Cutting school funding not the answer for budget

As Gov. Bentley puts his administration into place, the problems we face are becoming readily apparent. We are still living in the crisis caused by the economic calamity of 2008, and while the recession is fast fading, we still feel its effects, especially in education.

Last week, Bentley asked school officials how our schools and colleges could cope with a 3 percent proration this year and a 10 percent cut the following year. Mind you, we have already seen proration for this year and for the two previous years.

We have seen cuts of more than 20 percent since the start of the downturn, and with these new losses spending on education would be down more than a third.

Slashing spending by a third for elementary and secondary education in unconscionable, and quite frankly very dangerous.

Take for example transportation. The vast majority of Alabama schoolchildren take a bus to school, and their safety must be our number one priority. We have not been able to buy new buses for the past two years.

The life cycle of a bus is approximately ten years, and without replacements, more and more of our buses are well beyond a decade of wear and tear. Maintenance workers do their best, but it is not a good situation.

We haven’t bought textbooks for two years, and we haven’t contributed to classroom materials for the same period. Libraries are becoming threadbare.  Computer labs become out of date and less effective.

Schools have done their best to make do with less, but a cut of one-third goes beyond anything they can absorb without doing permanent damage to the education of children.

Many school systems, just like the thousands of families, have been living hand-to-mouth during these hard times. There are a half-dozen school systems that needed short-term loans in order to make payroll at the end of last school year. Reserves have been depleted, and the savings are all gone.

That is why State Superintendent Dr. Joe Morton said without any hyperbole that an additional 10 percent cut “would be devastating.” Schools will close, class sizes could rise rapidly, and the real progress that our schools have made could all be lost with another round of cuts.

Before the downturn, Alabama made effective investments in education. We funded efforts like the Alabama Reading Initiative, one of the country’s best homegrown distance learning efforts, and a nationally renowned Math and Science program.

What we got for that investment was steady improvements in recent years, including climbing from 31st to 25th among the states in the latest Quality Counts rankings from Education Week magazine.

Over the past five years we saw early reading scores rise more than any other state. We saw the number of students taking Advanced Placement courses grow faster than any other state.

Morton is right to say more cuts would put the improvements at risk. “Momentum is a rapidly fleeting thing,” he said.

The budget woes are not new to Bentley. As a fellow state representative, he served on the budget writing education appropriations committee and saw firsthand the crisis of Alabama education.

Bentley is right when he says the best thing for the school budget is for the economic recovery to continue. The two great engines of education revenue are state sales and income taxes.

As employment improves and consumer spending increases, so does revenue.

Bentley also knows from experience that there are loopholes and gimmicks some major companies use to pay less tax than regular working families. We have closed some of those loopholes in the past, and in order to save schools we should look to closing more.

It will take political will to stand up to the corporate lobbyists, but our schools are worth it.

The other possible area of funds is a final settlement from the BP oil spill. The loss of tourism on the coast last year cost Alabama education an estimated $150 million. If BP can be compelled to pay what they cost the state, it would help avoid further devastating costs.

Over the next weeks, Bentley will put together his education budget, and it will reflect his vision of where our schools need to go and what he is willing to do to help them in their current crisis.

Let’s hope that simply making further cuts is not the extent of his vision for Alabama’s schoolchildren.

Johnny Mack Morrow is a state representative for Franklin County. His column appears each Wednesday.