Educational Excellence

My mother was a high school teacher and my father was a university professor. I had an excellent public school education that sent me to Oxford University, an amazing opportunity that opened so many doors for me. So I know the value of teachers, the value of an excellent public school system, and the difference they can make to every child and to an entire community. I believe Alabama can, and must, provide the very best education to all students from pre-K through college and beyond. We are still not fully funding pre-K: if other states can do it, so can we.

I see no reason why Huntsville schools should not be the best school system in the nation. That is an achievable goal. If we can put a man on the moon, we can do this!

Public schools first

I don’t believe it’s right to give up on public schools and spend public tax dollars building up the private education sector. I oppose any expansion of the Choose Act. It’s not the role of government to build private schools: it’s the role of government to provide the very best in public education, free to all students, so that each child has the same opportunity, regardless of background or status.

Let’s take that voucher money and just get rid of the waiting lists for Pre-K: that’s an easy fix everyone can agree on.

Teacher pay

The 2% pay raise for teachers this year is unacceptable. This is substantially below inflation while Alabama already ranks 35th in the nation in teacher pay.

My opponent says he “increased teacher pay four times.”

What he doesn’t say is that he gave them an 8% raise over four years (three raises, and none this year), while inflation went up by more than 12% during that time, and his own pay as a politician went up 23.5% over those same four years!

The teachers were worse off after inflation, and my opponent brags of giving them 8% while taking almost three times that for himself.

Where the money goes

The Legislature can stop funding corporate site development projects with education dollars (yes, they did that) and keep that money in our schools where it belongs. Teachers deserve real support, not a token gesture at election time. When the Legislature wastes two days of debate on renaming the Gulf, or chooses to spend $4.5 million for a special election to gerrymander the districts, instead of spending that money on teachers, then it’s time for these folks to be replaced.

I will make education my top priority, not partisan politics and appeasing folks in Washington D.C.

The legislature has blown through billions of dollars given to them in the last few years through the American Rescue Plan, with no thought to the future. Now they are talking of a “looming fiscal cliff”. Whose fault is that? You can’t talk about fiscal responsibility if you waste a surplus like this.

I understand managing resources to build for the future: that’s what every business has to do to be successful.

The CHOOSE Act and online sales tax

The Choose Act is siphoning off up to $250 million from public schools. Even worse, after 2027 the income cap is being removed, and the fund is allowed to grow to $500 million.

Hundreds of millions more of your tax dollars earmarked for education are being diverted to the general fund, hidden in data center bills, or bargained away in “agreements”, like the one that diverts most of the online sales tax revenue away from education. If you buy a laptop at Best Buy in Huntsville for $1,000, you will pay $90 in sales tax, and $50 of that will go directly to education. If you buy that same laptop online, you will pay $80 in sales tax and only $10 will go to education. No wonder they don’t want to talk about this!

I will work to restore this money to education, where it belongs.

Training our workforce

Finally, we must ensure we have the necessary programs in place to train our workforce for the jobs we want to attract. The proper education is key for business recruitment, and is going to be increasingly important in a world where AI is being actively deployed to reduce employment opportunities. But we must ensure these programs truly benefit our students and that we are not using education money to actually lower employment wages or restrict promotion opportunities once in the workforce.