A giveaway to the rich, disguised as school choice

  Our leaders call Alabama’s effective voucher program the CHOOSE Act. There’s some grim irony in that.

  Of course, you can choose to pay for private school tuition, whatever your reasons may be.

  But it’s not my choice. Or what the families of 730,000 Alabama students want. We pay taxes to support the teachers educating our children in public schools. And we want teachers and staff to have the resources they need to help students thrive.

  Yet our leaders plan to divert that money from classrooms into the pockets of wealthy families, in the form of $7,000 tax breaks. More if they have more than one kid enrolled in a private school.

Craig Ford: Cities are only as strong as their local schools

  In the military, we have a saying: A platoon is only as strong as its weakest soldier. That concept applies to a lot of things in life and especially to how we as a society treat our public schools.

  Public schools are the backbone of any city or town. They train our future workers. They are usually one of, if not the, biggest employers in a county or city. They are one of the first things potential employers look at when deciding whether to build or expand a plant or factory in a community. And for those who go on to college, local schools are the pipeline that gets them there.

  Schools also play an important role in our quality of life. From Friday night football games to band competitions and everything in between, local schools play an important role in both children and adults’ social lives and add to our sense of community.