Even as a commission spent the past two years planning for the largest school district merger in the nation's history — the former Memphis city district and an adjacent suburban system became the unified 140,000 - student, 222 - school Shelby County district on July 1 — the landscape of governance within
the legacy city school system was changing rapidly to favor parental choice and more autonomous schools.
Two and a half years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa left his office steering the nation's second - largest
city with a
legacy of pushing the kind of changes in the
school system that education reformers relish.