Chattanooga 2.0: Overcoming Generational Poverty Through Work with Students
Chattanooga 2.0: Overcoming Generational Poverty Through Work with Students
The Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce is taking generational poverty head on through workforce development. However, while many other communities target the current workforce, Chattanooga is focused on talent development at the K-12 level, preparing students to join the workforce and ensuring they have every opportunity to thrive.
The initiative is Chattanooga 2.0. Chattanooga 1.0 is recognized as the revitalization of the city’s downtown area, a “renaissance”.
“That was very much focused on place, and the work around Chattanooga 2.0 is much more focused on people,” said Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Charles Wood.
The Chattanooga Chamber is focusing on what they call priority schools.
“Most of our schools that have the biggest challenges, the hardest uphill climb for students, are in those low-income neighborhoods,” Wood said. “So, for us, if you really want to drive economic mobility for folks in the community, you have to do it through the education system and in collaboration with it.”
The Chattanooga Chamber is doing this through four programs: Early Childhood Support, Literacy, Viable Pathways, and the Chattanooga Future Fund. The Early Childhood Support program works to support childcare centers, presenting opportunities for tuition for childcare workers, providing grants to childcare providers to improve their quality, and helping to ensure childcare providers are skilled and capable.
Chattanooga is also focused on improving literacy in their school system. Thirteen AmeriCorps members have been placed in four different elementary schools that serve as tutors in literacy. Chamber members and staff also go out and deliver books to priority schools and have delivered books to 192 students.
“We have 750 kindergarten-1st grade students at 14 schools this year who will benefit from our literacy tutoring program,” Wood said.
The Chattanooga Future Fund helps give students an economic boost for their future. The program launches free college savings accounts for every kindergartener, 6th, 7th, and 8th grader in Chattanooga public schools. Each student receives a $100 donation into their college and career savings account. After participating in a financial literacy program, students receive an additional $25, and signing up for further education gives them another $25. Families who make less than a $70,000 household income can qualify for a state investment as well.
“Students that even have $300 to $500 worth of savings in an account like that, they’re four times more likely to go to postsecondary and they’re three times more likely to graduate,” said Wood. “So, it’s very much a long-term economic mobility play.”
The Chattanooga Chamber has raised a little more than $5 million toward this future fund and more than 3,800 accounts have been activated for students. The Chamber has a goal of hitting 5,000 accounts by the end of the year.
Possibly the best program for older students is the Viable Pathways program. This program identifies specific career pathways and has employers engaged in that work to give students a pathway to a job with a good income. They have career pathways currently in place for line workers, welding, and dental assistants, and five programs in process for teaching, cyber security, data analysis, electrical, and plumbing.
This program has been very successful. For example, the lineman pathway has 100% placement and one of the first cohorts recently bought his first house. The welding program has produced 34 graduates.
“The goal is really that folks are finishing those programs within a few months, so they’re relatively short term, and then they have a pretty clear path to a $50,000 a year or higher salary in a short period of time,” Wood said.
With success in several programs geared toward developing K-12 students, it’s clear Chattanooga’s approach to overcoming generational poverty is making a real impact and employers are getting new hires who are prepared to succeed at the work.