One of the oft-cited talking points about the state of Alabama's public education system is that it is ranked 52nd out of 50 states nationally.
During an appearance on Tuesday's broadcast of Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5's "Midday Mobile," State Rep. Matt Simpson (R-Daphne) argued one of the reasons for this was a lack of accountability at the state level, given that three key entities were dealing with education policy: the state school board, the governor and the Alabama legislature.
Simpson suggested the state missed an opportunity in 2020 to eliminate some of the finger-pointing between these entities when voters defeated a constitutional amendment that would have eliminated school board elections and created a system in which school board members were appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.
"There was a bill two years ago -- I want to say it was two years ago, that came through where the governor was responsible for appointing the school board," Simpspn said. "The messaging got lost in that bill. It became a situation, 'Oh, you're taking away the vote from us. You're not allowing us to vote.' That wasn't the purpose of the bill. The purpose of that bill was to actually have some accountability for what's going on because if you're the governor and you appoint the school board -- the school ratings, there is nobody else for you to point back to. There is no shell game to say, 'No, it's this fault.'
"[W]hat we have right now is, the state school board will point and say the legislature should have done this. The legislature will point and say the governor should have done this, or the school board should have done this. And they're all pointing fingers. It's a Mexican standoff, sitting there pointing guns at each other, saying it's all this other person's fault. That bill would have taken that other person's fault out of it and said, 'Governor, you're responsible for leading the education of our state. Your appointments, this is what you have. You have the direction for this for where we go.'"
He went on to say that under such a situation there was no way a governor could hide from responsibility, no way a governor could deny it. He said that the bill got lost in the messaging and that the legislature doesn't do a good job explaining why a bill is passed so the people can understand the underlying reasoning.
Simpson was skeptical whether such a proposal could ever come back up for consideration given that it lost by such a large margin on the March 2020 ballot.
"It's tough when the people of Alabama shoot something down," Simpspn said. "I want to say it was something like 70-30 [percent]. When you get overwhelmingly shot down that large, it's tough to come back and say, 'Hey maybe the people will change their mind this way.' So, I think we've got to come up with something. I think that's what everybody is putting their head around. I think that's why you see all these different proposals come through. That's why you see, 'What about charter schools? What about school choice?'"
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