The Truth about the ALGOP School Flex Bill and nothing but the truth

National Center for Children in Poverty

 
Let's get one thing straight about the so called School Flex Bill the ALGOP rammed down the throats of Alabamians once and for all...THE ALGOP DID NOT PASS THIS BILL BECAUSE IT GIVES POOR CHILDREN A CHANCE TO LEAVE FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOLS.  You got that?

The ALGOP could care less about poor children having access to a quality public education.  If poor parents think republicans are going to allow poor children from failing schools to transfer into non failing schools, after all they've done to keep their failing donkey's OUT of them....I have a bridge in Selma for sell.

The purpose of this bill is to bankrupt the government school system by giving those who choose to send their students to private schools a tax credit.

I wonder if John Archibald is reading my blog?

"Entitlement" Education comes to Sweet Home Alabama

 

Again, I have to hand it to Alabama republicans, they are a....cunning bunch with steel gonads.  The red, republican, dominated State Legislature, enabled by the media,  created a weapon of mass distraction introducing a so-called School Flexibility Bill, that was supposed to let school district seek waivers from some policies.

 The House and Senate education committees will take up today a fight over who will control the state's K-12 curriculum and whether Alabama should continue using national curriculum standards known as the common core.

So while the public debate was focused on Common Core, the red republican dominated Alabama legislators were scheming in the back room... then BAM!  Here come Shock and Awe!

MONTGOMERY, Alabama --Republicans in the Alabama Legislature added a sweeping income tax credit and school choice plan to a school flexibility bill in conference committee today.
The surprise move caused a shouting match in the Senate and accusations by Democrats that Republicans were not dealing in good faith on a bill that had been debated for weeks.

In order to....justify this surprise attack on public education Alabama republicans, bless their hearts, claim this bill will provide a viable alternative to families with children stuck in underperforming schools.  Yeah right.

So instead of finding out why the public schools are failing students and taxpayers (funding), and maybe correcting the problem (equity funding), the solution for the Alabama GOP is to abandon them, and take our tax dollars with them.

Families with students in a failing school could receive state income tax credits to offset the cost of transferring to a private or non-failing public school. The credit would be equal to 80 percent of the average annual state cost of attendance for a public K-12 student.

If the red, republican dominated legislators think there are enough private, or non-failing public schools in this state to accommodate all the students who would, if they could transfer, I have a bridge in Selma to sell them.  But that's the point, they know there aren't enough schools to accommodate all students, so they are making it easier for the entitled few to have access to a quality education at the expense of the entitlement crowd.

 There is a common belief among conservatives that welfare programs by their very nature lead to the kind of so-called breakdown of democracy that Scalia finds objectionable in the Voting Rights Act case. Indeed, the most famous articulation of this view was Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark: “those that are dependent on government and those that think government’s job is to redistribute — I’m not going to get them.” In essence, Romney warned that as the government creates welfare programs, this transforms welfare recipients into a constituency for those programs. And eventually that constituency becomes so large that it is impossible for a lawmaker to repeal those programs, or for people who oppose those programs to get elected.

Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama, where the republican dominated state legislature cares more about what students read instead of if they can read.

YeeHaw!

Remember this mantra, "Charter Schools are backdoor privatization of education".

 

NAACP: The United States Values Prisons More Than Schools  Excessive spending on incarceration undermines educational opportunities and destabilizes Black communities nationwide, according to NAACP President and CEO Benjamin T. Jealous.
State spending on prisons grew at six times the rate of state spending on higher education over the last two decades.

Representatives Laura Hall (D) and Phil Williams ( r.) sponsored a community discussion on charter schools because state lawmakers plan to talk about charter schools during the next legislative session.

Organizers

wanted those at the meeting to know charter schools provide flexibility and accountability. They believe both are needed to help get Alabama's education system out of 49th place nationwide.a community discussion

Charter Schools won't get Alabama's education system out of 49th place, nor are they flexible and accountable.

Charter schools have been in the news a lot lately due to a lawsuit filed by the United Federation of Teacher’s Union and the NAACP against the New York City Department of Education. The lawsuit was filed to help prevent the city from closing public schools and replacing them with charter schools.

While these charter schools have great potential, they can also be harmful. Most charter schools use a lottery system; so thinking that charter schools can stop the education crisis is like solving the economic crisis with scratch tickets. While a few lucky students may benefit from the lottery system, most children will not benefit at all.

One of the reasons the right wing is so supportive of charter schools is that they do not require teachers to be in their powerful union. The UFT is a big supporter of the Democratic party and opposes Republicans who are always trying to cut education budgets, especially in urban areas.

LiA blogger bluebearcat says Let's call charter schools in Alabama by their true name

Scab schools. What is their real purpose? To create an environment where "problem children" and teachers' unions are out of the picture. It is pits family against family inside communities and is de facto education privatization.

We do need substantial education reforms in some parts of the state, but charter schools are not the answer. When you have some exceptional models for innovative public education already in place in Alabama, why not try to adopt those models in different places?

No wonder Rep. Phil Williams (r) wants Alabama to become the 41's state to allow charter schools. Are Rep. Laura Hall and the Local chapter of the NAACP helping him? Nope.

"I think Alabama has an opportunity to do it right because we can look at what other states have done. If they've not done well we can know we need to correct that," said Rep. Hall.

Alabama has an opportunity to do it right (pun intended) all right.

When we are in an education funding crisis - and make no mistake, once the stimulus stabilization funds run out, we will be in a true crisis - I cannot see how you can justify diverting public education money to an educational program that is totally unproven in Alabama. As you said, the most important factor in whether or not a charter school program is successful is the way its specific contract is written and the way that specific program is administered. What in the history of Alabama suggests to you that local and/or state governments would do a good job administering a charter school program that does not have any of the protections or regulations of traditional public schools?

As I've said before, charter schools (like Teach for America) sounds great in theory but in practice, the effectiveness of both programs vary much, much more than traditional unionized classroom instruction. There are school systems where the problems are so profound and so endemic that charter school programs on a limited basis make sense. When education systems are flush with cash, it makes perfect sense to experiment on programs like that but this year, we not only have finite resources, we have extremely limited resources. Taking on the burden of charter schools that the Education Trust Fund and/or local school boards will be responsible for funding in a few years is not a smart move right now, especially when there are already models for innovation with the traditional Alabama public school system.

My Daddy says always know who is driving the wagon before you hitch a ride. Looks like the Black Alliance for Educational Options and The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (vouchers) is driving this one. Be sure and check out the members of the BAEO advisory board.

Remember this mantra, "Charter Schools are backdoor privatization of education".
9.13, 4.82, Just left of Gandhi.
by: archangelsk