It’s The Education, Stupid!

Memphis is a great place to live for many reasons.  But a new report out suggests that our population continues to stagnate.  Worse, people continue to leave, as Fox13 reports in this video (worth a watch if you click on the link).

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/video?clipId=9996548&autostart=true#axzz2xMcqlWTC

My two cents?  It’s the education, stupid!  Memphis is cheap.  It has a lot of opportunity. Its historical achievements and cultural attractions are second to none in the American South. But you will NEVER get people to move to a city with a reputation for poor schools.  They’ll see outcomes like “5 percent of students college ready” and run away screaming.  And if they already live here they’ll be leaving as fast as they can.  When your children’s future is on the line and its the choice between a city with a good public education system or a bad one, most people will take the former every time.

A strong public education system also has added spill-over benefits.  An improved education system directly impacts almost every other negative statistic often cited about Memphis, from crime to poverty to lack of jobs.  In this instance, I truly believe that education is our silver bullet to fixing everything that keeps them from moving here.

Here’s the worst thing: our kids know this as well and have internalized this message.  One of the saddest things I hear in my classroom is “I can’t wait to get out of Memphis.”  I always chide my students when I hear this for showing disrespect for their city, but in making this statement it shows me that they’ve internalized the message that Memphis isn’t a city where people should ought to be.  Forget about attracting new people, if we can’t fix our public education system, we risk losing the young talent growing within our city.  And this may be the saddest thing of all about this report.