CULLMAN —
Gov. Robert Bentley wasted little time in signing the state’s first tax credits for private school attendance into law after the Alabama Supreme Court granted permission.
The controversial measure was held up briefly by a Montgomery circuit judge after a challenge was filed by the Alabama Education Association. Even with the governor moving forward with the bill, a future legal challenge is inevitable.
The AEA, long a powerful force in the state’s political scene, is infuriated with the bill because it will allow parents to move their children to private schools, along with a tax credit, if the local public school is failing.
While there are legitimate questions about how this bill will eventually impact funding for the state’s most troubled public schools, the AEA’s main concern has nothing more at its core than employment for public school teachers. Any concern the organization expresses about the quality of education or education reform can be digested with a grain of salt.
The way in which this bill was passed can be argued from several viewpoints. Some observers think it was sneaky to slip in the tax credit at the last minute. Others are applauding the effort because it blatantly ignores the AEA’s traditional influence over the lawmaking process in Montgomery.
The positive points in this bill include allowing local school boards to reach higher education standards by having more flexibility in meeting the usual regulations from the state level, and that parents can finally have an option to get their children away from schools that continually fail to do a good job.
Crying out about the loss of money for public schools comes late in the game. Many well-intended efforts to bring reforms aimed at higher standards in education have been cast aside through the years because of the inflexibility and influence of the AEA.
While the bill that Gov. Bentley signed may have some flaws, it at least places some alternatives in the hands of tax-paying parents across the state.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Parents gain an option
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Taking the lead in education
The once-heralded ‘No Child Left Behind” education initiative from the federal level has just about run out of gas.
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Moving into the future
Hundreds of local high school seniors are accepting their diplomas and preparing to turn the page in the next chapter of their lives.
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Editorial: Seizure of AP phone records insult to independent press
This amounts to spying on an American news organization -- common practice in dictatorships but scary conduct in a democratic system that prizes the public value of an independent watchdog press.
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EDITORIAL: The IRS' Turn to Answer Questions
Washington is now sinking its teeth into a real scandal: the Internal Revenue Service using ideological criteria to choose the targets of its attention.
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Editorial: The house of death
The grisly details emerging from the murder trial of a Philadelphia abortion doctor place a glaring spotlight on a national disgrace.
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Editorial: Murder, insanity and guns
James Holmes, the accused movie theater shooter in Colorado, would like for the public to believe he killed a dozen people because he was insane.
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Lasting partnerships
Economic development officials have long noted the importance of expansions by existing industries and businesses in a community to lead growth.
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COMMENTARY: Why does young adult fiction keep giving its heroines makeovers?
Over at This Ain't Living, s.e. smith (who, full disclosure, has guest-blogged for me at ThinkProgress) has an excellent post about one of the most pernicious trends in young adult fiction.
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A spirit for moving forward
This weekend marked the two-year anniversary of a deadly day of tornadoes that streaked across Alabama, claiming lives and property and changing the landscape of many communities.
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Faith and bombs
The investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing is pointing to the all-too-familiar theme of religious faith playing a major role in violence.
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