CRAIG FORD: Ugly bill was passed in ugly way

Published: Friday, March 15, 2013 at 6:33 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, March 15, 2013 at 6:34 p.m.

It is amazing to read what some legislators have written in the weeks since the state Legislature passed the so-called Alabama Accountability Act.

The Republicans in the Alabama Legislature who concocted this bill, and the 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 even have tried to compare it to President Ronald Reagan telling Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Iron Curtain.

That comparison is insulting to both the voters and the memory of Reagan, who never would have condoned elected officials passing a bill that the public had never had access to.

The deception used to pass this bill was so thick 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 article, Sen. Phil Williams, R-Rainbow City, said 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 that 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 and allowing students to transfer schools.

The House passed the bill first. Then the Senate passed an amended version that the House rejected. 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, was now called the “Alabama Accountability Act of 2013” and included several new proposals that had never been debated or even mentioned during the debate on the previous bill.

The House and Senate were each only allowed one hour to debate this new bill. And since it took about 30 minutes to read a 27-page bill, the House and Senate really only had 30 minutes to debate the bill — not several hours, as 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, these vouchers will cost the state money. Nobody knows yet how much, but most estimates say it will be hundreds of millions of dollars. That money will come from the state’s education budget, and that means every single public school in the state will lose funding regardless of whether it meets academic standards. These cuts are not limited to K-12 schools. Every state-supported pre-K program, and every college and university, will lose money, too. And that means tuition costs at these colleges and universities will go up even higher.

But the schools that will be hit hardest are the targeted schools themselves. School funding is tied to the number of students enrolled. As students leave a school, that school will have its budget cut, which means less money for textbooks, computers, field trips, athletics and extracurricular activities, and other learning tools.

Now, how is that supposed to help a so-called “failing school” improve?

And here’s the thing about calling these schools “failing.” This bill says 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, it can still be considered failing. And the reason they chose that number is so these elected officials could make sure they get 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.

Rep. Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, has served in the Alabama House of Representatives since 2000. Since 2010, he has been House Minority Leader.


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