BIG FIRST STEP FOR CHATTANOOGA 2.0

If we could look 10 years in the future, we could determine whether the strategies formulated by the Chattanooga 2.0 initiative were enough to double the number of Hamilton County residents with some kind of degree or post-secondary certification by 2025.

Chances are, they won’t be. That’s not negative thinking. That’s just reality. It takes years to undo entrenched policy, skewed ways of achieving success in public education and a society that has become lax about education specifically and individual initiative in general.

After all, in 10 years the youngest residents who will be affected by the 2.0 strategies won’t even be out of high school.

That said, we believe if the strategies are followed, if the public buys into the vision, if the community puts a hard press on the need for all students residents to achieve, county residents can be well on their way toward the goal by 2025.

And if they are, we will have made huge — perhaps unprecedented — strides and proven that a city that has reinvented itself over the past 40 years also can reinvent what passes for educational success for its residents.

When we examine Chattanooga 2.0’s just-released 10 “urgent strategies” toward achieving a better trained workforce — and, in turn, a more prosperous future — we find there is very little new under the sun.

1) We know that because many parents are unable or unwilling, children do not get the proper start they need in life. 2) We know about the importance of brain development by the ages of 3 and 5. 3) We know it’s important if children do attend an early learning program that it be one of quality and not simply a glorified babysitter.

Similarly, we know 4) literacy is vitally important and wonder how it came to be undervalued. 5) We know the best teachers turn out the best trained students. We are curious about why it has taken years to figure out that it takes better training and mentoring on the front end and dismissal if necessary on the back end to achieve teaching excellence. 6) We know when principals have the autonomy to run their schools and to make the choices that best affect their schools — as they did when education was more revered — teachers are better and students learn more. 7) We also know that quality has to be one-size-fits-all and that high-poverty schools are just as deserving of the best teachers and principals as other schools.

8) We know that if a large majority of students will be expected to obtain some kind of post-secondary training, they need to be well prepared on the front end and not receive a high school diploma by the skin of their teeth. 9) What may have grown hazy in recent years but was nevertheless recognized 40 years ago is that a four-year college is not right for everybody. Yet, with today’s more technology focused jobs, a certificate, training or program completion is vital to secure living wage-paying employment. And we know 10) programs already in place will need to be more focused to orient more people toward seeking those jobs.

What’s new, though, is an initiative energized enough to attempt all of the strategies together, to keep coalition members and the public focused on those strategies, and to sustain the strategies over a long period of time.

The work, as coalition members stated at a recent editorial board meeting with the Times Free Press, already has begun. The Hamilton County Schools district, under interim but spirited leadership, has created goals that work hand in glove with the 2.0 initiative. New locations for early childhood education are being identified. Questions are being asked about the re-allocation of money already in place or expected to come in order to align with the strategies.

“You won’t find a silver bullet in this document,” Jared Bigham, coordinator of Chattanooga 2.0, said, referring to a publication outlining the strategies. “A silver bullet won’t fix it. It’s more like silver buckshot.”

Other coalition members called 2.0’s effort thus far “a hard self-examination,” “an incredibly bold moment” and “a road map.”

In fact, it is, as Bigham said, “a big first step.” Similar to Chattanooga’s Violence Reduction Initiative to reduce crime, it is not expected to be a short-term fix. And while the initiative had 1,500 community respondents to educator surveys and focus groups, more than 1,000 attendees at community forums and speaker series events, more than 500 responses to a bilingual community survey and more than 500 instances of student feedback, it must be sustained community-wide to succeed.

If the initiative reaches its goals in 10 years we’ll be surprised. But if it holds together, gets community support and the strategies are followed through, we’ll be surprised in 10 years if we’re not well on the way to the goal.