Editorials

The first month of the school year is well under way. Which means superintendents and school boards in communities all across Alabama are running their systems in the face of myriad state meddling.

This is one of the problems created by Montgomery legislators that is causing school officials back home to wonder what the people who make the rules want from the schools.

Because test scores have become so important to politicians on both the state and national levels, it has become essential for schools to schedule as much instructional time as possible before tests are given. For that reason, more and more schools have pushed the beginning of classes back into August. (Folks lobbying for an after-Labor Day opening need to consider that.)

Meanwhile, legislators have dictated that the politically popular but economically questionable tax-free holiday fall on the first full weekend in August, presumably to coincide with payday. To make legislators happy, state Superintendent Joe Morton has "asked" that schools open after that holiday.

However, next year the first full weekend falls a week into August — well after payday. More important, this means the schools would open a week later than this year. As a result, a week of valuable instruction time would be lost.

(Of course, this would tickle the tourism and retail industries. They don't like schools opening in August because they say — but cannot prove — that they lose visitors and sales. What they don't say — but can be proven — is that they are hurt more by the loss of cheap student labor when schools open early. Getting students educated does not figure into their equation.)

The Legislature should rewrite the law so that the tax-free holiday would be on the first day of August that falls on a weekend — which would include August 1 on a Sunday. This would allow schools to open as they did this year, with the extra instruction time. Everyone knows that preparing students for the all-important tests is legislators' top priority.

However, if legislators don't move the tax-free holiday to the beginning of August and schools are not allowed to open early and get in the extra instruction, then it will be obvious that their top priority is something else.