The saying goes, what gets measured, gets improved.

There are a couple of options in the works to gauge the pulse of the community on issues that impact the livability and quality of life in the Pensacola metro area. Quality of life is an important component of the Studer Community Institute's Pensacola Metro Dashboard.

Those 16 metrics, crafted in collaboration with the University of West Florida, provide an at-a-glance look at the economic, educational and social well-being of the Pensacola area.

Since 2008, Pensacola Young Professionals have issued the results of their Quality of Life survey. The 2015 survey results will be revealed on Oct. 21.

Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc., located in Washington, D.C., conducts this survey on behalf of PYP, interviewing 800 Escambia County voters by telephone. Entrepreneurs Quint and Rishy Studer, who founded the Institute, fund the survey.

The cover of the Pensacola Young Professionals 2014 Quality of Life survey.

The in-depth phone interviews obtain residents’ views on the direction of the city and county; the job performance of the mayor, council, superintendent, and county commission; the economic conditions in the county; and the best and worst aspects of the community ranging from public schools to natural beauty to cultural diversity.

According to a news release from PYP, this year’s results demonstrate a positive trend in many areas, but with some persistent concerns in areas such as job prospects, retention of young talent and poverty rates.

A summary of the results—PYP’s 2015 Quality of Life Report—will be available online at PensacolaYP.com starting Oct. 21.

Through the end of November, UWF's Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development will be surveying City of Pensacola residents by telephone about city services. The city's survey will focus on public safety, infrastructure, sanitation and other core services, according to a news release.

Researchers will introduce themselves by saying, “Hello, my name is _____ and I’m from the Haas Center with the University of West Florida.....” The caller ID for these calls will read Haas Center or the phone number (850) 439-5401.

I for one am eager to see how the findings of these two surveys mesh together.

And I noted that the city survey says it will focus on core services. That is something that city officials have stressed is their gauge for how residents feel about the job they are doing.

When we began work on the Institute's dashboard, more than one elected official from more than one jurisdiction told me they had concerns about being somehow penalized in the public's eye for aspects of the community over which they lacked direct control.

I get that, I suppose. But I don't agree with it.

Children who aren't ready for kindergarten can struggle with letter recognition and sounds. Photo credit: Shannon Nickinson

I think the fact that about one-third of our 5-year-olds aren't ready for kindergarten — and about one-third of our high school students don't graduate — ought to make every one of us uncomfortable. Not just the Escambia School Board members or Superintendent Malcolm Thomas.

Because we all pay the price for those numbers — in an under-prepared workforce, in jobs and opportunities lost, in the crime rate, in  the rising social costs of the lack of a good education — and the perception of this community that those numbers present.

Our founder, Quint Studer, told the crowd at the Gulf Power Economic Symposium in Destin on Oct. 13 that change only occurs when people are unsettled and uncomfortable, when they feel, as author John Kotter describes it, a sense of urgency to change.

Pensacola’s sense of urgency to change ought to be clear: Losing young professionals, countering poverty’s impact on the education system, and creating more jobs with better wages to raise the standard of living in our community.

That's what the Institute is all about.

So here is your chance, Pensacola.

If you get the call from the Haas Center, take the time to answer it. Or, you can always give your feedback the old fashioned way — by email, by phone call, write a letter if the spirit moves you. Use the 311 system from your mobile phone.

If there are things about the city that bug you, tell them. And if there are things that you think city officials, staff or employees do well, speak up about that, too.

At least that way, no one can say you didn't have your say.