Dr. Marie Feagins has inherited an unexpected load along with an overall community that wants her to succeed. Feagin’s known load of low performing schools, has been furthered irritated by the unexpected load of an immature bully culture, fueled by runaway elitism that resides on the Memphis Shelby County School (MSCS) Board of Commissioners and in the local media.

Feagin’s required school budget cuts, with ending federal funding, would challenge any incoming Superintendent. There really is no way to pleasantly communicate major budget cuts. But that was the expectation the local media heaped upon Feagins. And then there was the peculiar media reporting that led local broadcasts featuring two election deposed school board members in Althea Greene and Mauricio Calvo opining about their disfavor of Feagins. This is the same Feagins the MSCS Board had just selected in a competitive process!

Feagins has never been professionally welcomed to Memphis. The elitist media has effectively stalked Feagins since she arrived.  In fact, a recent report about a contractual dispute with a local business leader fingered Feagins and not, as previously reported, the businessman. Besides, the Elitists are the only group that could bully on to the agenda a surprise Superintendent contract termination vote, after only 8 months of contractual service, without any public momentum on the matter.

Then there is this looming $1 billion public and non-transparent Seeding Success / More for Memphis (MFM) initiative being considered in public chambers. The public-private initiative involves the same ole elitist Memphis Tomorrow crowd on the Seeding Success Board. MFM targets education as one of many areas of public focus. But get this. The MFM resolution explicitly excludes Dr Marie Feagins, the sitting MSCS Superintendent from the MFM Governing Board!

“The MFM resolution language states: (H) Qualifications. All Mayoral- and Superintendent-appointed Board members shall have been residents of the city or the county for a period of one (1) year prior to the start of his/her term, and shall be confirmed members of the administration.”

Those residency qualifications exclude Feagins from service on the MFM Governing Board. MFM is supposed to bring everyone harmoniously together. But how asinine is that to exclude the sitting MSCS Superintendent from service on the MFM Governing Board? And even how more stupid for the MFM gang to show their handiwork in, away from inclusion, explicit bully exclusion !

This unexpected load comes well before turning around an academically low performing school district, that now includes an unreported Middle School Crisis. Let’s take a look at K12 academics across the County and at MSCS. There is both good and especially bad MSCS Middle Schools news.

All data was sourced from the Tennessee Department of Education. Trend data was sourced for the years 2017, 2019 pre-COVID and 2024 for ELA and Math (3-8). Sourced High School trend data for Ready Graduate was 2020-24 and sourced ACT data was 2017, 2019 and 2023.

The following groups were compiled and compared: 1) Shelby County Municipal Districts (SC Muni) 2) All districts in the state (State) 3) All large municipal districts in TN in Davidson County, Hamilton County and Knox County (TN Muni) and 4) Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS). Here are the headlines:

In Elementary (3-5), MSCS led peer groups in Elementary (3-5) ELA percentage gains but severely slumped in Math. SC Munis led all groups in ELA and Math performance.

In Middle School (6-8), MSCS poorly performed against all groups in Middle School. SC Munis led all groups in Middle School ELA and Math percentage gains and performance.

In High School, from 2020-24, MSCS led all groups in Ready Graduate percentage gains and SC Munis led in Ready Graduate performance. ACT was a disappointment for all groups across the State, but SC Munis led all groups in the least percentage growth loss and in ACT performance.

The most troubling finding locally was in MSCS Middle School performance. This Middle School finding appears to be publicly unknown as educational conversations at the County Commission are dumbed downed to the point of discussing being “for literacy”. That’s about it. So pitiful and sad. Occasionally the K3 reading level comes up, but not anything about Middle School.

Conversations with locals on this matter churn up volunteered anecdotal parent observations of local MSCS Middle Schools, with parents saying, I was wondering about the middle schools, this was our unfortunate experience…..

But no one seems to formally know about the local MSCS Middle School crisis. This is because the topic is never publicly discussed. It’s a pretty big deal because Middle Schools are feeding the problem of under-skilled High Schools graduates and an unprepared workforce.

While the Memphis public hears of an approximate 25% MSCS K3 reading level, which (3-5) is off the state average by 36%, the public never hears about Middle School achievement levels being off by 47% in ELA and 57% in Math. In 2024, in Middle School, only 17.6% were proficiently performing in ELA and 16.2% in Math. This is a crisis !

All that to say, hopefully Dr. Feagins will be welcomed to Memphis as the academic professional she is, while removing the unexpected and unneeded  load of an overbearing bully elitist community. After all, there are major academic problems in Memphis Shelby County Schools and the real local community wants Dr Feagins to succeed. Let’s make sure she does.

For more comparative K12 academic achievement insights, through the lens of the Shelby County taxpayer, please visit the Taxpayer Justice Institute K12 Data page.

CHECK THE FACTS

MFM Resolution. Page 6.