Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday provided the one-year progress report on her signature education initiative – Strong Start, Strong Finish (SSSF) – as the Democratic nominee for governor, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox continued to speak to thin air.
This comes after Ivey recently launched her first television ad ahead of the November 6 general election, featuring SSSF and seeking to highlight her success in preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow.
This education initiative was designed to integrate the state’s early childhood education, K-12 education and workforce development efforts into a seamless educational pathway.
Why make education the first issue of the general election? As first reported by Yellowhammer News, a 2018 report by the Alabama Department of Education shows that Gov. Ivey’s Democratic opponent, Mayor Maddox, may have an “education problem.”
Released in January, Alabama’s annual list of failing schools showed that two-thirds of the City of Tuscaloosa’s public high schools are failing. Maddox has governed the city since 2005.
Before being elected mayor, he worked for the Alabama Education Association from 1996-2001 and served a term on Tuscaloosa’s City Council.
In stark contrast, Ivey has spearheaded SSSF and put education policy at the center of her campaign, along with touting her success in bringing more good-paying jobs to the state. The trademark initiative is composed of three major strategies: “Pre through Three,” “Computer Science for Alabama (CS4AL)” and “Advanced Training, Better Jobs.”
“Pre through Three” aims to ensure the Alabama First Class Pre-K program is available to all families across the state and that every single one of Alabama’s third graders are proficient readers by 2022. “CS4AL” will ensure that a computer science course is offered at every Alabama middle and high school by that same year. Third, “Advanced Training, Better Jobs” will prepare a whopping 500,000 more Alabamians to enter the workforce with high-quality postsecondary degrees, certificates or credentials by 2025.
Over the past year, Governor Ivey has secured progress toward each of the SSSF goals in major ways, including:
— Investment in Alabama’s nationally recognized First Class Pre-K program received its largest single-year increase ever.
— Establishment of the Alabama Summer Achievement Program (ASAP), starting with the testing of a pilot program.
— Empanelment of an Executive Team to establish 11 regional councils that will recruit a host of local campaigns for grade-level reading.
— Creation of the Governor’s Advisory Council for Computer Science Education.
Increase in the number of schools offering a high-quality computer science course by 103 percent in one year.— Approval of official computer science standards – the Alabama Digital Literacy and Computer Science Course of Study and Standards. The state is now one of only eleven nationwide to have such standards.
— Formation of the revolutionary Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering, which will be a hub for computer science professional development in Alabama when it opens in 2020.
— Progress in the efficiency of the state’s workforce development programs to meet growing economic demands and to incentivize more private-sector partners to offer apprenticeships.
“Governor Ivey is happy with the progress thus far but plans to further work toward these goals and continue to strive for improvement in Alabama’s education system,” the governor’s office said in a statement released with the report.
Alabama was recently ranked as having the best business climate in the nation by the economic development-focused publication Business Facilities in a new analysis that examined performance in several key economic categories. The publication also gave the state high marks for growth potential (fourth in the nation) and workforce training (second in the nation).
Education, job training and economic development are all intertwined. Ivey has branded herself using job growth first and foremost, with her campaign’s tagline of “Alabama is working again” fresh on people’s minds. Now, she is building on this success, ingraining that not only is she “The Jobs Governor,” but “The Education Governor,” too.
As for Maddox? Well, he has gone from posting videos of himself jogging to his latest two ads, which at best are imitations of Jim Zeigler’s fake interview of then-Governor Robert Bentley and at worst direct descendants of Clint Eastwood’s infamous conversation with an empty chair at the 2012 Republican National Convention.
Time called it “one of the most baffling and iconic moments of the 2012 election.” In fact, when asked what moment Eastwood most regretted over the course of his long life, he pointed to that humiliation in the run-up to Mitt Romney losing against incumbent President Barack Obama.
Now, the Democratic nominee for governor in Alabama is heading for the same fate.
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
