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?