Happy Thanksgiving Break one and all but,

If you get bored and want to do something very constructive you might want
to check out the Issues Guide for Writing Legislators that has been
recently posted on the TACTE website.  To get to it either use your browser
to find TACTE (Tennessee Association of Colleges for Teacher Education) or
go directly to www.utc.edu/~tacte.
The Issues Guide is located in the middle column, bottom with several other
documents that pertain to the funding crisis we are having in Tennessee.
It addresses different perspectives that students, faculty and
administrators could use to write their legislators and provides references
to supporting data.

I don't know what we can do to convince faculty and students that without
their participation to encourage our legislators to show some leadership we
will never have an educational system of which we are proud.  Perhaps these
facts that are not on the website will concern you..

In 1996-97 there were 92,877 ninth graders in Tennessee
There were 72,677 tenth graders that year.
There were 55,398 entering twelfth graders of whom...
approximately 44,000 graduated.

Of that group 25,112 began colleges and if trends continue, about 10,000
will graduate.
(This is not a chort but the figures for the past few years have not changed)

How does this impact us?

17.7% of Tennessee's citizens hold a B.S. degree compared to 25.2% nationwide.

To reach the national average we'd have to graduate 204,000 students this
year.  The legislature is talking about enrollment cuts.

A person with a high school diploma can expect to ear about $24,000 per
year.  A B.S. is worth about $40,000 per year.  Now, if we'd been really
working on improving education in Tennessee, do you suppose we'd be able to
collect a bit more state revenue if 204,000 people average $16,000 a year
more?

OK, you say, not an intelligent arguement.  What about the loss of almost
48,000 students from ninth grade to graduation.  Is this acceptable to you?
 Did you know that in September of this year there were 3512 ninth graders
in Hamilton County schools and 2083 seniors.  Sure, some of the ninth
graders are repeaters but do these figures sound acceptable to you?  How
can you not get involved?

Do you suppose that actually helping teachers to become better and to
remain in our systems would be a good idea?  Perhaps a state funded
mentoring program would help (it's been mandated since 1988 and never
funded)or maybe we should spend some money on a state funded reading
program to help kids early on since we are the only state in the southeast
that doesn't have one or maybe we could provide acceptable funding for
early childhood programs or maybe we could pay teachers AND professors at a
rate better than 87% of the national average. Concerned about the quality
of students in our classes.  Perhaps providing them with a better education
before they get here would be a good idea.

Do you really think we can accomplish any of this when we are 50th in the
nation in per capita funding for education and 49th in the nation in total
tax revenues collected per capita (we are, by the way, 33rd in per capita
income)?

Why don't you write a letter over Thanksgiving Break to your local state
legislator(s) with a request for leadership to dea with these issues.

Want to talk to them directly?  Look for details about a forum to be held
in the Tennessee Room on November 28 around noon.

This university and children, statewide and in Hamilton County, are being
hurt.  It is past time we got off our duffs and got active about this.

DB