Someone who works with Arizona’s state legislature provided an update on information related to education. As part of my effort to understand his point of view, I asked him, in not so many words, if Arizona deserves its reputation of not valuing education as much as it should.
Someone else listening mentioned a dismal Arizona ranking related to education. Yet another person joined the conversation, saying Arizonans should not speak negatively about their own state, providing outsiders material for criticism.
Keeping quiet is not a good public relations strategy. First, if you have a concern about Arizona’s education system, speak up and try to participate in a solution. Keeping quiet in an effort to prevent critics from gaining more fodder solves nothing. Second, not mentioning a dismal ranking does not prevent outsiders who might invest in this state from hearing such statistics. The national conversation about Arizona will not magically transform into something positive simply because the leaders in the state pretend those criticisms and conversations do not exist.
From a public relations perspective, Arizona has three choices: Educate the outside world and explain why the national dialogue criticizing the state is misleading or exaggerated. Or acknowledge the national conversation is accurate and work hard as heck to improve the state’s issues. Or pick an option somewhere in the middle. But not speaking of those issues, whether they’re fair or not, is not a solid strategy and is simply a form of spin.
Our perspective is highlight the positives the nation may not know while acknowledging we are working to improve our deficiencies. But staying silent or telling the rest of the world to screw itself is not a strategy to encourage outside business to invest in the Grand Canyon State.
