The Chamber can't be wrong, can it?

I awoke at 5:00 a.m. this morning with a splitting sinus headache. Despite that pain I was seriously tempted to bang my head against the wall when I read the City Paper this morning. These are the folks that Nashville elected to run the school system. It's just unbelievable that they would say these things let alone believe them. I'm not surprised they're using them as an excuse. They need every one they can get their hands on to absolve them of responsibility. The context is last night's meeting between the Metro Council and Dr. Jesse Register, Director of MNPS in preparation for passing the Metro Nashville budget.

"Council member Ronnie Steine cited years of independent management reports from the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, which suggested the level of central office staffing was where it belonged.

Board of Education Chair David Fox said he had also relied on the Chamber reports as an independent check on staffing levels"

Ronnie Steine is on the Council's Education Committee. David Fox is Chairman of the MNPS Board of Education. Seriously? These men seriously believed that the Chamber Report Cards were unbiased and independent assessments of MNPS? Did they take ten minutes to review the membership of these committees over time? Did they take ten minutes to review the report cards over time? Did they completely forget the money and support the Chamber poured into getting some of them on the school board and council?

Councilman Eric Crafton's Save Our Students group was immediately marginalized and their work was suspect because of bias against the messenger but no one could legitimately question the quality of the data. Yet these folks are shocked ala Inspector Renault in "Casablanca" that the Chamber who clearly has an agenda in so many areas of Nashville's life would dare to present them a report that supports their plan for Nashville.

It's morning, folks. Wake up and smell the coffee.