Alabama’s schools as a whole are not good. By any metric you want to use, the state’s schools in totality are near the bottom of the barrel.
Yet, in spite of this, the once-dominant entity in modern Alabama politics, the Alabama Education Association (AEA), continues to demand that we maintain the status quo. Charter schools? No. Vouchers? No. School choice? No.
The only answer seems to be “more money.”
Any attempts to create opportunities for Alabama students is resisted, sometimes absurdly.
Enter the Alabama Accountability Act.
The Alabama Policy Institute describes the bill as follows:
“The Alabama Accountability Act creates education flexibility from certain state requirements for existing public schools, establishes a tax credit scholarship program, and institutes refundable tax credits for parents of students in failing K-12 public schools. The Accountability Act brings Alabama in line with 12 other states that provide educational tax credits and tax credit scholarships.”
Admittedly, the bill is far from perfect. It should have included options for all students with more tax credits.
This bill has been under constant assault by the AEA. Recently the AEA published a list of school systems that have “lost” money over the last few years.
WBRC reports the AEA is claiming that school systems have “lost” $140 million over the last five years.
That’s $28 million a year over five years.
For context, last year’s education budget was $6.63 billion.
That’s $140 million out of $30+ billion over five years.
This is the equivalent of a rounding error.
The idea that this funding is what is keeping Alabama schools from being top notch is not a serious criticism.
Especially if you consider the schools keep 20 percent of the revenue for the children zoned for those schools, even though they don’t attend.
To show how unserious this all is, the further problem with the Alabama Education Association’s complaints about the Alabama Accountability Act is that they don’t like that the bill identifies failing schools as “failing,” but the bill only identifies six percent of schools that way.
There are 67 schools labeled “failing” out of over 1,600 schools. The bottom 67 schools are the worst schools in the state whether you call them failing or otherwise.
There are problems with Alabama’s education system. Unfortunately, the AEA is not interested in fixing them.
@TheDaleJackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a conservative talk show from 7-11 am weekdays on WVNN
