OPINION
Beyond The Headlines
Tipping Point: Future or Past? By Janis Hashe, Pulse Contributing Editor
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f you don’t have children in the Hamilton County School District, maybe you don’t care about the continuing uproar over the school board’s move to buy out Superintendent Dr. Jim Scales’s contract. But you should. Because in a very big way, this controversy represents the place where Chattanooga and the surrounding area is right now: on a tipping point between the future and the past. The city is justifiable proud of the enormous strides made over the last couple of decades years in renewing and revitalizing itself. Yet the school district, which those willing to speak openly acknowledge is still struggling with a racist past, is not making the progress across the board that will allow access to the benefits of this renewal to all Chattanoogans—not just those well off enough to take advantage of it.
Is this the best we can do? Is this how little we truly value our children—all of our children? It is apparent that Dr. Scales has never been given the support he needed to steer the district toward the future. The constant infighting, sniping and undercutting of his decisions by some on the school board has made it virtually impossible for him to implement many of the changes he proposed. And the ones who suffer the most from these distractions and lack of commitment to change are, as usual, the students. There are those on the both the school board and the county commission who continue to beat the drum for “someone local.” And while all qualified candidates for this important position should be considered, “someone local” smacks very strongly of “someone who thinks just like us.” Someone who thinks the district does not need to change, and change radically, in order to meet the needs of all its students. Someone who looks to the past, not to the future for a model. If you look into how big school districts across the country conduct searches for school superintendents, you find these searches are done in the same way a company searches for a CEO, because a CEO is, to some degree, what a superintendent is. He or she must be a superb administrator, an innovator and most of all, a leader who can inspire others to get behind the ideas
“Is this the best we can do? Is this how little we truly value our children—all of our children?” No question that some of Chattanooga’s magnet schools are superb and receiving well-deserved national recognition. But go into the halls of those schools and you will find parents working as volunteers, providing the man hours the district cannot pay for. Go into other schools, where most of the parents must spend their hours working long hours in draining jobs, and you will see another story. Teachers struggle to provide just the basic necessities of learning to their kids, many of them spending their own money to buy supplies.
he presents. The work of Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, recently here in Chattanooga as part of the George T. Hunter Lecture Series, of course comes to mind. But one person, as inspirational as they may be, is not the answer. Without the will from the community and the elected officials who represent it to take the school district into excellence for all students, that person is doomed to failure, no matter how hard they work and no matter how qualified. And how we care for and prepare our children for the future will without doubt be the measure of our city’s continuing growth and success. The jobs of the future need educated workers. And beyond that, without a full and grounded education, access to the American Dream is denied. So which is it, Chattanooga? All of us have a stake in the answer.
www.chattanoogapulse.com | May 19, 2011 | Volume 8, Issue 20 | The Pulse
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