The picture says it all. There was President Bush, visiting an elementary school to tout his No Child Left Behind program.
It was a cheery classroom, neat and clean, with colorful posters on the wall. And there were the students, at their desks, hard at work, each with a laptop computer.
Contrast that with elementary schools in Alabama. Take the time to visit one. You will find cheery classrooms neat and clean, with colorful posters. And you will find students, at their desks, hard at work, each with a pencil and some paper. Oh, there might be a “computer station” in the corner. And it might even have Internet hook-up. And somewhere in the building there might be a “computer lab” where students can go from time to time to become familiar with this increasingly essential technology.
But when it comes to actually teaching and learning with a computer, our students are stuck somewhere in the late 20th century, while other students in other states are well into the 21st.
And that is where they will likely stay. When a report released recently by Education Week magazine gave the state mediocre ratings an official from the Alabama’s Department of Education noted that Alabamians had better get used to such rankings. Because of inadequate funding. Alabama will remain at or near the bottom.
Gov. Bob Riley says he wants our children to have a “world class” education. Legislators say they want the same. And so do the voters in poll after poll.
But talk is cheap. And so, it seems, are Alabamians. Which is why our students don’t have what students in other states have.
It is that simple.
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