Haleyville City Schools joined school systems
throughout the state to salute their local education leaders during
Alabama’s 19th annual School Board Member Recognition Month in
January. The commemorative month was designed to recognize the
contributions made by Alabama’s more than 800 local school board
members, who are charged with governing public education under state
law.
Alabama school board members are chosen by their
communities through election or appointment to manage local schools.
They oversee multi-million-dollar budgets, which fund education
programs for more than 749,084 students in 1,523 schools. Their
personnel decisions affect 47,573 teachers, 3,084 administrators and
36,680 support workers.
These volunteer leaders are also responsible for
formulating school system policy, approving curricula, maintaining
school facilities, and adhering to state and federal education law.
Legal concerns and the complexities of school
finance, including budgeting and taxation, require them to spend many
hours in board training programs and personal study to enhance their
understanding of these issues.
Our deepest appreciation is extended to the
dedicated men and women who make it possible for local citizens to
participate in education in our community. We salute the public
servants of the Haleyville City School System whose commitment and
civic responsibility make local control of public schools in our
community possible: Steve Stott, president; Boo Haughton,
vice-president; Sandra Manasco, Beth McAlpine, Kris Burleson.
Please join us by saying thanks to our school
board members. They do an outstanding job.
Haleyville City School Administration
Faculty and Staff
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There’s no great secret to it
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There is no great secret to improving education
in Alabama. We have an impressive track record of raising student
achievement by developing our own programs and efforts. Alabama is a
national leader in curriculum and instruction innovation.
The question is whether we are going to continue
with our efforts and maintain progress.
It comes down to funding. We will spend 20
percent less this year than we did in 2008. Over the past four years,
plagued by proration and cuts caused by the economic downturn, we have
lost hundreds of millions of education dollars. In turn, we lost
thousands of teachers, we haven’t bought textbooks in years, and
we slashed everything else to the bone.
This situation has put more than a decade of
progress in Alabama schools at risk, and hurt an entire generation of
students. In fact, we are all at-risk if we fail to educate the next
generation of workers.
In the next ten years a substantial portion of
the state workforce will be ready to retire. If they are unable to gain
a trade, work in the modern technology-driven workplace, or be the
entrepreneurs that create a new generation of Alabama small businesses,
our state economy will stagnate.
The economic numbers are clear when we fail to
educate our children.
In the 1960s, the average high school dropout
would earn approximately 50 cents for every dollar of income earned by
the average college graduate. With low skill manufacturing and
agricultural jobs available, dropouts could get decent jobs as long as
they could show up at the textile mill or cotton gin. Those days are
gone.
Now, workers who failed to graduate from high
school earned less than 28 cents for every dollar that the average
college educated worker makes.
Dropouts have a negative impact on the state
economy beyond low income. Investment does not readily flow to areas of
deep poverty – an outcome of poor education attainment –
and industry won’t come to a place where workers are unprepared.
Dropouts have been called Alabama’s “number-one economic
problem.”
The good news is that we have been making
progress in keeping kids in school, bringing the graduation rate up
from 55 percent in 2001 to just under 70 percent in 2011. This
improvement comes in large part from making education gains in the
early grades. When a child succeeds early, it predicts future success
later.
Along with the hard work of our teachers, the
Alabama Reading Initiative transformed the state into a national leader
in early reading gains. ARI was started in 1999, and was finally put in
every school by the end of 2006.
Now, we are taking that example of curriculum and
instruction innovation to develop the Alabama Math, Science and
Technology Initiative (AMSTI). It too has shown remarkable results in
promoting gains in student achievement.
However, because of funding constraints, AMSTI
exists in only 40 percent of schools. What’s worse, AMSTI has
lost funding over the past three years. Each year, AMSTI is not in a
school, we are depriving students of a real and important learning
opportunity, and in turn putting their future at-risk.
In this next legislative session, we have a
choice. Either we can rise to our responsibilities and fund education,
or we can let our schools wither and risk the future of thousands of
our children.
That choice will impact the state economy for
years to come.
State Rep. Johnny Mac Morrow
