Something I’ve thought about long and hard is what will it take to get to the “tipping point” concerning public education in Alabama. You know, a moment like when Howard Beale in the movie Network screams at the top of his lungs, “I’m mad as Hell and I ain’t gonna take it any more.”
Are we there?
Consider what has been forced down the throat of educators since 2013.
The Alabama Accountability Act that was crafted in secret so that education professionals knew nothing about it. A bill that was more about corporate tax breaks than helping students and schools. A bill that was sold under the false premise of being “all about helping poor kids stuck in failing schools by their zip codes.”
A bill we came back to in the last regular session to redefine its intent. A bill that will now divert up to $30 million annually from the Education Trust Fund. A bill that now says a student in a private school is worth up to $10,000 a year while we give a public school just over half that amount to educate a student. A bill that sent $4 million in 2014 to students already attending private schools. A bill that may helps less than one percent of all our 733,000 students in the state.
A charter school bill that says teachers don’t have to be certified to be in a classroom. A bill that creates more education bureaucracy and sets up a politically-appointed commission with the power to over ride local school boards. A bill that will absolutely hurt local public school systems financially if they have a charter school. You don’t divide a pie into more pieces without each piece becoming smaller.
The governor’s recent appointment of someone to be one of eight State Board of Education members whose only qualification is some folks saying, “He’s a nice guy.” His supporters never mention his demonstrated commitment to public schools because he has none. His supporters never mention that he headed an effort to defeat a tax vote in Baldwin County last March and that the effort he spearheaded constantly spread misinformation and ridiculed the county school board.
It would have made about as much sense for the governor to tell the University of Alabama mascot “Big Al” to replace the Auburn mascot “Aubie” for the upcoming football season.
Now we are on the brink of approving legislation in the current special session to take upwards of $250 million from the Education Trust Fund to prop up the General Fund for the simple reason that leadership has refused to face up to a pending train wreck in the General Fund budget.
The general fund committee voted 8-6 this afternoon to move this hit on ETF to the full Senate. A full blown firestorm erupted as educators and concerned citizens reacted.
Which brings us to this moment and this question, are the supporters of public education in Alabama ready to take back our schools? Are we sick and tired of the legislature passing bills sent to them by some lobbying group in Washington? Are we tired of lobbyists representing a group in California telling our House and Senate members how to vote? Are we tired of millionaires in Arkansas, Michigan and California spending money to tell us who to elect to the legislature?
A constant compliant about this group of legislators in Montgomery now is that they will not listen–at least not to those groups who work so hard at getting through to them on behalf of our 733,000 public school students.
But I think I do know who they will listen to. MOTHERS. Mamas are not happy when you mess with the babies. And rightly so. When they think you are taking money that should be helping their child get a better education and sending it somewhere else, they are not pleased at all.
Because of this, I believe if we could find just one mother for each school in Alabama, give them good and well-researched information and ask them to sit down with their legislator, the one they vote for, we would get some attention.
I am ready to do all I can. I will write a check, do research, pound away on my keyboard, whatever.
If you are willing to stand up and be counted, whether you are a mother of children now in school or not, let me know. larrylee133@gmail.com
This is the best idea that I have heard Larry. Parents are the ones who can and will be heard. I do not even think they have to read and study the research. They just have to stand up and say that they have had enough. You have made the best points possible here. The way to get the parents active is through the teachers who have or are teaching their children. This is the starting point. Parent teacher night occurred last night in many Alabama schools. Everyone at these meetings should have been given an information sheet. I will bet that no one even thought about it. As teachers, we focus on the children in our classrooms and how we will care and teach them. We rarely think about ourselves. Is it too late?
I am “screaming” at the top of my lungs! I have written emails, made personal contacts, and post on social network about these very points…please, please keep “screaming” with and for me and my children!
Absolutely teachers need to have “had enough” as well! I haven’t been able to get teachers to become active in this fight. They are afraid of retribution and feel powerless. I am a teacher and I have had enough! #joinme #actnow #ALteachersunite
I am a teacher and I have had enough! It hasn’t been about education in the state of Alabama for a long time; it has been about politics. I don’t have children in the classroom anymore, but I do have grandchildren and nieces and nephews who are in the classroom. I am a teacher in an elementary school and I see how decisions made by politicians affects our kids and my co-workers. We feel defeated before we even get started. We need change and we need it fast.
I get a lot of feedback from retired educators who are very concerned about they see going on. It dawned on me that here are folks who spent the best years of their life working in schools, and now all they and hear is what a terrible job they must have done and see their life’s work being trashed by people who are more interested in political action committee dollars than they are in our school children. The only way you combat such is by raising our voices and saying “enough is enough.” 100 years ago the Bourbon Democrats told my sharecropper grandfather in Covington County that he had to pay a poll tax to vote because he was a 2nd class citizen. That same attitude is alive and well in Montgomery these days.
Honestly, I really do believe the situation is hopeless. Yesterday, the most aggressively pro-education candidate for Mississippi governor lost in the /primary/ to some ignorant dumbass who literally didn’t campaign at all (I’m talking ZERO expenditures since he and apparently just thought it would be funny to have his name on the ballot for Governor. In this state, a Republican who ran on flat-out abolishing public education in favor of letting Vacation Bible Schools teach everyone to read and write would probably win over even the most qualified Democrat, and it’s all because Mississippi (and Alabama and the rest of the South) is dominated by people who divide the world into two types of people: Republicans and Islamofascist Commies who want to abort everybody’s guns.
I’m with you Larry. Tell me how to help. Retired almost 20 years. Distraught at what is happening. My Senator, Cam Ward, basically lied to me and then voted diversion bill out of committee. Remember march on Capitol many years ago. It is time again.
I am a former teacher who decided to stay home once I had kids a few years ago. We will probably homeschool because of many of the issues you pointed out (and a few others). I know about 10 other young, former teachers in my area who are planning to also homeschool. We are blessed to have that option, but I know not everyone is able or willing to stay at home. I pray everyone can help fix this mess.
Great point. Thanks for sharing. As you know better than most and point out, many do not have this option for many and various reasons. I visit many schools, almost all high poverty (which are easy to find in Alabama) and it is a world many cannot relate to. The best law that could be passed here is to require that all 140 members of the legislature spend one day a year as a classroom aide in a high poverty classroom. I’ve done that. It changes your perspective.
Larry,
Have you read the Sunday (8/2/15) NEWS Opinion piece by Cameron Smith on Page 13? Since I believe he is a very conservative writer, I believe Smith aimed to discredit the SETF by identifying some questionable “earmarks” found in it. There is a list of 15 SETF expenditures that he pointed out.
What he may have illustrated though is that the Alabama State Legislature has raided the SETF, not by stealing its funds by robbery, but instead used the method of an embezzler by putting General Fund responsibilities INSIDE the SETF in violation of at least the spirit of the SETF Laws.
The majority of these cited programs total out to almost $100 million SETF dollars with NONE going to ANY public educational uses (the first of these is “Department of Commerce for $53,524,479” and it goes on from there to the Motorsports Hall of Fame for $150,000). You may want to comment on these expenditures yourself. BTW, Not on the list is the $1 million from the SETF to UAB to investigate the medical uses of “Marijuana oil” under the Carly’s Law recently passed. Note his reason for listing the funds for APT Commission ($6,204,750).
Yours,
Carl Dimick
2280 Rabbit Branch Rd
Cropwell, AL 35054
205-884-0043