Jim Bonner/Why Alabama is on the Bottom

Can Alabama education be saved? Is it as bad as some say or as good as others say? No matter which, there’s no road to be travelled but onward, and citizens need to take an interest in just who has control of our public schools.

Local voters will have a chance to choose among three candidates for Alabama State School Board District 7: Jim Bonner, Rhea Tays Fulmer, and Jeff Newman. Tays says she opposes Federal interference in state school matters, but such interference has been present for years. Newman says he’s most qualified due to having worked in education for over 30 years. Bonner is calling for more accountability.

All three candidates have something to offer, but Jim Bonner comes with the least baggage and probably the most common sense. We sincerely endorse Jim for this position.

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A word about Common Core and other such programs: Think programs like Common Core are new? Just look back at old news reports from the 1940s onward and you’ll see that every 10 to 15 years a new program is launched that will “leave no child behind.” We compare such programs to the various fad diets that that seem to abound, but never work.

Alabama has raised the drop out age, and we agree with that. Many extremely intelligent people disagree with it. Our reasoning is that surely a young person learns something between 16 and 17 and will better see the need of an education. Opponents’ reasoning is that you can’t make a child learn if he/she doesn’t want to, no matter the age.

The sad fact is that most students with a lower IQ, and there are many in Alabama due to families with more brain power leaving for greener pastures, and those whose parents don’t support them are NEVER going to want to learn. After all if one in ten thousand high school drop outs become millionaires by the age of 30, surely they will be one of these lucky ones. We’re pretty sure these are the same youths who don’t wear a condom or practice any kind of safe sex since they’re certain neither pregnancy nor social disease will affect them.

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Alabama also ranks high in the number of unmarried women giving birth. Some women, either because of love of the welfare system or total lack of social/moral structure, give birth to more than one illegitimate child. It’s not unusual to find some women under 30 with two to five children by different fathers. It’s a sad commentary on both education and moral values in our state, and Alabama will never leave the bottom of the heap as long as this “I don’t care/Gimme more” mindset prevails.

Shoalanda