1819 News CEO Bryan Dawson, while recently hosting Talk 99.5's "The Line with Andrew McLain, highlighted the education transformations and legislative victories that he believes came from education-specific coverage from 1819 News's Center For Education (CFE).
On the show, Dawson highlighted the CFE and its role in exposing government and institutional actions related to the state's education system.
"We've created the Center For Education that Apryl Marie Fogel is the director of," Dawson said. "And it's full-time, dedicated investigative journalism into our education system. That's the Alabama Education Association (AEA), our K-12 schools, the perverts and the weirdos, and the curriculum, the Critical Race Theory, and the LGBTQ stuff, all of that stuff, we're going whole-hog into that and exposing that stuff. It's the Education Trust Fund, the waste, fraud, and abuse that goes on in education spending."
Dawson boasted that 1819 News received credit from Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall for the state's passage of its school choice voucher legislation, the Creating Hope and Opportunity for Our Students' Education (CHOOSE) Act. The 2024 law established education savings accounts for students who pursue alternative schooling or attend schools outside their zones.
"Steve Marshall, our attorney general, gives us credit for school choice getting across the finish line, 1819 News being responsible for that," Dawson continued. "There's like 49,000 students that are enrolled in that. That's $350 million going to 49,000 students who are getting an education they couldn't have gotten without school choice. And 1819 News is credited by a lot of our officials for getting school choice across the finish line."
"Lots of people played a part in that, but 1819 News was the gust of wind that filled the sails that pushed it across the finish line after 12 years of trying to get that done. Just through pointing out how the [AEA] is infiltrating the Republican Party, I've talked about that a lot. As well as just the stranglehold they have on Republican legislators on doing stuff like school choice that are actually going to improve our schools."
Dawson also highlighted legislation from the 2026 legislative session by State Rep. Troy Stubbs (R-Wetumpka).
The new law, which goes into effect on Oct. 1, requires universities that establish a faculty senate to develop policies on the body's membership and responsibilities. A faculty senate would serve only an advisory role, thereby negating any "final decision-making authority on any matter of representing institutional positions." It would also require policies that would include periodic post-tenure reviews and authorize the removal of tenured professors after due process.
This led the Auburn Board of Trustees to vote to create a Presidential Academic Advisory Council to replace the current Faculty Senate and to implement a "Curriculum, Courses, Syllabi, and Core Educational Requirements Policy."
"The inmates will no longer be running the asylum, is essentially what's happening at these Universities," Dawson said.
He continued, "This is a huge thing. This is a huge thing for reining in these institutions that have the potential to do tremendous good for our state, that have been hijacked by people who have values that are antithetical to the majority of people in the state. They're being brought to heel through our work, the work of the legislature and the boards of trustees."
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