Hope, possibilities and charter schools

I caught a great clip on SportsCenter tonight.

This is Rachel Nichols reporting for ESPN on the way residents have latched on to the Saints' Super Bowl run as a measure of hope.

Check out the scene at a local elementary school in the Lower Ninth Ward -- which remains, in large part, devastated from Hurricane Katrina.

This is Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School for Science and Technology ... it is an elementary school. It is a public school. And it is a charter school.

One quote I'd like to point out comes from the school's principal, Dr. Doris Roche-Hicks, on what teachers told the students after the Saints' Super Bowl win:

We said to them, they're champions now. And you're champions. It gives them hope. It gives them hope -- to not only dream, but think about the possibilities that are out there.

The football game provided a convenient illustration: Charter schools are about hope and possibilities -- hope for kids who are underserved by the models in traditional schools, and possibilities that they can be freed to achieve more elsewhere.

Dr. Robert Bentley ... are you listening?

Bentley, a Republican gubernatorial candidate who constantly touts his membership on the House Education Appropriations Committee as proof that he understands the budget process, voted Wednesday to indefinitely postpone a bill that would have allowed for the creation of charter schools in Alabama. ("Indefinitely postpone" or "temporarily postpone" is legislative speak for "kill.") Bentley said in a statement that he made that vote because his two amendments to "improve" the bill were not considered in committee, and he couldn't support the bill without them.

Well, guess what? Committees aren't the only places legislators can amend bills. Bentley could have introduced his amendments before the entire House on the floor. (You remember that from ninth-grade civics, right?)

But Bentley, who's now in his eighth year in the House, knows this. So why didn't he?

Let's look at the amendments. One would cap the number of charter schools at 10 to start; the other would place the final decision on whether to institute charter schools out of the hands of the State Board of Education and into the hands of the local school board, because Bentley says he supports local control, you see.

Really? Well, then, why does he want lawmakers in Montgomery deciding how many charter schools individual districts can have?

So much for local control.

You can bet that both of these amendments are supported by the Alabama Education Association, whether they or Bentley will admit to it or not. In addition to being contradictory, as I have just outlined, they would weaken the charter school bill by giving local officials the ability to thwart state law.

... Kind of like local amendments that create charity bingo, which megacasino owners exploit to flout the state's law banning slot machines. But I digress.

Bentley was never going to support the charter school bill. If he was, he could have voted for the bill to keep it alive and sought to introduce his amendments on the floor.

Oh, sure; he'll run around to campaign stops and tell everyone that he tried to "fix" the charter school bill. But in practice, those amendments were just his out in committee.

That's what we call politics, friends.
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