The issues and plans

Our blog is going to compile some of the issues that Buck Dozier has commented on.


Calls On The August 2007 Local Elections To Be A Referendum On Education

Nashville Mayoral candidate Buck Dozier today announced a comprehensive education agenda focused on making Nashville “The Athens Of Education In America.” Dozier called on other candidates running for office to join him in an open, public dialogue to
make education “a central issue” in the August 2007 elections.

“More than any other local issue we face, the education of our children has the broadest impact on families, on neighborhoods, on public safety, on our economy and on our future,” said Dozier. “That’s why I intend to use my political capital and campaign bully pulpit over the next nine months to turn this local election into what should be a referendum on education. I would encourage all candidates on the ballot to commit to
engaging in a public dialogue on ways to improve our system.”

Dozier said all candidates running next year will declare that they are “pro-education.”

He added that “what will distinguish one from the other will be what each candidate really means when they say they are pro-education.”

“I want this campaign cycle to be remembered not for clever slogans or slick TV ads, but as the moment when we as a community – and we as candidates for public office –

agreed to begin a real dialogue on education, with no sacred cows and no ideas too smallor too big to consider,” Dozier said.

Dozier said that Nashville in the 1800s was dubbed the Athens of the South because “we were home to progressive thinkers, home to numerous institutions of higher learning, and because, like ancient Greece, thinking and learning were held in high regard.”

“I advocate bringing the Athens theme back and focusing it on education,” Dozier said.

“We have the resources and we have the great thinkers. It’s time.”
Dozier said his education agenda for Nashville – designed to help Metro reach the goal of being “The Athens Of Education In America” – includes:

• More of an education activist’s role for the Mayor and the Mayor’s Office;

• Incorporating best practices throughout our education system;

• Creating more learning environment options for children;

• Ensuring safer learning environments for students and children;

• Forging stronger, more defined partnerships among resources in our community to support public education;

• Encouraging more outside-the-box thinking when it comes to instructional activities in learning environments;

• Working to secure a fairer share of federal and state funds to support public education locally; and

• Issuing an unprecedented challenge to all citizens.

http://buckdozier.blogspot.com

“The unprecedented challenge to all citizens,” Dozier explained, “is for all of us to work toward raising a $1 billion endowment over the next 10 years to support the introduction of innovative instructional activities in our public schools.” Dozier said a $1 billion endowment will generate an estimated $75 million each year in perpetuity for education, without ever touching the principal balance of the endowment.

“If we all agree that Nashville should be ‘The Athens Of Education In America,’ then each of us will have to think big and think outside the box on multiple fronts,” Dozier said.

Dozier said his proposed agenda “is an effort to take bold steps to bring other resources to the table, to seek out best practices wherever they are, and to look beyond our own inner circle for new ideas and a new way of teaching our children.”

To read Dozier’s full address on education, go to his campaign Web site at

www.dozierformayor.com.