A reading of the financial disclosures filed by Hamilton County candidates for the Board of Education brings welcome news.
The disclosures are raising eyebrows because many of the donors are among the more affluent people in our county - donors who don't even have children in Hamilton County public schools, and donors who do not even live in the school districts represented by the candidates challenging the incumbents in four of nine seats on the August ballot.
There are two ways to look at this surprising oddity.
There's the conspiracy-theory view espoused by critics who view the outside donations as an extension of what used to be called the "mountain power structure." Incumbent District 1 school board member Rhonda Thurman (whose financial support came mainly from Soddy-Daisy and Sale Creek, her district) is one of these critics, and she termed the outside supporters "the people who like to control things." The outside donations to one of Thurman's challengers tallied twice the amount she has raised.
But there also is the pragmatic view that sees this as the long-awaited and often-sought wholistic community support for education that school board members and local educators have so often told us is missing from our schools and educational system.
We fall into the second camp, and we are delighted that finally people in Hamilton County from all walks and stages of life are coming to the realization that the futures of our city, county, state and nation depend on educating all of our children to the best degree possible.
Our community cannot survive, let alone prosper, based only on the education children from middle-class and well-to-do-households receive in the high-end private schools and a handful of high-performing suburban public schools. When 60 percent of our children live in poverty, attend low-performing urban schools and do not learn to read on grade-level by the third grade, almost our entire workforce is stunted and routed toward crime rather than jobs.
In turn that crime overshadows every other aspect of livability in our region. Tourism, economic development, retail sales, tax collections, personal freedom, pursuit of happiness - every aspect of life in Hamilton County will rise or fall based on whether third-graders at Orchard Knob, Bess T. Shepherd and every Hamilton County elementary school can read well enough when they enter the fourth grade to grasp the directions and lessons in their math, social studies and English textbooks.
For far too long, most of the incumbents on the Hamilton County school board allowed themselves to be pushed, pulled and lulled to complacency by our former superintendent and the school system's administrators in the central office. Only after a disastrous school year when bottoming test scores and the alleged hazing/rape of a 16-year-old Ooltewah basketball player put a harsh spotlight on the many failures of this school system, did the superintendent retire under pressure. But virtually all of his central office staff remains in leadership positions, and most of current school board members clearly are not up to the task of change and rebuilding.
Now with almost half of the school board seats on the ballot, this county has the best opportunity in decades to pull our schools into the 21st century.
That is exactly the thinking behind the group of Chattanooga heavyweights who have poured their own time and money into these campaigns - whether they live in the candidates' districts or not.
Led by Paul Brock, a wealth manager and influential civic leader, some the contributors include names like McCallie, Davenport, Decosimo, Montague and Mills. Second quarter campaign financial disclosure statements researched by Times Free Press reporter Kendi Rainwater indicate these and other high-dollar contributors have poured as much as $30,000 to $40,000 into the campaigns of four upstart candidates.
"I'm sure the current board is well-intentioned, but the results are not there," said Brock. "Leadership matters, and that's why I'm working really hard to help get some change on the school board."
This editorial page does not agree with this group that all incumbents on the ballot should be ousted. Jonathan Welch, who became the board chairman just weeks before the test score drops became known and the hazing/rape occurred, did Herculean work to steer the board toward the kind of leadership and culture change that most Hamilton County residents know are needed. But Welch is accepting no donations, opting instead to self-fund his campaign. When people try to contribute to him, he asks that they instead give the money to a public school.
That difference aside, kudos to Paul Brock and the movers and shakers of Hamilton County who read the reports and listened to the forums, town halls and meetings of the Chamber of Commerce and the Public Education Foundation as they shaped the Chattanooga 2.0 initiative.
Our school board and school system for the past 20 or 30 years has failed our children and failed us. And we, as a community, let it happen.
It's just that simple.
That it took the rich and famous of Chattanooga to step in is humbling.
That they would and did is inspiring. And greatly appreciated.