There are, to be sure, problems with public schools here. Some are the outgrowth of legitimate differences about general policy. Some have to do with the academic performance, test scores and conduct of students. There also are issues related to the performance of administrators and teachers. Other problems are directly related to politics. What’s lost in all the discussion and debate about real and alleged problems in public schools is the fact that there is a tremendous amount of positive activity taking place in the system here. There’s highly visible evidence around the county to support that claim.
A rotating series of billboards featuring 17 Hamilton County high school graduates from the class of 2010- one from each local high school – holding a diploma and wearing a shirt proclaiming the college they now attend will remain on view through the end of the year. They are more than a salute to the ability of each of the students pictured. They are testament to the broader success that all the high schools here have in preparing so many students for college.
“We just want to make the community aware of how many of our students are going to college,” Public Education Foundation President Dan Challener said Monday. The PEF, the school system and local Bi-Lo grocery stores are underwriting the billboard campaign. The effort is supplemented by additional information about colleges and the college experience on the foundation’s website and on a Facebook page,
This isn’t the first time billboards have been used to tout the academic success of students and their high schools. Last year, 11 of the advertisements were used. Positive feedback then prompted an expansion of the campaign this year. The additional exposure is a good idea.
Those who travel on Broad Street, I-24 at the ridge cut, Bailey Avenue, Signal Mountain Road or traverse the intersections of Highway 153 and Shallowford Road, Signal Mountain Road or Highway 153 and Highway 27 North between now and the end of the year should see one of the billboards with an image of a smiling student and the names of their high school and their college. The billboards should engender a smile and a nod in recognition of a job well done.
The 17 students featured on the advertisements aren’t the only individual success stories in the class of 2010 in public schools here. There are, thank goodness, countless others. Those featured on the billboards simply are representative of the large numbers of unsung students here who attend public schools, who do what is asked and expected of them and who graduate and then go on to college. The billboards are a welcome reminder that there is much worth celebrating in public schools here – even as the necessary and sometimes difficult discussion and debate about their future continues.