Senate Bill 623 (SB0623) should be vetoed by Governor Lee. This education bill was thoughtlessly amended at the last minute of the legislative session, with from from Memphis, Representative Mark While and Senator Brian Kelsey co-sponsoring the measure. The bill, originally a technical housekeeping bill, was amended with a heavy social studies instructional mandate, which included punitive local education agency (LEA) funding sanctions if not followed. 

As written, the most controversial part of the bill, would require “impartial” instruction regarding some of history’s greatest atrocities. If not followed, LEA funding could be withheld. To further complicate implementation, while putting LEA funding at risk, the heavy mandate contained no funding support for educator professional development. Professional development was not even discussed during the floor debate. Given the omission of professional development, for this reason alone, SB 0623 should be vetoed. 

Like with the controversial Reading 360 initiative, advocated for by SCORE, no educator testimony was entertained regarding SB0623. But even SCORE is opposed to the thoughtless SB0623 bill. 

While much of the hour long floor debate revealed a lack of understanding of state standards, the bill amendment sparked a healthy and robust debate. Strong points regarding social studies instruction were made on both sides of the debate. The presenting amendment sponsor, Representative John Ragan of Oak Ridge, was under the mistaken impression that classroom social studies instruction could not deviate from the state standards, as did other legislators.  

State standards layout minimum learning outcomes for Tennessee K-12 students. Instructional time is typically prioritized around the standards to best insure student performance on standardized tests and compliance with state law. At the same time, other content beyond what is specifically addressed in the standards can be covered in classroom instruction.  

One question that came up during the debate was would instruction concerning Critical Race Theory be disallowed in Tennessee classrooms? Let’s explore. 

Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Conclusion

Regardless of one’s beliefs in CRT,  there is nothing that would disallow the instruction of a data supported theory in Tennessee classrooms. In fact, such a theory facilitates student research and exploration on both sides of the issue. At the same time, given CRT is not included in the Tennessee standards, CRT is likely to be covered at varying levels throughout the State of Tennessee. 

Given the arguably overamplified racial polarization in the country, professional development is needed to support teachers in introducing theories as theories and not as fact, for age appropriate exploratory research and classroom discussion/debate. The use of reliable source documents should be part of professional development as well.

Its rather sad, but it would be a shame if the K-12 classroom becomes divided like the electorate, while sourcing competing “fact” documents from the likes of CNN, Fox, OAN and Newsmax.  

Given this discussion, while I believe racism exists in our society, I do not believe we live in a racist society. To that extent, professional development is needed to help educators engage facts, theories and other controversial subject matter in such a way that it helps to unite rather than divide for a better state and country. 

In the meantime, SB0623 should be vetoed. 

In the nationally low cost Memphis business operation center, through a range of public “economic development” programs, Memphis excessively subsidizes corporate/real estate interests while small business and workforce are left behind. As one would expect, this misguided policy landscape, creates imbalances that result in deficient economic development outcomes. 

A few years back, after paying $29 for retail downtown public garage parking in Philadelphia, a day later in Memphis, I found garage parking for $6 ! Upon discovering this, I became breathless, while sweating profusely, thinking I had been warped back in time.

Recently, I learned that public parking is highly publicly subsidized in Memphis, which helps to explain my experience just a few years pack. Public parking is subsidized largely for the benefit of corporate and real estate development interests. This has resulted in an oversupply of downtown public parking and subsidized corporate parking rates for the likes of First Horizons and ServiceMaster. 

For example, First Horizons pays $3.50 per day, not even the $6 cost of a Big Mac and Fries, for daily public garage parking, At the same time, the taxpayer, through the Office of Planning and Development, pays $8.25, which based on analysis, would be about the daily rate that is needed to cover public parking costs. 

Meanwhile, ServiceMaster pays nothing, for 1,000 spaces,  as a result of an economic development subsidy awarded in 2016. This subsidy is not publicly quantified anywhere, as is common with a tax abatement, but should be. The value of this ServiceMaster parking subsidy, over 15 years, is approximately $32M. And First Horizons parking gets subsidized, even though the bank, over its 150+ year history, only knows as home, Downtown Memphis.  

So why not course correct and subsidize areas of need like workforce development ?

Progressive Vision of Course Correction

Paul Young, the new Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) CEO, could provide the progressive course correction the City of Memphis needs. After all, Young did not create these imbalances and he must know that the bulk of economic development improvement, resides in workforce and small business development. 

Think about it. Young has plenty to work with. Either shutting down the $138M PILOT Extension Fund (PEF) or redirecting its future excesses to workforce development, would be a major progressive course correcting step, to serve local economic development needs. 

With including interest cost, approximately $92M of $138M of the PEF committed, that leaves $46M for workforce over the next 25 years. And getting First Horizons and other corporate parkers, to at least pay the super business friendly $6 cost of a Big Mac and Fries for daily corporate parking, would result in more effectively covering public parking costs. 

After all, with $77M committed on top of $75M already spent, Memphis is set to have the best public parking in America, with a $152M total scheduled public spend over 40 years. This will result in a massive annual $3.8M subsidy, for downtown public parking over 40 years, which for the most part, should typically be a self supporting enterprise. 

And don’t forget about the opportunity Young has to reduce downtown PILOT term lengths to the more common 10 yrs, while disallowing PILOT extensions, all for the benefit of the taxpayer and public general funds. 

So with significant resources in hand, there is hope for course correction. We shall see……