Alabama's Volunteer School Systems

     If you have children in Alabama Public Schools, chances you are already sending toilet paper to school with them because the constantly cut budgets don't allow enough money to buy any.

    The picture below is of Bear Elementary, where some parents and Alabama Power volunteers cleaned up the grounds to get them ready for the kids return on Monday. They certainly didn't have the resources or time to repaint the very bare wood on the window frames of the 1959 building.

 

     Here's what retiring State School Superintendent Joe Morton said about the state of Alabama's schools as he prepared to leave:

"If we cut the programs that got us from 48th up to 25th, we will wake up back in 48th," Morton said. "The economy of this state depends on education rankings going up, not down."

     Achievement is the bottom line for educational success, but isn't providing enough tax money to maintain the buildings and supply toilet paper part of it too?

Education Funding

     School funding in Alabama has always been less than needed....now some parents in two rural North Alabama Counties have filed suit trying to force the state to provide adequate funding.

     One of the first witnesses, for the parents, was Auburn History Professor Wayne Flynt, who recalled the state's experience at the start of WWI:

...when a large number of would-be soldiers from Alabama were rejected because they were illiterate.

     Th Huntsville Times has a complete story online here.

Use The Belt

     Governor Riley expressed surprise that the three-year study on seat belts and school buses showed 60% of the kids not using the seat belts. He used that fact as one of the justifications for rejected a proposal to include the belts in new Alabama school buses at a cost of some $38 Million. The other reason was that it cost to much and would save only one life every eight years.

     That's probably not too much if its your child who dies. The study began after four Alabama school kids in Huntsville died when a bus crashed head-first off an Interstate ramp to the ground below..

     Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that he's not calling on the schools and parents and transportation departments to do their job. If the kids are required to use the belts, then enforce that requirement. I'm not suggesting that the other kind of belt be used, but come on! If we can't enforce a relatively simple rule like you will wear a seat belt the entire time you are riding on the bus, than how can we make the kids do more complex tasks like you will not beat up the bus driver. Oh yea, that.

     Does all this start at home?