Supt. Kriner Cash has been on the job for nine months. During that time, he has made – and proposed – some sweeping changes, which some hail as innovative and others see as a temporary fix.

Four civic leaders interviewed by the Tri-State Defender all agree that Cash is making strides. However, none of them were ready to give him a perfect score on his performance.

Dr. Kenneth T. Whalum Jr.
School Board Commissioner

“He’s done a great job in some areas and a poor job in other areas,” said Whalum, who took note of the superintendent’s passion for children. “We don’t need to see a few kids doing well. We need to see more of them doing well.”

Memphis City Schools doesn’t need temporary improvement, said Whalum. “We need drastic improvement, which won’t be possible at this time under the same rubric,” he added.

When interviewing perspective candidates for the superintendent’s job, Whalum recalled Cash saying to the school board, “Are you ready for change?”

Change was the operative word the board needed to hear from the next superintendent, Whalum said. But here’s where he differs with Cash: “We have to go back to the basic. Give principals the control of their schools and teachers the control of their classrooms.”

The children come first, he said. “We are in a crisis, a state of emergency. We have got to go back to neighborhood schools — even if it’s 25 people in a school.”

When asked if a police force is needed in MCS, the commissioner said he is adamantly opposed to the idea. “Dr. Cash has been woefully wrong,” he said. “It is illegal to touch a child in school, and we’re going to put an armed police force in school with guns and tasers?”

Although Whalum points to the improvements that Cash has made in truancy and security personnel, he believes a police force will be counter-productive.

The recent announcement of layoffs is another contentious subject. “As far as his intentions to lay off, he’s absolutely wrong,” Whalum argued. “We have enough people who make six figures to keep all the custodian workers employed. We can get rid of some of them at the top.

“Cash didn’t bring these folk in; he inherited a top-heavy system,” Whalum explained. “But we hired him to work for us. I don’t work for Cash. Policy is the problem; it’s the board. Supt. Cash has to do what the board tells him to do — what the constituents tell us to do.”

Should Cash be graded on his performance thus far? “He hasn’t turned in that final research paper,” said Whalum. “I’ll give him an ‘I’ for incomplete.”

Tomeka Hart
School Board Commissioner, Board Chair

Tomeka Hart, Memphis City Schools board chair, said Cash has made strides.

“He understood accountability and put the right programs and initiatives in place to move students academically and operations efficiently,” said Hart.

The school system is in a much better position today than it was a year ago, she said, despite the rumblings in the community regarding some of his reform initiatives.

“If he’s going to come in and make changes, everybody won’t like it — and change hurts,” she said. “We won’t be without our critics. We listen. Some are saying we’re doing too much.”

Hart said Cash is getting unnecessary flak over school policing, when, in fact, former Supt. Carol Johnson was the first to bring up the issue two years ago.

“We looked at Miami (Florida) long before Cash came here, because they seemed to be doing it right,” Hart said. “We weren’t going to discuss it under interim superintendent Dan Ward.”

MCS has a police presence in the schools already. Additional officers, Hart explained would increase the force and become, as Cash intended, more proactive.

“We’re not there yet,” she said. “The board has not had a substantive conversation with Supt. Cash. He is just fighting for what the board already has in place. The board already voted on this.”

Cash’s decisions are data-driven, she said. His reform initiatives and programs have been based on the research and data he’s collected. “The data said we haven’t had guns going off in school.”

 Despite the ongoing debate over a police force, Hart believes the superintendent is on the right track. “We’ve had some bumps and bruises. But if we didn’t have those bumps and bruises, I would be worried,” she said.

“We’re still growing together and working on relationships as a board and administration,” Hart continued. “I feel good about us — about the district. I tend not to look at the anecdotal incidents. I tend to take it in all together. And at the end of the day, the data will tell.”

Because the board will evaluate Cash before year’s end, Hart did not want to comment on the superintendent’s performance. “We’re going to evaluate him this year anyway,” she said.

Deidre Malone
Shelby County Commissioner, Board Chair

Memphis City Schools is the largest school district in Tennessee and the largest employer in Shelby County.  Deidre Malone has been keeping an eye on Dr. Cash’s every move.  

“I think he’s doing a good job,” the Shelby County Commission board chair said. “He has come in and, during the first 60 to 90 days, he’s tried to analyze the district and tried to make change immediately.”

After Cash was hired to head the 110,000-student body, he was dragged right into a funding quagmire between the city of Memphis and Shelby County Government.
“Soon has he got here, he got hit with Memphis City Council not wanting to fund the school system,” said Malone, who believes single-source funding is inevitable.
“He’s had one challenge after another,” she said. “He’s done a good job under the circumstances that he’s had to face. He has critics because he wants the schools to be efficient.

 “He’s come in and tried to make the tough decisions and tried to get a handle on the budget. And they’ve not been favorable,” she said.

“He brought in a strong No. 2 — and I think Dr. (Irving) Hamer is very sharp. When people come in, they try to make the masses happy. Some people won’t do that. Dr. Cash created a strategy and he’s working it.

“This guy is the CEO of the school system and his clients are the children and their parents. We have to trust the person in that position to do the right thing. But I’m not saying don’t challenge him.”

In light of the sagging economy, Malone said funding is a key issue. . “Everybody has fiscal challenges,” she said. “However, I don’t think we’ll ever have enough money to fund schools.”

Despite having to work with inadequate funding, Malone believes Cash is headed in the right direction. But she was reluctant to grade him on his performance until she was asked a second time.

“Why not!” she said. “I’ll give him a ‘B+’ for doing a good job.”

Myron Lowery
Memphis City Councilman, Chairman

Trying to solve the problem of school funding is currently on the mind of Myron Lowery, the City Council chairman. The compliments that others heap upon Dr. Cash are warranted in some areas, he said.

If the superintendent is going to be graded based on being in office for only nine months, “let others do it,” Lowery said. “I’m not giving him a grade yet. He hasn’t earned his grade. He hasn’t been there a year. I’m not ready to give him a grade.”

The councilman said he has been preoccupied with issues related to school funding. However, those matters aside, he thinks Cash is innovative and creative. “I think he’s creative and innovative in bringing new blood to the system and a new approach to dealing with some of the current challenges,” he said.

“But the thing about the scare tactics and the school board budget and the City Council, those tactics have to end – immediately.”

He is alluding to Cash’s recent announcement that jobs would continue to be cut and schools could be closed should the City Council not fund MCS. The dispute has prompted a lawsuit and a counter suit that is currently tied up in court.

“That simply is not true. That is simply hogwash!” the councilman said. “The school system will not be forced to close any schools as a result of City Council action.”

Scare tactics must end, he said. “Scare tactics are coming from parents. We don’t need to hear them from school officials. The schools will remain open unless the school board wants to close them.”

Lowery said he agrees with school board commissioner Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr., who argued that the school budget should not be balanced on the backs of employees.

“You don’t balance your budget on the backs of those who can least afford it — and those are the custodians,” said Lowery. “Those are the lowest paying workers in the school system.”

If Cash is planning to get rid of some of the part-timers, he should have done it by attrition, the councilman said. “I thought the layoffs were premature.”

The debate on bringing aboard a police force doesn’t rattle Lowery. “You have to crawl before you can walk,” he said. “I think that when discipline is needed in schools and there’s a place where it is necessary to bring it about, then so be it.”

That idea has to be approved by the state before it is implemented, said Lowery. “Let’s see if the state will implement that idea.”