute Planned
Former Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe spent most of his tenure and lots of federal grant money expanding Knoxville’s system of parks and greenways. One of his last projects was a huge park in Northwest Knoxville which City Council obligingly named the Victor Ashe Park.
Ashe, the American ambassador to Poland, will be in town Dec. 21 for the formal dedication of the park, at 2 p.m. There is a huge honking piece of marble at the entrance to the park with a tribute to Ashe inscribed. The marble memorial was not paid for by taxpayers, former directors that served during Ashe’s 16 years in office chipped in to pay for it.
Contrary to rumor and at least one published report, the city is not paying Ashe’s expenses for the trip to Knoxville for the dedication. (He may have enough frequent flier miles to cover it.)
Having Cake and Eating It
One man’s pork is another man’s badly needed community grant.
Congressman Jimmy Duncan, R-Knoxville, managed to insert into a federal omnibus spending bill $2 million for the bus transfer building on State Street, $475,000 for a veteran’s memorial at Old Gray Cemetery, $500,000 for the East Tennessee Historical Society museum and $250,000 for UT hospital.
Duncan then voted against the $388 billion spending bill because it was laden with pork. We guess you could say Duncan was for the bill before he voted against it.
Bredesen UT Speaker
Higher education has borne the brunt of budget cuts for the last decade as TennCare has absorbed more and more of state revenues. Gov. Phil Bredesen, who is engaged in a negotiation to either reform TennCare or kill it, may be able to give University of Tennessee officials a first hand report when he is in town next week to deliver the commencement address for fall graduation. Bredesen will deliver the commencement address for the first time since he took office. The speech at Thompson-Boling will be delivered at 9 a.m. on Dec. 10. As governor, Bredesen serves as head of the UT board of trustees and UT officials will be appealing to the legislature and the governor during the upcoming session of the General Assembly for increases in the higher education budget.
A total of 1,870 degrees will be awarded. The last governor to speak at a UT commencement was Gov. Don Sundquist in 1998.
Employment Opportunity?
This classified ad appeared in a Pulaski, TN newspaper:
“$30 hour-Pulaski. 16 openings Giles County Commission August 2006. No drug test, personal integrity or high intellect needed. Nepotism OK. Control LARGE $$$. Interviews scheduled at CART meeting Dec. 6, 6 PM Tenn Tech Center.”
The ad was inserted by Citizens Against Repressive Taxation, a group dedicated to replacing the county commissioners who vote for tax increases.
Notes on Former Contributors
Former Knoxvillian Glynn Wilson, who launched a magazine/website called The Southerner from his Fort Sanders apartment in the ‘90s, is suing celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley for plagiarism. Kelley’s controversial book, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty appeared in September. Wilson, who now lives in Birmingham where he still mans his blogsite, contends that Kelley used material about the president’s former drug and alcohol abuse which Wilson had reported in The Southerner, based on interviews with witnesses, without proper attribution. At the heart of it is an interview Wilson conducted with C. Murphy Archibald, a Charlotte lawyer who is a nephew of senatorial candidate Winton Blount. Archibald and George W. Bush worked together on Blount’s campaign in 1972.
Wilson’s article appeared in The Southerner Daily News (www.southerner.net) seven months before the publication of Kelley’s book. Kelley credits Wilson’s work in a list of sources, but allegedly presents the interview with Blount as if she conducted it herself.
Wilson contributed several stories about local subjects to Metro Pulse from 1997 to 1999. Since then, he has occasionally freelanced for the New York Times and other papers.
Santa Saves the Plane
Everybody’s favorite Clinton Highway landmark, the circa 1930 Airplane Filling Station in Powell, is the focus of a community restoration drive, as we detailed in these pages a few months ago. Now we know it’ll get off the ground, because they’ve enlisted Santa Claus himself. On Saturday, Dec. 11, at the Airplane, 6829 Clinton Highway, St. Nick, an expert on unlikely aeronautics, will help sell Save the Plane T-shirts. Displaying a caricature of the roadside curiosity in its heyday, they’ll go for $15 to $17; proceeds will go to the restoration effort. For more information, go to www.powellairplane.com.
December 2, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 49
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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