In Ala., GOP Dictates New Landscape for Education

 

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Self-declared education reformers have had considerable success across the country over the past few decades, from charter school expansion and private school tuition vouchers to new limits on teachers' job protections. But perhaps nowhere have the triumphs marked a bigger political upheaval than in Alabama, where the new Republican supermajority is dominating the state teachers' organization that was long the epicenter of power.

Alabama Education Association chief Henry Mabry accuses Republicans of hurting public schools with changes to teacher tenure, tax breaks for private school tuition, and limits on AEA collecting dues through the state payroll system.

"There seems to be an unspoken agenda to change the public education system to where it's not even recognizable," Mabry said. He called it "right out of the playbook" of a national movement to eviscerate government in favor of private and for-profit enterprises.

GOP leaders frame their efforts as improving a broken system more concerned with public employees than with children. "It's not that we're punitive toward AEA," House Speaker Mike Hubbard said. "We're just doing the right thing by the taxpayers, and they don't like that."

Alabama's statehouse dynamic has turned on its head since Republicans won legislative supermajorities in 2010, giving them legislative control for the first time since Reconstruction. Soon after, longtime AEA leader Paul Hubbert, who spent more than four decades amassing a reputation as the state's most powerful lobbyist, retired and gave way to Mabry.

"For so long, AEA controlled everything, and they don't anymore," Hubbard said. "They're having a really hard time adjusting to that."

Hubbert, who still lives in Montgomery, said AEA was a predictable target for Republicans because it "had primarily supported Democrats."

The Alabama legislative battles haven't produced the kind of protests seen in Wisconsin after Republican Gov. Scott Walker gutted his state's public unions, but they underscore how quickly public policy can turn after watershed elections. They've also had considerable political ripple effects. The state Democratic Party, once dependent on AEA's organizational muscle, is reeling. Republicans must deal with the realities of a supermajority: Old two-party battles are sometimes reprised as internal party struggles. Both sides say those issues will figure prominently in the 2014 elections.

Immediately, the new GOP Legislature tried to block AEA from collecting money from its 100,000 or so members through the automatic deductions in the state payroll system. The law remains tied up in court, but it would change how AEA collects money, potentially cutting into the estimated $7 million to $8 million that Mabry says it spends each election cycle.

Republicans made it easier to fire teachers and blocked them from being paid during appeals. The party also wants the state to provide liability insurance for teachers — a key benefit teachers get from AEA. The state already provides similar insurance for non-education employees.

The biggest GOP victory came earlier this year when legislators passed the Alabama Accountability Act with provisions championed by school-choice advocates, including a private-school tuition voucher program for students from low-income households and tax breaks for private school tuition paid by families zoned for poorly performing public schools.