Lean budget keeps teachers in the classroom

By Staff
Johnny Mack Morrow
Columnist
The House passed its version of the 2011 education budget this week and now it goes on to the Senate. After weeks of difficult work, what passed was an austere budget, reflecting the tough times we live in.
The budget focuses on protecting the classroom as much as possible, and does something that other states have not been able to do: prevent teacher layoffs.
During two years of proration and dropping education revenue, Alabama lost more than 2,000 teachers. It has been tough on students, tough on schools, and even worse for those teachers who lost a job.
Crafting a budget that saves teacher jobs is important for teaching and learning, and an important step in getting our entire state economy going again.
One of the principal reasons for faltering revenue was the record increase in Alabama unemployment. The state jobless rate more than tripled in the past three years and is as high today as it’s been since the 1980s.
The largest contributor to the state Education Trust Fund is the state income tax; every penny collected of it is earmarked solely for education. When the economy stumbles this revenue source falters.
During the past three years, as we entered into what people are now calling the Great Recession, this revenue stream fell farther than anytime in history.
Alabama has lost more than 20 percent of its education funding in just two years. The Great Recession that began in 2007 wiped out almost $1.5 billion in education funding.
According to economists, the recession has just recently ended, but the forecast for school revenue is that it will remain flat.
When unemployment goes up school revenue goes down, and to compound the problem teachers are added to the layoff numbers. Losing education jobs hits the overall state economy, but it is even more devastating to rural counties where teachers are a bedrock professional group.
Saving and trying to generate more jobs has been a priority for the Legislature this session. An education budget that saves every state funded teaching position is an important economic achievement, as well as an educational one.
Other states have not been able to save teacher positions. California is sending out more than 22,000 pink slips to teachers. Georgia is furloughing teachers. Florida is losing thousands.
Keeping teachers is in the classroom is not only good for the economy, but it is also critical to maintaining education progress in our state.
State reading scores have just been published and once again Alabama was only of a handful of states that showed progress.
Alabama had the largest gains in reading scores over the past five years, due to the hard work of teachers and students, along with the award-winning Alabama Reading Initiative.
Keeping teachers prevents larger class sizes, and helps ensure progress like the reading scores will continue.
It may sound like a clich/, but there is no learning without a teacher.
The rest of the education budget is not pretty, but it does the best we can under the circumstances. It funds the Reading Initiative, as well the Alabama Math and Science initiative and the distance-learning program at the prorated 2010 level.
That’s not good, but enough to keep them going.
Textbooks are funded at a level where only things like worksheets and workbooks for grades three and under are funded. For the second straight year there will be no new books for higher grades.
Transportation is slashed, library funds have been eliminated, and new technology has been removed from the budget.
Teachers will have to continue to sacrifice. Classroom supplies have been eliminated, meaning that teachers will once again have to dig deeper into their own pockets to buy the things they need for their classroom.
And their health insurance has been level funded, meaning they will have to pay higher premiums as costs continue to go up. This is the price to pay for saving teaching jobs.
It is a tough budget.
Yet, in the most difficult economic times in a generation, it maintains teachers in the classroom so they can do their job getting the next generation ready for a better economy tomorrow.
Hopefully, that better economy is just around the corner.
Johnny Mack Morrow is a state representative for Franklin County. His column appears each Wednesday.