Editorials

For too long, Alabama has protected the fiscal health of public education by adapting the tactic of the fictitious Dutch boy who clogged a hole in his town's dike and saved the populace from certain disaster.

In the tale, the boy doesn't devise a better way of protecting his town. He merely stops the immediate threat with his thumb.

That's what we're doing with Alabama's public education.

For too long, Alabamians have foolishly believed that using sales and income taxes to pay most of the bills for public education was an acceptable plan. Regressive sales taxes fluctuate too wildly in tough times? Who cares, some Alabamians say. Income taxes aren't reliable enough to ensure that schools' needs will be met? Let the next Legislature worry about that, others have surmised.

Now the result is lethal. The economy's in the tank. Extra cash and operating reserves are becoming a relic of the past. Sales-tax revenue has plummeted. Income-tax figures have dropped as unemployment has risen.

Combined, those factors have created a toxic, albeit inevitable, mixture: The state can't meet its October payroll obligations for school employees, so already-strapped school systems are dipping into reserves for the missing 25 percent. As Jacksonville Superintendent Eric Mackey told The Star, "I thought the cut would be about 5 percent. Twenty-five percent about knocked me out of my chair."

Thus, the Anniston system is out $266,990, and Jacksonville is out $220,000. The Oxford system will have to chalk up an extra $450,000. The Calhoun County system's bill? A cool $1.25 million.

And what happens in November? In December? What happens to the Alabama school systems that have made significant educational gains in recent years? Will they regress? Can they avoid it?

The facts are downright scary. Alabama's figurative dike hasn't merely sprung a leak. It's beset with a gigantic fissure, and nothing short of determined leadership and radical thinking can set the state and its public school systems on the correct path.

It's too late for Band-Aid solutions. That will only put the current system on life-support and do nothing to solve the problem. What's needed is statewide leadership that can successfully change how Alabama funds one of its most critical duties, the education of the state's children.

Alabama Arise, the nonprofit that advocates on behalf of low-income residents, has long proposed a financial formula that would include the use of property and business taxes, a more stable form of income. Clearly, that improvement would signal a momentous change for Alabama public education.

However, the need for radical thinking should not stop there. It's time that bravery exists in Montgomery, where elected leaders must demand that Alabama alters how it funds public education. It takes no Ph.D. to understand that this method is defective. It's failed before, it will fail again.

There may be few, if any, higher causes on Goat Hill. Alabamians must be willing to properly fund public education. That choice should be crystal clear.