re: Alabama Governor: Use Education Funds for Industrial Recruitment

Alabama needs to get a state lottery and dedicate all monies to education. It's hard to believe Alabama and Mississippi are the only southern states without a lottery.

That's almost unbelievable. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't spend my formative years in Alabama.

Yeah, it's time to scrap it. Riddle me this though, who's going to rewrite it? The state legislature? I set the O/U on Jesus references to 10.

Are you a Freeman?

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racism in the current one. Pretty sure the amendment requiring segregated schools is still there, even though it's no longer enforced.

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That stuff was stricken years ago, although it required a statewide vote.

Hell, I hope the Mossad bend him over too!

I know a few friends with experience as state employees in Alabama who have become incredibly frustrated with the system. The legislature basically uses state employees as political pawns in their budget battles and the majority could care less about the working conditions of teachers and other state employees. I know people with college degrees that work for the state that make less, the same, or tiny fractions more AFTER merit promotions than they did 5 years ago when they were at a lower pay grade position. The state froze raises 5 years ago and basically people that are years into the system are stuck and will never get that earning power back. These are smart educated people with college degrees in many cases who could be doing something in the private sector but we're made many promises about great retirement, steady raises, and work conditions and wanted to serve their state. They are either forced to forego the retirement they were working towards or stay and do a job with an ever increasing workload due to more people giving up and leaving the system out of frustration and the constant disrespect for the job they do and politicians that play games with their livelihoods and in a few cases are openly resentful of state employees. Not only that, but it got to the point where where the one representative of state employees had to fight just to keep the legislature from forcing their insurance rates up and retirement benefits down and forcing furloughs on them. Meanwhile, the legislature votes themselves a pay raise for their part time jobs while patting themselves on the back for shrinking government.

They've gone from cutting the fat in this state to cutting muscle and bone and then wonder why state services are so poor. Hearing the stories was eye opening to someone who once dismissive of state employee complaints. I've been a Republican all my life but this state has gone past the point of rationality when it comes to funding education and basic services. They refuse to rewrite the Alabama Constitution and fund state government with a common sense tax structure that relies on more reliable funding sources that most other states do.

Amen. It's just another example of how Republicans, not just in Alabama but across the country, have backed themselves into a corner on taxes. The mere mention of raising taxes, despite the possible need to raise them, gets one voted out of office with a swiftness.

I've seen some private sector education situations where poor public schools have been turned over and in a lot of cases it hasn't been much better. Especially when it's a corporate guided charter school. I've found that due to lack of regulation their record keeping can be poor and some have the bad tendency of folding up when funding runs out.

More efficient government in education could work.