Education is getting a lot of attention over here in Baldwin Country. A little of it actually focuses on meeting kids’ educational needs. But most of the hot news in education is about meeting adults’ needs. Needs like exercising power and control and above all, (insert high five here) winning. And winning for these folks is seceding from the Baldwin County School System and forming their own independent local school system.
Down along the Gulf, this secession thing has been fermenting for a couple of years. All the while, politicians and some vocal citizens have been fomenting discontent against the county school board. Their most compelling allegation is that the schools in their communities are being shortchanged – not getting educational value for the tax dollars paid to the county. Taking local control will make them “better” in some vague way and best of all, these advocates claim, it will hardly cost anything more than what folks are paying right now. Local control, better educational “stuff” (Teachers? Buildings? Curricula?). And all this for just a few dollars more. What’s not to like?
In fact, there’s a lot. Let’s just skip over trying to find a compelling, quantifiable reason for splitting with the county school system and go right to secession’s obvious negatives. First is the creation of a whole new multilayered educational bureaucracy in the beach cities. These administrative overhead positions will duplicate what already exists at the county level and will have to be paid for from education funding. So they’re adding staff while doing little or nothing to improve what goes on in the classroom – where the “rubber meets the road” in education.
This separation further complicates job mobility among the teachers. A Baldwin County teacher can serve anywhere in the system and retain both retirement longevity and position seniority. A separate system keeps the first, but loses the second. Not much of an incentive for experienced teachers to flock to the secessionist school system.
The cost, a 7.5-mill property tax increase, may be acceptable to get the ethereal benefits described by the separate school system supporters, but there were some serious reservations about the methodology used by their expert. Might not be enough; maybe there was more uncertainty in the estimates than anyone would admit.
However, one money-fact we do have a high degree of confidence in, is that well over a half million dollars was spent in the process of bringing the issue to a vote. Some estimates put it at nearly three-quarters of a million. Whatever the number, it’s money spent in the name of education, but not for actually educating school kids.
But let’s get back to the story of the secession movement. The proponents, after calling for a vote on the tax increase needed to make a separate school system financially viable (maybe), asked for a delay. They said they needed more time to educate the public on the merits of their position. Maybe they meant “re-educate” as in brain wash, because it sure looked like they knew they were going to lose and needed to do something drastic to pull off a victory.
They didn’t get their delay and they lost. And it wasn’t a squeaker – they lost big. Better than 2-to-1 against them. The public spoke, and loudly: No new taxes; therefore no new school system. Not how the secessionists heard the message. They see it as an expression of Alabamians’ natural aversion to taxes. Nothing to do with how people feel about their issue: A separate school system.
After all, a separate school system wasn’t even on the ballot and couldn’t have been voted down. And in the interests of being fair and balanced in reporting (maybe just this one time), I have to admit that many of those who voted against the tax increase could have voted for a separate schools system for the beach cities. Voting against taxes clearly is not a sure-thing indication of a vote against setting up an independent school system. Quite possibly, if offered the opportunity to secede from the county system with the associated costs covered by other people’s money, the outcome might well have been a landslide in the opposite direction.
So with this possibility driving their dream, Orange Beach and Gulf Shores are keeping their local school boards in place. And their leaders are checking with their lawyers to see if there’s a way to get tax money away from the county. Maybe a law suit (if you can’t beat ‘em at the polls, try the courts). And too, they are finding reasons for their resounding loss at the polls. Of course these reasons aren’t related to the possibility that the people actually don’t want a local independent school system. Blame for losing is attributed to hurricanes – and insurance costs – and the position of the planets and, don’t forget, they didn’t have time to educate the voters.
Whatever. But as the secessionists of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores gird their loins to fight on (mention was made that it might take 10 years) an observation attributed to Einstein popped into my head: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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