Charting the Future

The single most important responsibility of the state is education. That is not only my opinion, it is the opinion of the vast majority of Alabamians. There is only one way to make this a better state and that is by educating our children individually and collectively. Tired of being 48th in whatever? The solution is quality education.

To improve our educational end product, the emphasis must be different in different parts of our state. Some areas need easier access to advanced coursework. Some areas need an emphasis on graduating from high school. Workforce preparedness must be offered as well as academic excellence in the sciences.

How to reduce the prison population problem? Improve graduation rates.
How to reduce welfare roles? Prepare our kids for self sufficiency.
How to improve the quality of life in Alabama? Educate our kids.

This occupies a lot of the legislature's time, as it should.

What about Charter Schools?

Charter Schools are a different way of administering and rule making for public education. Forty states have given it a try, each with different levels of success. In some states it has been an overwhelming success, and in others it hasn’t worked at all. Were we to give it a try in Alabama, there are many models out there to evaluate, and emulate. It would not be necessary to re-invent the wheel.

Opposition to this concept comes from the teachers union, and from existing administrators. While cloaking their argument in quality education rhetoric, it is a turf war. Public schools administrators don’t want to see their numbers go down. The more students they have, the more employees they supervise, the more influential they are. Who gets to make decisions about the best approach to educating your child: the parents, or the state?

While the traditional route of gaining K-12 education is via traditional public schools, there are many routs parents can choose. Home schooling is a choice that many parents in Alabama make. Church affiliated programs are found throughout the country, and are quite popular here as well as military schools. All of these options are currently options parents can make. I believe parents have the right to decide how and where their children are educated, and I believe that charter schools are just another option.

The Teachers Union has made it clear that they will do what they can to block legislation allowing charter schools in Alabama. I was a little surprised to learn that there are also elected education officials in our county with the same attitude. If the welfare and education of our children is uppermost in our decision making, and kingdom building is set aside, I don’t see how anyone can argue against parents having as many options as possible for educating their children.

The question is: who is in charge of a child’s education – the parents or the state?