Will Alabama Legislators Make School Choice a Reality?

A comprehensive Alabama school choice bill is stalled in an Alabama Senate study group following objections from legislators and public school advocates. The Parent’s Choice Act, introduced by Sen. Del Marsh (R–Anniston), would provide families with state-funded education savings accounts that could be used to pay for private school tuition, standardized test prep, and homeschooling, among other qualifying education expenses. 

Because SB140 would use public education dollars to empower families to leave their local public school, the bill has faced considerable backlash from public school defenders, with Sen. Kirk Hatcher (D-Montgomery) describing the Parent’s Choice Act as an effort to “dismantle public education.”

The Alabama Education Association, which represents public school teachers, released a statement alleging that “The Parent’s Choice Bill is nothing but a shell game of a voucher program to divert funding from our community schools.” The group added that “Alabama’s students and educators cannot afford to take almost a half a billion dollar hit from public education.”

The bill has also faced considerable opposition in the Alabama Senate, where it’s been assigned to a study commission, where some objections may get ironed. (“Study groups in the past have become graveyards for contentious proposals,” the Associated Press noted in a February story about the bill.) 

Legislators cite concern over reducing funding for Alabama schools as a primary issue with the bill, which a legislative estimate found would appropriate over $500 million from Alabama’s Education Trust Fund. Some senators from rural districts with few private school or charter school options have also expressed hesitation about the bill: “If you have one great school in the district, everyone can’t go there, because you have to turn people down,” Sen. Bobby Singleton (D–Greensboro) reportedly said.  “So it’s not their choice.”

It’s a shame that SB140’s fate is now a mystery, because Alabama students can’t afford the status quo. Alabama currently ranks 47th in the U.S. News and World Report state education rankings, with 79 percent of Alabama 8th-graders scoring below proficient in mathematics. Only 16.3 percent of high school seniors in Al