n the aftermath of the Great Recession, the GOP took control of a supermajority of the Alabama legislature along with control of the executive and judicial branches. The results were as destructive as they were predictable: some of the steepest funding cuts in the nation, the legalization and spread of charter schools, private school vouchers established through the Alabama Accountability Act, bogus so-called accountability measures like the “failing schools” list, attacks on the retirement pension and the creation of a second-tier retirement, attacks on the teaching profession itself from multiple directions, attacks on due process and tenure resulting in a significantly weakened set of rights under the so-called Students First Act, and attacks on AEA (which is a shell of its former self). All of this and more happened within a few years early last decade, meaning an entire generation of Alabama’s students have been educated in an environment of austerity, corporate reform, and privatization. An entire generation of Alabama’s students sent to public schools sabotaged by politicians, schools struggling to recruit and retain qualified educators and provide the education our students deserve.
In the last few years, the legislature has been somewhat quieter regarding the legal and funding framework for public schools. Propelled by right wing media, controversies have erupted around issues of race, gender, and of course, COVID. But the education budget and salaries have grown steadily with minimal opposition, even if in real, inflation adjusted dollars it is mostly just catching up for previous cuts and stagnation. Compared to the first half of the last decade, the last several years have seen a deemphasis from the legislature’s GOP supermajority when it comes to the accelerated privatization and sabotage of public schools. However, Alabama’s educators would be making a mistake to assume this relative truce will last. Given the rhetoric emanating from right-wing circles, it is clear Alabama’s public schools are in the crosshairs.
The first year of a new four-year term for legislators is often the most important. Years away from their next election and emboldened by victory, this is typically when the wildest and worst ideas are put forth. If they screw you over in 2023, they reckon you’ll forget by 2026. Whether it is asinine culture wars playing to ignorance and prejudice or the ever-present threats of more privatization, Alabama’s educators will need to be informed and organized to withstand what might be coming over the next four years. With several harmful bills already pre-filed for 2023, these fights are coming whether we want them to or not.
Alabama educators must unite and reject any attempts to divert public education funding as well as new proposals to issue tax rebates out of the education trust fund. Rebates? Seriously? As if these relatively sunny days lately for the budget will last forever and there’s no gloomy forecasts ahead? As if much of the budget growth didn’t come from Federal infusions? They’re not discussing badly needed reforms to Alabama’s upside-down tax system that punishes the working class while advantaging the wealthy, the big corporations, and the absentee mega landowners throughout the state. They’re not adding new revenue sources like other states around us. No, certain legislators like State Senator Arthur Orr are floating the idea of issuing rebates because of so-called “record revenue” while the right wing think tank Alabama Policy Institute is pushing for permanent tax cuts at a time when we have such great needs across the state.
They’re talking rebates when the state of Alabama can’t even provide Pre-K to all its children. They’re talking rebates when many of our public schools, from the Tennessee line to the Gulf of Mexico have mold, asbestos, tainted water, leaky roofs, broken HVACs, and unsafe playgrounds. They’re talking rebates when the state health insurance plan has yet to receive any American Rescue Plan Act ARPA funding to offset the millions of COVID related extra expenses, which last I checked was a lot closer to the point of ARPA than building new mega prisons. They’re talking rebates when so many of our public schools lack the counselors they need, lack the nurses they need, lack the social workers they need, lack the mental health professionals they need. They’re talking rebates when there’s no guaranteed living wage for support staff–the workers tasked with safely transporting Alabama’s children, the workers tasked with feeding healthy and nutritious meals to Alabama’s children, the workers tasked with providing safe learning environments for Alabama’s children, the workers tasked with providing safe and clean facilities for Alabama’s children, and all the other workers whose labor allows our public schools to operate for Alabama’s families. They don’t guarantee those folks a living wage, or in many cases even a fair step raise policy, and legislators want to talk about rebates? Nearly 80% of Alabama teachers are women and the state doesn’t even provide maternity leave! Teachers are tasked with shaping the future of young people and by extension, our entire society, and yet, they’re not even provided the legal opportunity in Alabama to collectively bargain their working conditions or withhold their labor. If our state were serious about public education for all its children, educators would be empowered to create the kinds of public schools our communities deserve.
So no, we don’t need any short-sighted rebates or more tax breaks for the wealthy and big business. Nor do we need “school choice” schemes that will funnel public dollars into private pockets. Not when we have such needs in education. Not when we rank at or near the bottom on every quality-of-life metric. Not when hundreds of thousands of our fellow Alabamians suffer as the state refuses to expand Medicaid. Not when we have an incarceration crisis that is an international disgrace. Not when parts of our state lack first-world infrastructure. No, we don’t need more trickle-down economics when it has so clearly failed the everyday people of our state.
We know public schools have their challenges and their flaws. We know there are problems to be solved. But the solutions won’t come from the very same corporate and reactionary forces who’ve played a major role in causing these problems in the first place. We’re asked to believe that introducing more profiteering off our children will somehow result in less corruption and better quality but the evidence of course says otherwise. Let’s be clear that the “school choice” push is not about what’s best for the kids. It’s about money and reactionary, segregationist ideology. The alternative is that we demand great public schools for every child and every family in every community. It’s not just about your family or my family, it’s about the public as a whole.
I believe educators and the public schools in which they work play a pivotal role in our society and our democracy, to the extent we have democracy. On the Statue of Liberty are inscribed these words from Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Public schools, perhaps more than any other American institution, come closest to living up to this American promise. Unlike their competitors, public schools are required to admit all within their doors, regardless of ability or language or income or race or gender or identity or religion and to provide a free, appropriate public education to the best of their capability. For all its flaws and remaining inequities, public education is one of the most long-lasting, comprehensive social benefits provided to families, particularly in a state like Alabama. Schools alone cannot fix all of our society’s ills, though we often act as if they can. But we should always remember that public schools are the cornerstone of their communities.
We need a strong majority to firmly declare that every child should receive an excellent public education. We need a diverse, working-class movement, rooted in love, justice, and solidarity, that can demand an excellent public education for all of Alabama. As we enter the 2023 legislative session, it is up to all of us who care about public schools to educate, agitate, and organize in our own communities and our own workplaces to build people power. The more people power we have, the closer we get to a future Alabama we can truly believe in!