Deanna Chappell (chapcon@cddn.com) from obn1-33.ecsis.net at 09/24/00 06:15PM
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    Hopefully, education will change in the next one hundred years. More monies will be appropriated for both K-12 education and higher education. Teachers will be better paid, better prepared, and have adequate supplies and mateerials. Class size will be reduced. Computer access at school will be available for every student. The failure and dropout rate will be reduced. Teachers will be specially trained to teach students with learning disabilities. The disability itself will be administered to rather that just adjusting the teaching for the student. As a teacher in her 28th year of teaching, we are being faced with a major turnover in teachers. Our profession must have the salaries, the facilities, and the morale to attract top notch people. I am in a teaching situation where a nearby classroom has had three different teachers in the same position in the last ten months. One of the teachers went to Goodyear, one moved to Nashville, and the third is moving to New York City. I fear we are getting ready to face one of the largest teacher shortages this area has ever faced. A law by the Tennessee legislature has passed allowing retired teachers to return to the classroom and still draw their retirement. A recent cartoon in local papers showed two distressed individuals. One was talking about the 48th or 49th ranking of Tennessee in education. The other said, "Whew!, for a minute I thought you were taking about the Vols." Also, UT-Martin will prosper under leadership sensitive to the needs of the community and its faculty and staff. I definitely feel that in the year 2100 we will still be referred to as the South. At least I know we will be "The South" in Obion County in Northwest Tennessee.