...Longtime AEA Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert said last week this Legislature “has tried to set itself up as a super school board and tried to dictate curriculum.”

REALLY? Paul Hubbert has been the one that has set himself and AEA up as a super power and enrich his and his good ole boys banl accounts. Well, you have had your time in the lime light Mr. Hubbert. It is time to just step aside and go enjoy the good life on the money you have taken from being the power you were allowed to become. The teachers have had a target on their backs for years..they have been targeted by Hubbert and Friends and they have been used.

Not only should nonproductive teachers be removed from classrooms but Administrators at the schools need to have less power to spend the taxpayers money and should be monitored closer on how the staff at the schools are chosen and treated.

So the head of the union has a seat on the RSA board. That's like sitting on both sides of the negotiation table. It is also strange how Mabry , who is not a state employee gets a state retirement.

Not the RSA, the Teachers Retirement System.

Sweet!

Once stripped of union power, teachers will again become accountable to parents and the greater community. To some teachers, this is a nightmare, becoming more vivid with each piece of legislation enacted. Coupled with future control of the curriculum, and it is here that Republicans supporting Common Core and additional early-age programs should take note, the citizenry is regaining that which was lost to the A.E.A. decades ago.

Aside from accountability and curriculum, however, there remains one final issue, taxpayer remuneration. So accustomed are teachers to bargaining collectively for compensation, rather than being paid on their merit as in the private sector, the union mentality has warped their understanding of American free enterprise, and, erased from teacher memory union origins authored by Karl Marx in 1848. Unions are an outgrowth of a different type of government which prohibits individual negotiation and separates teachers from their friends and fellow parishioners at the local level, usurping educator loyalty at the outset. Teachers are thus beholden to, and protected by, the A.E.A. rather than the citizenry.

Union negotiated tenure enables failing teachers to remain in the classroom and gives rise to union arrogance as teachers come to believe they, not local parents, know better and should determine which teachers remain in, or depart, the classroom. Until the A.E.A. is dismantled, this miserable forty year union failure will stand between teachers and the community, between success and failure, and, between the past and the future.

I bet none of these anti - AEA comments are from educators!! So sad how some folks care so little about teachers

"Hank from Hartselle," should your comment not read, "I bet none of these anti-AEA comments are from the current failing public educators!! So sad how some folks care so little about failing public teachers."

I'm sure you're right, Hank. But, what's sad to me is how they KNOW so little about Alabama's teachers and/or AEA yet make these comments. It shows how easy it is for legislators to influence public opinion without having to use facts. This Legislature came out of the box attacking State Employees and going after their retirement system Chief. After causing their fill of damage, they went after Teachers. Since the GOP gained control, it's as though they are intent on attacking anything they perceive was important to the previous Democratic leadership.

Although changes were/are needed and there is bound to be some resistance, the bull in a china shop act is simply shameful. I can just hear them shouting to members of the former majority "Nanny, nanny, boo, boo." How productive...

The Republicans are simply swapping one in-state organization for an out-of-state organization. "Students First" is the laughable choice of a name for an organization supported with millions of dollars from some of the wealthiest billionaires in the country. It should be named "Billionaires First," because of all the money given to the organization by billionaires.

Does anyone really think that the young girl in her twenties working for Governor Bentley as Education Policy Director is the best choice to represent our students? Of course not! She disliked teaching so much she quit in less than five years! She simply presents the paperwork, and the talking points, and tells the Republicans how to push through the proposals for Charter schools, who want to send our tax dollars out-of-state to big corporations.

Do any of today's critics have any solutions to offer, or, merely name calling and harsh criticism? Does anyone believe we should take advice from those charged with the abject failure of the public school system? Would you also accept financial advice from Bernie Madoff? Political advice from Paul Hubbert? Racial advice from the Duke University strippers? Union advice from the A.E.A.? Spending advice from President Obama and Britney Spears?

Or ethics classes from the current Republicans.

What are your suggestions for this scurge that you call education Otis? You like correcting people and talking down to them, so give us common folk a look into your all knowing world Mr. Otis. We have lost our way and need you to guide us out of this terrible abyss. Pleae give me the answers that I crave?

Why do you think those schools are terrible to start with Otis? Look at the list of failing schools and tell me what they have in common. When they move those students into your school it will become a failing school also. Kids fail, people underachieve that is just life. You can't pass a stupid law that will magically make kids pass tests and come to school.I wanted to do something else in life, but couldn't cut it in that professional field. Nobody passed a law that kept me in school. I found another career path and have become successful. You can't mandate intelligence no matter how hard you try. There will always be kids who fail and people who are not so smart. That's what you get when you have to lawfully educate everyone from the age of 5 through 18. People are different with different attainable educational levels. Whether it is due to socioeconomics, lack of parental involvement or low personal drive. Arthur Orr wrote and passed a law that requires students wait until their 17th birthday before they can legally quit school in the hopes that it would help the dropout rate. Guess what? It hasn't helped much if any. It sounds good in theory and makes people feel good about themselves, but kids that want to dropout, dropout. This is a dumb state by comparison to other states, but it has always been a dumb state. No law is gonna change that. Only parents that put a value on education will. Certain segments of our population do not believe this statement, so it will never really change no matter what any Democrat or Republican gets passed. What say you, the great Otis?

Well said Decatur High!

