Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and AC Wharton Push Back Meeting with Governor Phil Bredesen

Somewhere between their offices on Main Street in Downtown Memphis, Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and Shelby County Mayor A.C. Wharton realized that cooler heads and more information was needed to make a compelling case to Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen to amend the current statutes which require school boards to be elected by the community and constituents they serve and allow the mayors of those areas to appoint at least a portion of the board members. Obviously, conducting the business that any school board does is an important and vital part of the business of a municipality. In the case of Memphis and Shelby County, both find their school systems mired in red tape, political wrangling and unproductivity that hinders the educational development of scores of young minds every year. But as Mayors Herenton and Wharton found out, having a good idea alone is not enough to persuade Governor Phil Bredesen to push through legislation that would give them arbitrary power with little accountability involved.

Mayors taking over deficient school systems are nothing new. It has been done in larger cities like Chicago but what worked or is working in Chicago will not necessarily translate to Memphis and Shelby County. Currently independent, the Memphis City and Shelby County school systems are polar opposites. Memphis City Schools is predominately black with over sixty percent of the student population being from minority races. One of the twenty-five largest school systems in the country, over 100,000 students are registered for one of the schools inside the city. Just the opposite is true for Shelby County which is largely white and suburban. Both have their flaws and the mayors believe the most effective way to effect change is to have people on each school board seated by the respective mayors.

For Memphis the relationship between Mayor Herenton and the school board has always been a contentious one. A strange reality given that before Herenton moved into his current digs downtown he was the school superintendent for many, many years. A well-educated man in his sixties, people can call Herenton a lot of things, but unintelligent is not one of them. Which makes his attempt at shifting the balance of power an interesting move to be shared with Mayor Wharton.

Less than a year ago, a group of influential black pastors attempted to draft Mayor Wharton to run against Mayor Herenton for the city's top post. But being the man of uncompromising integrity that he is, A.C. Wharton kept his word and chose to remain the mayor of Shelby County rather than run what would have been a nasty campaign against his longtime friend and political ally, the man many in Memphis call King Willie.

With both Herenton and Wharton at the table together, the issue of power on the school board gains credibility. Accountability being the overarching premise behind the move they had intended on traveling to Nashville to meet with Governor Bredesen this week to discuss the possibility of him pushing the legislation forward. However, it is possible that the mayors thought it wise to take more time to do more fact finding and to develop a comprehensive approach to appointed school boards before meeting with the governor.