Metro public schools heading toward fiscal pit

The so-called Athens of the South has shown that label to be cruel joke, as school board members learned yesterday that the supposed $2 million in savings from the recently passed rezoning plan has almost been cut in half.

The district has already committed to spend more than $4 million to make sure its plan does not produce separate but unequal schools among black and white children in resegregated schools. That money, however, could never provide any assurance. History proves that. But the 30 pieces of silver were offered politcally to pass the controversial plan in the summer.

The CityPaper reports today that a lot of costs aren't even been accounted for in the new estimate on the rezoning plan. So look for the $1.2 million to shrink further. To read more, go to http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=63147

In the months to come, look for Metro's budget to come up short as sales tax collections plummet in an economy that will not recover until the end of 2009 at the earliest. So Nashville public schools will be facing a large funding deficit by next spring.

Meanwhile, the tough economy and mess on Wall Street has delayed Nashville from selling $200 million in revenue bonds for capital projects, like new schools. Don't look for the market for bonds to improve much since the bailout of Wall Street will not turn the financial sector around. We're in for a tough 18 months in this nation, and the Dow will tumble below 10,000 by the end of the year.

Yet Nashville Mayor Karl Dean still wants to build a $600 million convention center as schools prepare to come under state control for failing No Child Left Behind standards. Dean, who negotiated the disastrous deal for taxpayers to keep the Predators in Nashville, had better shelf his convention center plan and save every cent for schools. They're going to need it. But he won't.

It's tragic that Nashville -- with an African-American population of 25 percent -- does not have the elected leadership to speak up for public schools and children at risk. Board member Ed Kindall had shown some backbone in opposition to the rezoning plan, but now has fallen more in line with the chamber of commerce. That's because the chamber financed a nobody in the recent board race who almost beat Kindall.

I was in west Nashville one evening in August when Kindall came around handing out small campaign placards to folks eating and watching entertainment. It was pitiful. His presence was not appreciated amid this African-American crowd.

So many of the most vulnerable -- from children to mothers to senior citizens -- have been betrayed in Nashville by its elected leaders and acquiescing news media. The human rights and dignity of so many people in Nashville are being violated.

Hopefully, the nation's news media -- when it descends on Nashville for next week's presidential debate -- will see this truth, report it and shame Metro leaders into action.