For the past several months I've been working with concerned folks from the
Tennessee Education Association, Superintendent's Study Council, SBE, THEC,
SREB, Tennessee Tomorrow, Incorporated and the Tennessee Association of
Colleges for Teacher Education whom I serve as Executive Secretary to
inform  constituents about Tennessee's ongoing budget crisis.  After
attending meetings of various legislative committees in Nashville and with
other groups throughout the State, it is clear that many people are not
only failing to respond to the crisis by expressing their concerns to their
legislators, they don't even have a clear grasp of the facts concerning the
situation in which K-12 and higher education find themselves.

Consequently, I've worked with members of the above groups to develop a
factsheet highlighting the problems and painting a very objective and
dismal picture of education in this State, especially compared to other
SREB states.  The information is now available on the TACTE website. Please
note below, that the website contains instructions about writing
legislators and additional information.

You can find the website at www.utc.edu/~tacte.  Examine the section
(bottom middle) that contains the factsheet and several other items located
under "Tennessee Education Crisis".

You can use any browser to get to the website.  Just search for TACTE.
Obviously, ignore Texas ACTE.  If you use Yahoo it may take you to an
officers html.  Under it you can highlight "more results from www.utc.edu"
and this will get you the mainpage.  Netscape and the rest should take you
directly to the mainpage though you might have to go to "webpage matches."

The item on the Tennessee Education Crisis section contains the factsheet.
You'll also find a procedure for writing legislators, a list of the 102nd
General Assembly and a very disturbing powerpoint presentation given a
short time ago by the Comptroller at the Superintendent's Study Council
Conference in Gatlinburg.

I have posted this material and distributed it to TACTE, TEA, the
Superintendent's Study council and many UTC students and K-12 faculty
members in the hope that they will use it.  It is obvious that we have a
major problem in the State and it has been equally obvious that our elected
officials are not getting the word from concerned citizens that the current
budget for education is a travesty and past budgets have been equally
pathetic.

At the risk of getting into a major debate about what bandaid we can apply
here, how we can fix TennCare, whether we should build fewer prisons and
roads or whatever, I'd simply ask that you read the factsheet, check out
the weblinks for more information and get actively involved.

It seems to me that all of UTC's faculty and students have a story to tell
about how this is affecting them.   Although no information seems to be
readily available comparing UTC and other SREB institutions, it should be
clearly evident to all of us that students in this state are not being
provided with appropriate educational opportunities compared to our
neighbors.  I need not reiterate the plight in which K-12 teachers and
higher education faculty find themselves.

I hope that you will write your legislators and I also hope that you will
make this information available to your students and request that they
become active in this issue as well.  All of us who participated in
assembling the data on the website have tried to make it as accurate as
possible.  Certainly, the overwhelming message in the statistics is that
education in Tennessee is in deep, deep trouble.

Argue among yourselves about what to do if you want.  Send nasty e-mails
back and forth and call each other names.  Cause trouble at dinners,
parties and with the person exercising next to you.  The public doesn't
know the facts.  You should.  Talk to economists about tax reform.  Call up
our political science department about writing letters and e-mails if you
want, but at least try to exert some politcal influence. Do something
novel.  Don't act like some politicians and just blame folks.  Consider
solutions.  Seems like they'll have to be pretty comprehensive.

For what it's worth.

DB