A New Group Wants MSCS to Drop Its Takeover Lawsuit. It Will Not Say Who Is Behind It.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A new advocacy group is collecting signatures to push Memphis-Shelby County Schools into dropping the lawsuit that is currently holding off the state takeover of the district, Chalkbeat Tennessee reported on July 21.

The group, Together4Students, launched in May, around the same time state lawmakers passed the law creating a state-appointed oversight board for MSCS. According to Chalkbeat's reporting, it was founded by Henry Jones, director of organizing for the Memphis nonprofit Leadership for Educational Equity, and Mark Sturgis, who leads the education advocacy organization Seeding Success. The group is seeking 2,500 signatures on a petition calling on the district to drop its challenge to the takeover, and Jones told Chalkbeat it had collected more than 300 as of Tuesday, July 21.

Jones told Chalkbeat that Together4Students is not a registered nonprofit and is not currently receiving local or national funding, and that the fellows it recruits, young people ages 16 to 25, are not being paid. He also told Chalkbeat the group has a strategy team of local organization leaders that meets monthly, and he declined to name which organizations are involved, describing the effort as relying on volunteers, in-kind support and community relationships, with Seeding Success and Memphis Lift among those relationships.

On its website, the group sets two targets for the district over the next decade: 80 percent of MSCS students attending schools rated A or B by the state, up from 38 percent now, and 80 percent of students on a clear path to a career, meaning a college acceptance or trade credential at graduation, by 2035.

Jones told Chalkbeat the group is not explicitly against MSCS or the local school board and is rooting for improvement regardless of who is in charge, adding that if the oversight board does not serve students well, the group will hold it accountable too. He also said education may not remain the group's only focus, and that its fellows will choose the next campaign.

The context matters. In early July, a federal judge temporarily blocked the state oversight board from beginning operations, an early win for MSCS in the litigation Together4Students wants dropped. The takeover push followed a state-commissioned review of the district by CliftonLarsonAllen, released July 8, which the Tennessee Comptroller's Office described as identifying widespread failures in governance, internal controls, procurement and financial oversight over multiple years. Chalkbeat reported that the final audit identified more than $54 million in spending as evidence of potential waste, fraud or abuse across the 2021 to 2024 period, with the large majority tied to a single custodial contract the district canceled after one year.

Audit findings of this kind are management and control failures. They are not criminal findings, and no one has been convicted of a crime as a result of the review.

Together4Students is not the only organized voice here. Chalkbeat reported that the group is partnering with the parents' rights organization Memphis Lift, and that other advocacy groups have opposed state intervention for years, including by working with district leaders last fall to rally parent support.

Why It Matters for Memphis

MSCS is a roughly $2 billion public institution serving more than 100,000 students, and the question of who governs it is currently being decided in federal court. Organized advocacy is a legitimate part of that fight, on both sides. But when a group forms specifically to pressure a public body into abandoning litigation, the public has a straightforward interest in knowing who is behind it, who pays for it, and who sits on the team setting its strategy.

Together4Students has answered part of that. Its two founders are named and both lead established local education organizations. What it has not answered is the composition of its strategy team, which its founder declined to disclose. A campaign asking 2,500 Memphians to sign their names to a position on a lawsuit is asking for public trust, and disclosure is the ordinary price of that.

Recruiting unpaid fellows as young as 16 into a political advocacy campaign is also worth noting plainly, without assuming bad intent. Youth organizing is a long and legitimate tradition in this city. It is also a structure where the adults setting strategy should be visible.

The Oversight Question

Together4Students should name the organizations on its strategy team and disclose any in-kind support it is receiving, including staff time donated by the organizations its founders lead. Memphians being asked to sign a petition about the governance of their school district deserve to know who wrote it and who is paying for the effort behind it. The same standard applies to every group on every side of the takeover fight.