I spent nearly two hours during a vacation recently trying to figure out the high crimes that Superintendent Marie Feagins committed to cause the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board to make fools of themselves deciding whether to fire her.

And then the board went ahead and did it.

A tropical sunburn would have given me more pleasure than listening to some of these board members and their attorney. Yet I still can’t figure out what Feagins did that was so egregious that six board members voted to oust her.

MSCS superintendent search uncertain as interim works on 100-day plan

Even Thursday’s school board press conference didn’t shed any light on the issue. Here are some of her alleged misdeeds:

• Accepted a donation of more than $45,000 without Board approval, which is a violation of Board Policy.
• Was dishonest with the board and the public when she stated that certain federal grant funds were still available to the district despite Feagins’ failure to encumber the funds prior to the required deadline.

And, my favorite, even though the board didn’t identify this one as as a reason for firing Feagins, is: 

• Inappropriately interfered with the Formative Assessment RFP process, after the Evaluation Committee evaluated the responses and determined a winning vendor, by meeting with a losing bidder and then setting aside the Evaluation Committee’s selection of the winning vendor and the entire RFP process.

What these allegations have to do with educating our kids is a mystery. Surely, we must ask ourselves, was Superintendent Feagins hired to shuffle paper and toe the line on policy, or was she hired to make sure our schools educate our kids?

Clearly these elected board members fail to realize, nor seem to care, that the taxpayers are paying their salaries, paying their public relations consultant, paying their attorney, and will pay Marie Feagins — and eventually her attorney — lots of money when she wins her lawsuit against the board.

There’s a disconnect between the people who spend our money and where the money comes from. Here’s the perfect example.

There is little wonder it took nearly 18 months for our former MSCS board to find someone willing to take the job. Yet Feagins, who was groomed in part in the school-tough battleground of Detroit, applied for and accepted this job armed with the promise to shutter crumbling and failing schools and cut the bureaucratic fat. Apparently, she used a blade so sharp that some in the central office screamed loud enough that six members of the school board heard their cries.

Therein lies only part of her crime. The other part is that Feagins is not warm and fuzzy. She takes no prisoners, much like one of her predecessors, Willie Herenton. Remember him? When he was superintendent before becoming the longest serving mayor in Memphis history, Herenton often clashed with the school board for various reasons. He even went out of his way to anger them.

Truth is, the school board didn’t care for Herenton, but at least the board was smart enough not to oust him.

Of the 140,000 school-aged kids in Memphis and Shelby County, about 110,000 of them attend more than 200 MSCS schools. No one can possibly change a bloated and lumbering administrative bureaucracy in nine months. It takes at least two to three years just to see if any of the major changes have done any good.

MSCS investigation focuses on Feagins’ honesty, finds ethics violations

Marie Feagins wasn’t hired for her ability to communicate with the board or the media. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been hired. Her ability (or willingness) to communicate gets an F minus.

But let’s be frank. Superintendents are supposed to educate, not rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking ship. An overriding problem they too often face is that they must answer to those who know almost nothing about education — an esteemed list that includes school board members, state legislators and, yes, reporters.

Here and there we might get a retired teacher elected to the board who understands how tough it is to wade through bureaucratic sludge before you can teach the kids. Mostly, though, we wind up with board members who have little or no experience in education, including their own, or we get stuck with a stack of wild cards with personal or political agendas.

If a crumbling school building is cold in the winter and hot in the summer, a superintendent required to schmooze the school board isn’t going to fix that. If schools don’t have enough computers for kids to use in this hi-tech world, shaming a superintendent for not notifying the board about a cash donation isn’t going to properly educate the kids.

At least Feagins put the money in the school’s bank account and not her own. Be thankful for small favors. And blasting Feagins for interfering with the cumbersome RFP process isn’t going to help teach the thousands of kids who come to school hungry, poorly clothed and tired.

We need a superintendent with her eye on the prize: Educating our kids and keeping our classroom educators happy. Teachers are our front line in this war against illiteracy. Word is, most of them liked Superintendent Feagins. Get the picture?

If you listen to the table talk from parents who send their kids to private schools, you’d think that our public schools are on the verge of disaster. The truth is most schools do a good job in trying to improve our kids’ academic skills. People become teachers because they love the kids and the classroom, not the chaotic antics of politicians.

Feagins plans legal challenge: ‘I’ll see them in court’

Of course, there are a lot of things about our public schools that could be better, including the judgment skills of many of our school board members.

In a recent column in Memphis magazine, Tom Jones, who I think is arguably the brightest mind locally on municipal policy, wrote: “The kind of robust, inclusive economy that Memphis wants begins in its classrooms today. Better-educated workers attract better jobs and higher salaries that can keep our graduates here.”

Firing Feagins had nothing to do with improving our classrooms.

Over the years, I’ve heard some bad ideas from elected officials and the following one ranks among the best. Rather than spending countless hours arguing over the bullet points crafted by an attorney or public relations professional, the MSCS board should argue about how it can help our teachers enjoy their jobs more, how they can raise teachers’ pitifully low salaries, and how we as a community can do more to help the superintendent and her army of dedicated teachers better educate our children.

If the MSCS board wants a superintendent who cares about files and flattery, hire an accountant. If they want a superintendent who bows when they enter the room, then hire a court jester.