Since the Alabama Accountability Act passed, the media and Alabama Democrats have launched attack after attack year after year on the program.
Usually, the stories focus on the “claims” that the program will gut the public school systems and damage the children still trapped in those schools. Their solution always seems to be lacking — it’s just a horror story of a program that harms someone somewhere by “diverting taxpayer money” — but we never actually get those victims.
Krista Johnson’s story in the Montgomery Advertiser betrays the scary premise with facts.
She writes, “Of the 4,132 children who received a scholarship in 2016 through the accountability act (the most recent data available), 983 were zoned to attend one of the state’s 76 failing schools, a rate of about 24 percent. Scholarship granting organizations can provide scholarships to low-income students as long as students from the failing schools are given preference first.”
The horror.
Over 4,000 children got a chance at a better education because their parents pursued it, and 24 percent of those kids got out of failing schools. The scholarship program helped low-income students get a leg up after the failing school’s applicants were helped.
If money is the issue, do the math: The scholarship program is created using $30 million in tax credits and the program’s 4,132 kids took 80 percent of their state dollars with them. Using the state average per pupil ($5,964), that accounts for $19.7 million dollars. The state’s education budget is $6.63 billion dollars and we are pretending the combined $49.7 million is killing the school system?
Let’s be honest about what this is about — power. Anything that lets a poor kid leave a public school, it limits the power of the education bureaucrats and elected officials that cater to them. Any school choice or voucher program will be resisted for this reason.
The legislature should expand this program and give more kids an opportunity.
@TheDaleJackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a conservative talk show from 7-11 am weekdays on WVNN
