Opinion | The answer to our public schools issues is sitting right there

Just recently, Governor Kay Ivey’s office distributed a press release detailing the use of taxpayer dollars to provide a family membership at a private fitness club.Unhappy with the quality of services and limited equipment available at their local park and county recreation facilities, the family had petitioned the government to supplement their membership at a private facility that better fit their desired goals and expectations.

Do you see how utterly ridiculous that sounds?

Now, apply it to schools. Because on Friday, Ivey’s office did send out a press release touting the CHOOSE Act and detailing the benefits bestowed upon one Montgomery family, who used the $7,000-per-year credit to send the second of three children to Valiant Cross.

And look, good for them. I’m happy they can go to Valiant Cross. It’s a wonderful institution that has changed the lives of thousands of young men in the city of Montgomery.

But let’s stop pretending that the CHOOSE Act is sending underprivileged children to fancy, otherwise-out-of-reach institutions (it’s not) or that this voucher model is, in any way, shape or form, anything but a handout to wealthy people and private businesses.

Valiant Cross’s annual tuition is $10,500, and that doesn’t include more than $1,000 in mandatory, yearly fees. It’s great that this lovely family can afford an extra $4,500 per child to meet the tuition requirements, but that’s simply not a reality for most impoverished families.

That extra $375 per month (that’s if calculated over 12 months and not the typical nine, which would be $500/mo) would absolutely crush the typical family of five living anywhere in the vicinity of the poverty line.

And this is the most infuriating part of all of this.

Because you don’t start handing out $7,000 vouchers without first acknowledging that there’s a problem. And you don’t couch it all—as phony as it might be—as a way to help impoverished families find better educational opportunities without also acknowledging that those families are very specifically having trouble.

So, Alabama lawmakers see that there are problems, and they have identified the group of students most affected by those problems.

And they have concocted a system that helps everyone but the people most affected by the problems.

Peak Alabama.

The truly mind-boggling thing about it all is that we’d never, ever do this for any other government service. Like the parks and recreation example I used at the beginning. We would never dream of supplementing a family’s private club membership.

What we would do, though—and what we’ve done over and over and over—is improve the level of services offered by the government entities. We would copy the things offered at private clubs—things the general public has responded well to and things that have proven effective—and build nicer, better parks and rec centers and playgrounds.

Why haven’t we done the same with schools?

We can, you know? There is a public school model—the public charter school—just sitting there waiting to be molded into the forms that would best serve our students and communities.

Instead of dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of rich families that don’t really need the money—and, to be fair to them, weren’t even asking for it, as far as I can tell—why aren’t we instead building the sorts of schools and education centers that address the issues that plague our schools? Why aren’t we solving the problems that we know are holding the children down?

The folks at Valiant Cross have shown you one way to do it in Montgomery. Other specialized public schools around the country have also provided examples of ways to make an impactful difference, even in some of the worst, most violent areas of our country.

And yet, we pretend that we just don’t know. That we have to follow this old, outdated model, that the only way possible to change anything is by dumping money into private schools that aren’t held to the same standards as our public schools.

It’s ridiculous.

What’s stopping Montgomery from partnering with a few businesses and establishing several full-time community schools? Schools that would take middle school students in on Monday mornings and not send them home again until Friday evening. Schools that removed the influences of gangs, family drama, drug use, and social media. Schools that mostly made up for the lack of parental involvement due to the demands on working families.

You know what’s stopping Montgomery—and other cities—from doing this?

Money.

The money we’re giving away to private businesses. The money that’s flowing by the bucketload to kids who need the absolute least right now.

So, yeah, it’s great that these young men from Montgomery can attend a quality private school. There’s little doubt in my mind that the leadership at Valiant Cross will mold them into quality men who go on to college and become productive citizens. Hopefully, they’ll go out and change the world for the better.

It would be nice, though, if so many others could join them.

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