Media Musings: State becoming almost Third World
Holiday wish lists and New Year’s resolutions are filling the air and I’ve reduced mine to just one in the world of Tennessee politics and the press: Speak the unspeakable truth about this beautiful state’s economic slide to the point it’s a Third World state.
This wish will not be granted and before you say you are reading a column from the village Grinch, you really aren’t. And if it sounds like the worst of all moments to write such a harsh statement, it’s not done with any flamboyance.
For three years, I’ve privately discussed my opinion with a wide range of opinion makers and intellectuals I respect and while they caution such a claim may be an over-reaching of the facts, they have come to the point they respect the opinion as a summary statement of how much the state has lost in momentum and economic vitality.
While Gov. Don Sundquist may claim all sorts of progress has been made, other statistics show the state losing 55,000 manufacturing jobs and job creation is only to be found in the low-paying service sector. That’s just one statistic, of course, but it was cited to me recently by one of the brightest minds in public life who told me, to my amazement, he believed the state was becoming a Third World economy.
The cold truth is we don’t have the educational infrastructure to build a new economy based on information. Tennessee primary and secondary education is ragged, producing highly prepared and under-prepared students for universities. Most of the highly motivated students chose colleges and universities outside of the state and they don’t come home.
I don’t think much of test scores, either. I think the poor teachers have no freedom left and they have to teach to the test. And it’s one of the nasty little secrets of higher education that the best and brightest students don’t often select teaching as a career field. If they do, they leave the classroom in less than 10 years, burned out by parental abuse, fear for their own safety, heavy-handed administrations, politics and uncompetitive salaries.
The universities are under-funded so much that tuition increases will not stop and even with those new dollars, they have never been funded at the level to become real engines of the new economy. They have never been funded at the level of a real university and struggle with heavy teaching loads and low salaries.
Education is one of the keys needed to unlock the doors of the new economy, which has passed the state by. Even when a city such as Nashville, which is a fine city, struggles and recruits companies like Sprint and Nortel, it sees them wither under the weight of a weakened economy.
It’s hard to understand how to revitalize our economy without new funding for our entire educational system. Ah, but the money isn’t there. What new money is there has already been spent by the courts constantly ordering the state to follow the rules established by the federal government in health care or demanding equitable pay for all teachers. So, there we are, betrayed by a legislature that won’t consider tax reform because it’s run by lobbyists and scared by right-wing radio and horn honkers.
Gov.-elect Phil Bredesen isn’t superman. Gifted, yes. But even he may not be able to find the money needed to ignite an economic renaissance for us. If he started by stating some of our cold realities, it might alert us to our troubled condition. But such a truth may not be spoken by politicians, chambers of commerce, or even leaders of education because it may be seen as crushing our dreams and hopes.
Perhaps so. But stark cold opinion sometimes brings about a cleansing, a break with the media images and spun facts, in order to truly build a bright tomorrow for a state I have grown to love.
(Ed Kimbrell is a professor in MTSU’s School of Journalism.)