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GUEST EDITORIAL - By
Rep. Craig Ford (D-Gadsden) Accountability Act "an ugly bill passed in an ugly way" MONTGOMERY — It is amazing to read what some legislators have written in the weeks since the state Legislature passed the so-called Alabama Accountability Act on Feb. 28, 2013. The Republicans who concocted this bill using deceitful—not to mention illegal—tactics to pass it, are now trying to tell us that they followed the rules and thoroughly debated this bill, which they also claim will revolutionize education. They have even tried to compare it to President Ronald Reagan telling Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. That comparison is insulting to both the voters and the memory of Ronald Reagan, who never would have condoned elected officials passing a bill that the general public never had access to. The deception used to pass this bill was so complete that legislative leaders even managed to deceive themselves and ended up passing one version of the bill in the conference committee and another version of the bill in the House and Senate. In a recent editorial, Sen. Phil Williams (“Williams proud of his support of school law,” The Post front page, March 11) said that the bill was “passed by a straight up or down vote after several hours of debate in both the House and Senate.” That statement is factually inaccurate and can be proven by checking the official record. The House and Senate debated a nine-page bill called the “Local Control School Flexibility Act of 2013.” This bill only dealt with issues of school flexibility, and did not include anything about vouchers, tax credits, or allowing students to transfer schools. The House passed the bill first. Then the Senate passed an amended version that was rejected by the House. So the bill went to conference committee in order to work out the differences. But that is not what happened. The bill that came back from the conference committee went from nine pages to 27 pages and had its title changed to the “Alabama Accountability Act of 2013.” The new version of the bill included several new proposals that had never been debated or even mentioned during the previous debate. The House and Senate were each only allowed one hour to debate the new bill. And since it took about 30 minutes to read a 27-page bill, the House and Senate really only had 30 minutes for debate – not several hours, as Sen. Williams would have you believe. But aside from the dishonest, unethical, and illegal method used to ram this bill through the Legislature, the bill itself is a disaster for our children and their education. First, this bill does not really give students choice in where they go to school. Only students in targeted school districts would even be allowed the option of choosing a different school and most of these students cannot afford a private school education, even with the vouchers. Secondly, the vouchers will cost the state money. Nobody knows yet how much, but estimates say it could be somewhere in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That money will come from the state education budget, which means every single public school in the state will lose funding regardless of whether or not they meet academic standards. These cuts are not limited to K-12 schools. Every state supported pre-K program will lose money, as will every college and university. And that means tuition costs at these colleges and universities will rise even higher. But the schools that will be hit hardest are the targeted schools. School funding is tied to enrollment. As students leave a school, that school will have its budget cut, meaning less money for textbooks, computers, field trips, athletics and extracurricular activities, and other learning tools. How is that supposed to help a so-called “failing school” to improve? And here's the thing about calling these schools “failing.” This bill says that any school that is in the lowest 10 percent is considered “failing.” So even if a school is improving or exceeds state and federal standards, they can still be considered failing. The real reason they chose that number is so that these elected officials could make sure they got the vouchers for their kids if they live in a targeted school district. So these aren't so much “failing” schools as they are “targeted” schools. This is an ugly bill
that was passed in an ugly way. Don't let the Republicans who did this tell
you otherwise. |