If AEA is for it, I'm against it

I'm with Patrick

"But times have changed, the world has moved on, we've never had to deal with this before," along with, "we can't go back," and other iterations of this worn and shallow argument, easily recognized even by amateur historians, have have been laid to rest time and again throughout history. It was against monumental social change, (yes, even much greater than the current social issues before us), at the height of the Renaissance that Martin Luther, and others, advocated adherence to Christian values and prepared western civilization to eclipse all others and rise to the forefront of human endeavor. "DECATUR HIGH," the story of humankind is, in the main, the story of poverty from which escape rarely occurs, and then, only briefly. The whole of the earth has, for time immemorial, been a, "dumb state," populated by, "kids who fail and people who are not so smart.......... with different attainable educational levels........ due to socioeconomics, lack of parental involvement or low personal drive." All of this to say, your reasoning is not new, and, that Alabama's past is consistent with this historical record. Until the nineteen sixties poverty in the state was, by today's standards, astonishing, yet, devoid of western style immorality. At the time, political power rested securely with the Democrat Party which broke with tradition, and, over the objection of many, including the southern states, embarked on a wide ranging social mission to end poverty through welfare, birth control, abortion, etc. In order to facilitate this atrocious agenda, the Democrat Party turned not to existing charities but to the public school system. Colleges and universities began to imbue future educators with a hitherto absent compulsion to effect social change, for the children, of course. It is, judging from your recent comments, this social compulsion that so enamors you, regardless of its abject failure. It is also what separates the past from the present. Where once teacher devotion lay with student academic learning and standards, today's educators embrace horrific social causes invoking the aforementioned ancient, tired, failed argument, "it's poverty." The difference between the Alabama of years past, when poverty was much more serious and pervasive, and now, is that society, not the public school system, dealt with the social issues to which you seem so devoted. Have you wondered why poorer teachers and poorer children, indeed the whole of the state, routinely met with much higher academic standards? Please, spare me the ancient, "but times have changed." It was only when public school systems were infused with the Democrat Party social agenda in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, that the country witnessed an explosion in teenage pregnancy, abortion, the lowering of academic standards and numerous other problems hitherto restrained by community social pressure. Now, the more taxpayer dollars and the more teachers "help" the poor and minorities, the worse their deterioration, and, the lower the academic standards as the historical record damningly reveals. Clearly, the solution is for teachers to cast off the social yoke, returning it to the community where it has for millennia lain, and, for educators to again assume their correct role in society. The difficulty for you in accomplishing this goal is, I believe, that you are unable to reject what you perceive to be your social mission, so committed are you to Democrat Party ideals. The massive resistance you would encounter among your peers would be formidable, something with which I am familiar. You would be called a racist, a homophobe, and other less polite names by those who offer no answers, simply for seeking to alter the current downward trajectory before the public school system "helps" the African-American community into oblivion, dragging the remainder of the poor and the greater polity down as well.

"DECATUR HIGH," touche on the Republican ethics comment. Ouch! Savor your win as I endeavor always not to expose my flank. I commend your quick wit.

Bottom line is that the AEA is not getting "their" way anymore and they are whinning like 4 year old children.

Otis, you continue to make a fool out of yourself everyday. You are a joke.

Otis I wonder if you even know how a school is designated a failing school? Well of course you do you are the all-knowing OTIS THE GREAT! Why don't you quit bitching and become a teacher since you are so damn intelligent! OH and by the way OTIS, THANK A TEACHER THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF SPEWING YOUR B**LL S**T ALL OVER THE COMMENT SECTION ! Seems you have a personal problem with teachers! I hate to tell you but when you even say we need to get rid of teachers that are failing, who is going to pick them someone like you with your all knowing intelligence. Why don't we let every teacher go to other peoples jobs and get rid of the ones they believe are a failure even though they are not even equiped to know what their job really demands, HUH, WHY NOT!!??? Get a life OTIS!

I continue to suffer criticism for my formation of the written word, responsibility for which rests solely with the Decatur City Schools as I am a lifelong resident. "Wst Morgan," as I have noted, of all of your qualities, it is your depth I most admire, "BROOKHAVEN," your unbridled anger.

i

Otis I am not angry just tired of your condemnation!

And by the way you never replied to my comment just spun things as usual.

"BROOKHAVEN," let us assume I have a hard copy of the legislation detailing the criteria exactly. What do you propose be changed? Thank you for your second comment, I would be delighted to entertain your thoughtful reflection.

Otis we need to change how we come up with what is a failing school. Brookhaven middle school has 29 goals to meet each year and they achieve 27 out of 29 each year for the last three years, yet they are labeled failing even though they make a numerical grade of 93.1 if I can divide.The only reason they do not make 29 out of 29 is because of special education sub-groups. I wouldn't call that failing, seems to me they need to fix the ARMT test that the federal government makes the schools go by! What say you wise man Otis?

I say be careful with your attribution of wisdom. Marie, I too believe these standards are unsuitable, though for different reasons. Even for minimum standards, they set an abysmally low learning threshold. At the risk of appearing sarcastic, I would liken your analysis to a small subset of third graders who have memorized the alphabet except, for example, "i" and "n." Yes, they score over ninety percent, however, they can neither read nor write. Your argument seems to suggest that since Brookhaven failed to meet the minimum standards, the legislature should simply remove two minimum standards from consideration. The question I ask you, how many minimum standards could be removed and still meet with your approval?

27 of 29 = 93.1% Grade A, 26 of 29 = 89.7% Grade B+, 25 of 29 = 86.2% Grade B, and so forth.

The bottom line is that Alabama, with the super power lobby of the AEA, is and has been second to last in the nation in education. The AEA has no agenda outside of keeping poor quality teachers in paying positions due to "TENURE." The quality teachers do not need a union and the only reason they are a part of it is to have liability insurance. This is huge step forward in moving Alabama upward in education.