Innovation in Governance, Education Style

During my return trip from the IBC tradeshow in Amsterdam, I sat next to a fellow attendee who also happens to be from the Tri-Cities of Tennessee and Virginia. He brought me up to speed on several pieces of news, since I had been in Europe for over two weeks with limited connectivity.

One of the most interesting was the news that Kingsport, TN, has been honored by Harvard's Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation for educational innovation.

While DevelopedEconomy.com is not a Kingsport blog (Jeff Fleming's widely read Kingsport! blog sweeps that category), writing about national achievements my "adopted hometown" receives fits nicely within DevelopedEconomy.com's overall mission of educating readers on the basics of innovative economic development. Or at least that's my excuse to broadcast this news.

Each year, the Ash Institute, part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, honors winners in six categories of governance, including the education category that Kingsport was nominated for - and ultimately won.

Here's a brief excerpt from the award press release, dated 15 September 2009:

"Formerly a rustbelt city with an overreliance on heavy manufacturing, Kingsport’s growing aging population, shrinking younger workforce, and dropping education levels of area residents threatened to further depress the region’s standard of living."


"In order to reverse this impending economic crisis, Kingsport launched a successful ‘Educate and Grow’ campaign to attract new business investment to the region by upgrading the quality of its workforce. Started in 2001, the program is one of six government initiatives honored at yesterday’s awards reception in Washington, D.C. and will receive a grant towards sharing its innovation with other jurisdictions around the country."

Kingsport's most innovative concepts came out of an economic development summit, hosted in 1999 by the City's forward-thinking Mayor, Jeanette Blazier. Attendees included the city manager, the city's aldermen, and key economic development entities. One of the key tenants of that summit was an innovative educational scholarship which allows "any Kingsport high school graduate is eligible for a four-semester scholarship at the city’s Northeast State Technical Community College. Such funding allows students to earn a two-year associate’s degree or transfer credits towards a four-year bachelor’s degree."

The current mayor and aldermen are reaping the rewards of this decade-old "sowing" of broad innovations on not just the scholarship concept, but also the revitalization of downtown, which was first planned in 1999. The current administration is implementing the original Educate and Grow vision, and re-emphasizing Kingsport's commitment to a downtown growth through the "academic village" concept that the Ash Institute also noted in awarding the education category to Kingsport.

Publicity and national recognition is the primary capital for this type of award, although each of the six winners receive grant money to share their innovations with other municipalities.

As part of the awards ceremony, a video was shown. The 2009 Visionaries video has yet to be uploaded to the Ash Institute's YouTube channel, but the fact that the Ash Institute has a YouTube channel - and used streaming video during the presentations by Kingsport and others - is worth noting as a beneficial use of technology in economic development.