Can South Koreans run for County Commission?

David Cook

Just got back from Chicago, where journalists from all over the country met to talk about education. U S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stopped by. Over lunch, he told a story.

Obama goes on a visit to South Korea, where he meets with that country's president. They chit-chat. Obama asks: What's your biggest challenge when it comes to education?

The South Korean president says: Our parents are too demanding.

Too.

Demanding.

"We don't have that demand here," Duncan told the room.

I looked around at my journalist friends, nodding.

"We don't have enough parents beating down our doors, saying 'go faster,'" Duncan continued. "The critique is always, 'slow down, slow down.'"

That's when my thoughts turned back homeward, to Hamilton County, where going slow is what we do best.

Sitting before us is the best public education vision to come our way in a long time. Saying he wants to build the best school system in the South, Superintendent Rick Smith has proposed a bouquet of changes:

Art teachers in every elementary school.

Foreign language teachers in every elementary school.

Better teacher salaries to recruit and retain the best educators around.

Technology upgrades and curriculum improvement.

Infrastructure improvements. More support for urban schools.

"Chattanooga 2.0," he calls it. "The smartest city in the South."

To get the $34 million needed, Smith has wrapped this up in a 40-cent property tax increase, which works out to about $3 a week for a middle-class homeowner.

"Only 15 percent of graduates are college ready," he's said. "Nearly 60 percent of all third-graders read below grade level."

Smith's plan is solid. Bold. Clear.

"Moral," he said.

Yes, moral.

And here's the kicker: It probably won't happen.

In a few weeks, the best-school-system idea goes before the County Commission, which will likely reject it.

A funny bird, that commission. Easily the most frugal public body around, the commission also engages in the unique practice of annually giving itself enough discretionary money to burn a wet mule. Each commissioner is free to then proudly dole it out -- a new scoreboard here, some marching band instruments there -- creating this subtle messaging that's a bit like psych-ops: yes, we'll fund your needs, but only at our say-so. Only at our discretion.

Plus, the commission is always telling the school system it's over-bloated with central office topheaviness, yet won't give the school system the taxing power to fund itself.

("No, our school board doesn't have budgeting power," I told a colleague in Chicago, who stared back in disbelief.)

Voting down the best-school-system idea almost becomes a civil rights issue. Smith's proposals are foundational parts of any mature and decent school system, up there with healthy lunches and doors with locks on them. We can't fix any problems without fixing education.

(How much time do we have left to get it right? A season of discontent and frustration grows. A Facebook group was recently created that questioned the idea of an independent school district on Signal Mountain.)

This is where you come in.

The commission votes on May 20. If Hamilton County parents begin to loudly and consistently demand and advocate for this best-school-system-tax-investment, the commissioners will have to respond.

And they should.

The commission has the chance to be morally courageous, financially wise and educationally noble. This vote represents the educational equivalent of the downtown renaissance.

"Chattanooga will be the smartest city in the South by 2025," Smith says.

Not unless parents demand it.

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.