"All children in Hamilton County - whether black, white or brown - have a real opportunity to reach their full academic potential regardless of their background, neighborhood or family circumstances."
Accomplishing that, states an open letter signed earlier this week by 130 community leaders, advocates and businesspeople, would be educational equity.
On the surface, who could argue with that? What Hamilton County resident would not want all children to reach their full academic potential, regardless of their circumstances?
The problems with such a vague statement, however, are many and multi-faceted. But consider just a few:
» How can we measure what one child's full academic potential is? Is it if the child goes to college, becomes successful in a trade, tests well, scores high on the ACT, draws beautifully, sings well? What is it, and won't it be different for every student?
» What is "real opportunity" and is it something the school district and the public can offer? The district potentially could provide every child with an equally qualified teacher in an equally equipped school in an equally safe environment, but that's equality and something the district should be doing anyway.
Opportunity is defined as a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. The district and the public can, in fact, only satisfy some of those circumstances. They can't change a child's home life, the responsibilities taken by a child's parents and the motivation the child does or does not receive from that home and those parents.
So, can there ever be a time when background, neighborhood and family circumstances have no effect on children reaching their full academic potential? We wish the answer were yes, but the answer is no.
In other words, no matter how much money we spend, no matter how we attempt to socioeconomically integrate the schools, no matter how much open enrollment we have, no matter how many studies we fund, no matter how many task forces we create, no matter how much "enhanced transportation" we use, we can't reach equity because it can't be measured or quantified.
Frankly, dropping the word "equity" would help, but it's today's buzzword and isn't going away.
Nevertheless, the work of giving every child the best education possible must go on.
A few short years ago in Hamilton County, few wanted to focus on public education. We had our share of success stories, improved graduation rates, consistently poor test grades at some schools, and millions of dollars flowing in from state and federal governments to help those schools.
A Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce report, though, troubled that educational slumber. It said the students our public schools were turning out could not be hired for all the good jobs the area had to offer. Suddenly, education became the cause celébré.
New Hamilton County Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson walked into that milieu last summer. A year later, in addition to his own out-of-the-box ideas for improvements, he's got community organizers, civic groups, task forces, the state, the NAACP, open letters and outside consultants telling him how to change things.
It's gotten to be a bit much - so much, in fact, that people are ascribing racist motives to the district's central office, accusing the Hamilton County Board of Education of intentionally poorly educating students, fearing a return to the failed forced busing of the 1970s, and expecting policies to be formulated that take from rich and give to the poor.
It's a shame, really, because for the first time in many years an innovative superintendent has begun to combine new and best practices with the advice of a truly diverse group of Chattanoogans - Chattanooga 2.0 - who had worked before his arrival to lay the groundwork for educational improvements for all students to combat the bleak job picture the Chamber of Commerce had seen.
We're afraid all the additional voices - all the noise - may still the momentum that had begun, quell the burgeoning possibilities for children, and start a new climb in the number of Hamilton County parents and students who look to private schools.
Nevertheless, while we wait for the day when each home and each parent make education a priority (an instance that actually can truly change public education), we maintain that improvement can be made. But it won't be if we spend all of our time and get lost attempting to fulfill the ethereal term of equity.