Tennessee State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) detailed how the Tennessee General Assembly plans to address the dysfunction within the Memphis-Shelby County School Board this legislative session during an exclusive interview last week on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Last month, the Memphis school board voted 6-3 to fire superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins, who had been in the role for less than 10 months.
The school board made headlines again last week after interim superintendent Dr. Roderick Richmond had ordered police to remove spectators who voiced their opposition to the board’s decision making process during last week’s meeting.
One video shows a man being forcibly dragged from the meeting by security after going over his allotted three minutes for public comment.
Taylor said the scene at the meeting was “an embarrassment,” adding, “If you ever needed an example of why school choice was needed in Tennessee, look no further than the Memphis Shelby County school system. Parents there ought to be able to take advantage of this and find a better school for their children.”
Regarding state action amid the chaos in Memphis-Shelby County schools, Taylor said State Representative Mark White (R-Memphis), who chairs the House Education Committee, actively seeks ways to hold the school board “accountable.”
“[The board members] were legally elected, but that doesn’t mean that the voters didn’t elect a board of dumba***s,” Taylor said bluntly.
“Representative Mark White…had indicated that he may want to file some type of legislation that would actually nullify the board and appoint a new board. Whatever direction that takes is a direction we need to go because we’re not going to have educated students as long as this incompetent school board is in place,” Taylor added.
Taylor said another option the General Assembly may pursue is creating an oversight board to oversee the dealings and decisions made by the school board.
“Mark White is being very careful to look for ways to hold them accountable, whether it’s an oversight board, leaving the elected board in place but having an oversight board. I think there’s a case to be made for the state having oversight over their decisions because the state sends $1 billion a year down to the Shelby County school system. We ought to have a right to how that money is spent,” Taylor said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
