Alabama Retirement Systems’ CEO David Bronner recently used his newsletter to lecture parents about the “extreme” idea of wanting a portion of their taxes to pay for the education of their children. His assertion sounds a bit like the National School Boards Association calling soccer moms who dare attend school board meetings terrorists.
The entire point of education savings accounts (ESAs) is to allow tax dollars to follow students to whatever school their parents choose for them. However, Bronner described ESAs as the state allocating funding to students (not true) or to be pocketed by parents who homeschool (also not true).
Not to mention that, as chief investor of the pension fund, Bronner has absolutely nothing to do with the education of children.
In contrast, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth have given public support to universal school choice and ESAs. That’s good news for Alabama and its students. While state spending on education has increased by more than 82 percent in the last 10 years, student scores just aren’t improving. Parents are frustrated. Students aren’t learning. Something’s got to give.
In 2019, Alabama was infamously dead last in public school math scores, ranking 52 out of 52 government-run school systems. While the state no longer has the dubious distinction of being the last of the last, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores continue to show that very little improvement is being made. In fact, NAEP eighth-grade math scores are the exact same as they were in 2000, and
