The Birmingham News has a good editorial this morning about the state of the education budget. Alabama Education Association godfather and uberlobbyist Paul Hubbert won the battle of the budgets, the News says, as the Senate committee that writes the education budget gave the go-ahead to the Hubbert-approved numbers yesterday during the Legislature’s special session.
Never mind that the universities had banded together to fight the proposed 11 percent cut in their budgets and warned that what the News called “draconian cuts” would likely lead to “staggering tuition hikes” to make up the difference.
As the News says, “So much for principle.“
Wednesday, with the agreement of higher education officials and their Senate supporters, a Senate committee voted 14-0 for an education budget that gives universities $5 million less than they would have gotten under the budget that died May 19.
What gives? Or maybe more accurately, who gives? Teachers’ lobbyist Paul Hubbert once again is getting his way, and punishing those who dared stand up to him.
As the News explains, the budget diverts $5 million from higher education to K-12 transportation costs. And there is the possibility, if only in theory, of more: The budget also includes conditional appropriations for higher education of $30 million—“conditional on the economy being much stronger than forecast,“ the News says.
As for Hubbert?
“It’s enough probably to get their attention, but not enough to be vindictive,“ he said of the new numbers. “It’s kind of a tap on the wrist.“
Is Hubbert trying to sound magnanimous? Is that a joke?
And what’s with the universities? Is this their mantra now:
“Oh, thank you, Dr. Hubbert, wise and generous one, for only tapping us on the wrist. We now see the error of our ways and the futility of fighting against the enduring strength and assured inevitability of your will. We are eternally grateful for your mercy and your willingness to suffer our insolent presence just one (special) session more.“
Notice that no one’s said anything this go-round about tuition hikes. Are those off the table, thanks to the “not-enough-to-be-vindictive” nature of the new budget?
And here are a few questions for Hubbert, whose organization supposedly looks out for the interests of teachers and K-12 education:
How are university tuition hikes good for K-12 teachers? Many of those teachers have college-aged children they are trying to put through school. Don’t cuts to university budgets squeeze those teachers’ household budgets, too?
Don’t university cuts, at the very least, make it more difficult for all K-12 teachers to see their students succeed in higher education, because they have the effect of raising the financial bar that keeps many students from being able to afford college?
And won’t the effect of those university cuts eventually be felt at the K-12 level anyway, since less money means fewer university classes, fewer education graduates and fewer new teachers entering the ranks of K-12 instructors? (And won’t that mean fewer dues for the AEA?)
And all of the preceding leaves aside completely the ramifications to the universities’ programs, efforts to recruit outstanding professors, research capabilities and all the other functions universities serve.
Congratulations, Dr. Hubbert; you’ve won a resounding Pyrrhic victory.
Good luck in the overall war to keep Alabama’s kids competitive with the rest of the country.
