A response to Will Pinkston's attack on the Chamber by Mark Rogers

Mark Rogers

Mr. Disgruntled,


I read your post on Pinkston. Here is my Facebook comment on Will and his opinion of the Chamber.

 Is the Chamber of Commerce really an enemy of Public Education in Nashville? If one believes School Board member, Will Pinkston, then the only conclusion is that the Chamber has a not-so-secret plan to keep Nashville's public school children uneducated.

Pinkston, it will be remembered, is the School Board member who's hostile behavior toward those who dare disagree with him is legendary. His bid for re-election resulted in a wafer-thin victory, suggesting that he does not speak for as many citizens of Nashville who care about public education as he thinks. His attack on the Nashville Chamber, in the form of a response to the Nashville  Education Report {a valuable publication that is worth regular reading} embodies the ugliness of Pinkston's 'my way or the highway' attitude. Worse, it may be reflective of the views of other School Board members and leading members of Metro government, something that could lead to worsening in any consensus for improving Metro Schools.

In his own words: "I am more convinced than ever that the Chamber is an enemy of public education — and frankly, it has been for a long time."

Right. Because greedy capitalists only need uneducated workers with low incomes. Companies like Bridgestone and HCA and Nissan look forward to the glut of $7 per hour workers they are creating by undermining public education. "The fact is the Chamber, through its lack of understanding of public education and lack of leadership in this community, helped to enable poor-performing superintendents for the better part of two decades — while at the same time trying, mostly ineffectively, to destabilize the school board in local elections."

The Chamber lacks an understanding of public education? In my experience, business people, particularly successful ones, understand a great deal about education and about the people in their communities. That is to say, their employees and their customers. "Thankfully, the Mayor, the Metro Council, and the school board are finally on the same page. We’re all working together to lead public education forward, no thanks to the Chamber." I am really excited to see if a reporter will ask Her Honor, the Mayor, if she agrees with her political ally, Mr. Pinkston, about that. "MNPS is going to succeed despite you, not because of you."

I want Metro Public Schools to succeed. But my guess is that Pinkston's ideas, more money and more bureaucracy and less accountability, won't work. More to the point, if the major problems facing Education in Nashville are related to the home, the School Board isn't going to be able to deal with the fundamental problems.

Perhaps, instead of fighting political and ideological wars with people who want to help, Pinkston and his allies ought to reach out and target poverty and homelessness and poor parenting. And they might find that the Chamber can be helpful there too.

Mark Rogers is a prominent Nashvillian active in Republican Party politics and public affairs.

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