Hamilton County's Children Are Looking To Senators Watson And Gardenhire - And Response

  • Friday, April 26, 2019

A large number of Hamilton County's neediest children have their hands out to Senators Watson and Gardenhire. They're saying, "Give me a hand up." These children are from schools that have been failing them for years.  Educational Savings Accounts is the ladder for motivated families, and Governor Lee's legislation ought to include Hamilton County.

Empowering parents to make a choice where to send their children to school is "pie in the face" common sense. These parents would be engaged, and the schools that would attract them would be designed for their children's needs. How can our two senators not see this? 

We all know that without a solid, basic education, later in school and in life chances are severely limited for many.

Why then do Senators Watson and Gardenhire want to take away Hamilton County's participation in the Governors Education Savings Account bill?

I simply don't understand. Getting the right start in life is critical to success. A vote for the ESAs in Hamilton County, is a vote for the success of the children and families who need it. Give them a hand up.

Douglas E. Daugherty, Sr.
Signal Mountain

* * * 

Since the late 1990s some Chattanooga schools have been on one form or another of the state’s failing schools list. This meant the scores on the state testing did not meet the standard acceptable to avoid this distinction. The TN Department of Education would then issue a dire warning of consequences if those schools failed to bring up their test scores within a given time period. This has happened several times over the decades.

At first career dignitaries from the state department made the pilgrimage from Nashville to inspect the local situation. That was to find what individual schools were doing themselves to correct the problem. One principal told me after their presentation to the officials she asked them if they had suggestions. The answer was, “no, just do what you’ve planned to do.”

Since then local officials have tried “reconstitution” of schools, meaning wholesale faculty and/or administration shifts, some more than once. One superintendent, in the chain of leaders since the city schools became part of the county, boasted in a trade publication about his innovative plan where he moved suburban teachers to the inner city and vice versa. You can imagine how that went over. Another tried regrouping the schools under area superintendents In hopes of shaking things up. It shook things up but still some of the failing schools are the same ones.

Now we have changes brought under OZ, the Opportunity Zone. I’m certainly not critical of local teachers who I think are doing a remarkable job under the stress of constant observation, hours and hours of meetings and training, frequent changes and critical evaluations. They should be praised and, in my opinion, paid bonuses for what they are trying to do.

But now, for the first time, parents of children in those chronic failing schools could have a choice under the Governor’s Education Savings Account bill to be able to leave that failing school for a successful school of their own choice. But for some reason students of Hamilton County were left out from that act.

I know the fear among some is that precious resources would be drained from public schools. But how many students are we considering and how much money would be gone? If it’s more than a hundred students, it might be enough to close a failing school altogether which could balance itself out. What could provide more equity for those in impoverished areas than this? So far much has been tried but still some of the same schools are failing.

Until the numbers could be determined it’s only a theory about the cost. But the fact that a child could leave a failing school for a better opportunity, especially a school that’s been designated as such for decades, is a good thing for those students. 

Ralph Miller

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