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September 25, 2007
Jordan Airs: District 10 candidate series
Ken Jordan and I met for coffee at a downtown Chattanooga roaster's on Saturday afternoon. He had some business in town (he currently lives in South Pittsburg), and I had a break from my few other things. It worked out.
We sat down and he gave me a detailed view of the life that he has led to this point. He told of working with the Small Business Association's Disaster Assistance unit, where field agents would follow FEMA (before it was a 4-letter word) to an affected area, set up a bare-bones mobile office, and get to work helping make loans. He cited it as an example of how government can be of true assistance. Many of us groan at the very idea, but he made it sound plausible enough.
Jordan later went into real estate, and a proposal to purchase and develop the area that now houses the Bessie Smith Hall led to his being hired to implement two major initiatives for the City of Chattanooga: the Community Education Alliance, which gave nine inner-city schools a boost in teacher quality and other needed attention; and the HOPE VI project in Alton Park that developed new housing to replace dilapidated units that sat on industrial contaminants.
We talked about teacher pay, and Ken Jordan agrees that area teacher salaries need to be increased, in order to attract, and keep, good teachers in the district; but he also reminded me that a large portion (I think he said 0.41) of every state dollar goes to education already, so merely increasing the overall education budget is not the answer. There must be inefficiencies somewhere that can be tightened up to make room, he concludes.
An issue that will be facing the next General Assembly session is how to best utilize the lottery fund surplus. I asked Ken what he thought about the various alternatives that have been discussed, or if there were new ideas yet unexplored. He favored the idea of lowering the test score threshold to qualify, which is something I have opposed on academic principle. He also mentioned that he would like to find ways to expand the scholarship program to include more adult (or returning, if you will) students. They, he said, are likely to work hard toward collegiate achievement, due to the stakes they realize it carries.
The conversation wound around again to the topic of efficiency, and how the lack thereof has us virtually shooting ourselves in the foot. A shared anecdote about the labyrinthine automated voice response system on the CoverKids hotline — ostensibly put in place to save on human call center salaries — illustrated one possible reason for low enrollment in the revamped system. The long-term result is higher costs for taxpayers when the healthcare system encounters the still-uninsured kids.
"I'll tell the truth, even if you don't like it." This quote stands out to me, as it echoes how I approach things. Jordan seems like a person who will cut through the BS and get the job done, whether as a legislator or as a businessman. The attitude now associated with "Generation X" (originally we were all considered "slackers" — Jordan, at 41, is on the leading edge of this generation) is a harbinger of a new era, one where petty differences are brushed aside, and where "identity politics" becomes a part of history.
State Senate Elections | By joe lance | 09:10 AM