Investments paying dividends

By Staff
Johnny Mack Morrow
There is nothing more important than education. Not only is it critical for the future of our children, but it is also essential for the progress of us all.
President Kennedy once said, "Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation."
The private hopes and dreams for all children, properly encouraged and nurtured, can benefit us all. Education truly is the ticket for prosperity for individuals and the country as a whole.
Alabama has had a history of lagging behind other parts of the country in education. We spent less, we sometimes demanded less, we often expected less, and in the end, we educated less than other states when comparing graduation rates and test scores. This not only hurt children, but also certainly reduced our ability to grow economically.
Not that teaching and learning have been absent all these years. Look at all of us who went through Alabama's classrooms. We went into the workforce, we support our families, and we have built the best economy this state has ever seen. We got the basics, and often a good dose of common sense, and it was enough for the economy back then. However, it may not be enough for the future.
Almost everyone can agree there is a need for more investment, and room for more improvement, in our schools. We're making the investment, and now we are reaping the rewards.
As our state's economy registered unprecedented growth over the past four years, we have been able to generate much needed revenue. Education spending is up more than 30 percent in that time, and we have been able to use that money wisely by putting it into things that directly benefit the classroom.
We have invested in classroom materials, better technology, and reducing class sizes. We've been able to hire school nurses so that teachers and principals don't have to dispense medicines and care for sick children while trying to teach. We've been able to raise teacher pay, and compensate experienced teachers to mentor those just coming into the profession. And we've been able to invest in programs we know work.
One example is that for the first time we have been able to fully fund the Alabama Reading Initiative, the state's homegrown program that is fast becoming a model for the rest of the nation. The Alabama Reading Initiative trains teachers in the most advanced way to teach reading, especially how to work with children who are having trouble, and helps make the entire school focus on reading and making it fun.
That investment is paying off. It was recently announced that Alabama's eighth-graders scored higher than they ever have on the national writing exam, and significantly reduced the gap between their scores and the national average. Alabama's writing score was not only better than fellow southern states like Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi; we also did better than California, Arizona, and Nevada too.
This success comes on the heels of record results in fourth grade reading scores. Last year Alabama children made the largest gains in reading test scores in history. That's right, our students made the biggest leap in progress that national education folks had ever seen, and that bodes well for the future of education in our state.
However, in this legislative session we are dealing with problems in the education budget for 2009. As the economy goes through its rough patch, revenue for education, generated by income and sales taxes, has been less than we hoped. Estimates are that we'll bring in approximately $400 million less in revenue next year than we budgeted this year, meaning we'll have to cut. Our priority is to maintain the progress in our schools. In the next few weeks we'll hammer out the final version of the education budget, and there is general agreement that priorities must be the things that have given our state the remarkable progress we've seen. As with anything, if you invest wisely, then you see dividends. We invested in our schools, and we've seen better outcomes for our children. And as Kennedy pointed out, that means better outcomes for all of us.
Johnny Mack Morrow is a state representative for Franklin County. His column appears each Wednesday.