The Hamilton County Commission should give the Chattanooga 2.0 initiative a rousing 9-0 vote of support next week.
Such a vote of support will signal the county's leaders understand what the initiative indicates - that the future of Chattanooga's workforce is dependent upon better schools and training for better-paying jobs. It also would be an acknowledgement that the current system needs improvement to create that workforce.
"I don't see how this body can support economic development like we do and not be concerned about how we are going to prepare our workforce," District 7 Commissioner Sabrena Smedley, chairwoman of the commission's education committee, said Wednesday in presenting the resolution of support.
What a vote does not do is commit commissioners to a tax increase. It also doesn't say Chattanooga 2.0 has all the answers or there's nothing positive in the current school system. The 2.0 initiative doesn't say the school district needs to be run by a nonprofit school reform organization or say a coalition of rich folks who send their kids to private schools alone wants to tell the public schools what to do.
Yes, commissioners might say, we've seen studies and approved reform programs before. What's different this time?
What's different this time is the bread-and-butter emphasis on jobs and workforce. The fact is if local students aren't educated for - and/or trained for - the better-paying jobs, the jobs will go to someone else. Employers will fill those positions. Make no mistake about that.
Local business leaders want students coming out of local schools to fill those slots. That's why they're so heavily invested in Chattanooga 2.0. Other leaders also understand the need. If students are trained for, and take, good-paying jobs, there will be fewer who graduate into a career of crime, fewer in jails, fewer families who can't make ends meet, fewer people who need a growing array of taxpayer-funded social services.
District 8 Commissioner Tim Boyd brought up a valid point - whether the school district has an "ear for change" - during the commission's agenda session when the resolution was presented. Indeed, if school administrators aren't open to new ideas, a transformative strategy will be difficult.
But the pending change in superintendents just may provide that opening. Although Superintendent Rick Smith campaigned last spring for more money for the schools and supports Chattanooga 2.0, his exit - through whatever avenue school board members determine next month - may be the perfect time for changes in the district.
In the meantime, Hamilton County commissioners should give their support to the resolution and help determine ways the county could facilitate education strategies that would create and sustain a better workforce.