Opposing Reform

Dec 17, 2007 - Any editorial that starts out like this is worth reading.

GIVE THE Alabama Education Association credit for consistency: The teachers' union opposes virtually every proposal to reform the public schools, from the pre-kindergarten level to the two-year college system.

This time, the Alabama Education Association was lobbying against the board moving forward with a policy requiring background checks for two-year system employees and job applicants.

The AEA official told the board, "You can give employees a very simple and important Christmas gift today; give them the same safeguards that K-12 employees enjoy."

Board members should have replied: "Bah, humbug!" They did risk getting dropped from the AEA's Christmas card list by approving the policy as written, on a 7-1 vote.

Ultimately, the board chose to put the interests of students ahead of the interests of the AEA. What a novel approach to school governance in Alabama.

For years, the AEA, headed by the politically astute Paul Hubbert, called the tune on almost every significant education issue in the state. And on many of these issues, the AEA put its members, not "the children," first.

The policy they opposed? The new policy prohibits the system from hiring or retaining people convicted of a felony or a crime of moral turpitude -- unless a college president requests an exemption for an employee or applicant and the chancellor grants it.

TT - Other Alabama stories. HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE
Our personal favorite was "Placing teachers and other employees in Birmingham city schools before completion of their background checks is common practice."