A biology textbook published by the company Accelerated Christian Education in the 2010s argues that the Loch Ness Monster is a real dinosaur—a plesiosaur—that possibly survived Noah’s flood and is ironclad proof against the theory of evolution.
If that sounds absolutely bananas to your sane brain, and you think that no such textbook from a company that pushes such laughable religious propaganda should ever be seriously taught in an American classroom, well, I have unfortunate news.
You bought some.
And yes, I do mean you. As in you, an Alabama taxpayer.
That’s because ACE is one of several vendors on the approved vendor list supplying textbooks that can be purchased using CHOOSE Act funds in Alabama.
To be clear: Those funds are pulled directly from the education budget that supports Alabama’s public schools. Instead of new tech or free lunches for all kids, we’re letting religious zealots buy and sell propaganda on the Alabama taxpayer’s dime.
There also have been materials that teach dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth together; that the earth is just 6,000 years old; that the KKK was a Christian organization that protected communities; that South African apartheid wasn’t so bad; that slaves in America were treated with dignity; and that Japanese whalers once caught a dinosaur.
All of it paid for with your tax dollars.
That’s why I laughed the other day when I saw several conservative websites and social media accounts trying to make an issue out of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Doug Jones saying he’d like to stop the CHOOSE Act in its tracks.
Please, make an issue out of it.
Because every time anyone draws the least bit of attention to this absolutely ridiculous act of theft that has been forced upon the taxpayers of Alabama, those taxpayers get an opportunity to learn just a little bit more about this truly awful and unconstitutional law. Honestly, there is no clearer sign that conservatives in this state have been living in a conservative news bubble than the fact that they think this could be a winning issue for them.
The truth is, as every lawmaker in this state knows, that if you put the CHOOSE Act to a vote of the people, it would get trounced. Bigly.
Just as it has been in every other state where it’s appeared on a ballot.
Let me repeat that more plainly: A voucher program taking public dollars from public schools and using them to prop up private schools has never, ever won an election. Not in ruby-red Kentucky. Not in ultra-conservative Utah. Nowhere. It’s 0-for-20 nationwide, and the votes haven’t been close.
Because such a program is an affront to the very idea of public education.
Just look at Alabama’s program—more than 70 percent of the money, despite income caps and other requirements that are currently in place, has gone to students already enrolled in private schools. Those private schools are mostly held to zero standards. Those private schools do not have to follow federal guidelines for disabled students. Those private schools do not have to follow state requirements for student achievement. Those private schools do not have to adhere to the same standards for reporting sexual and physical abuse or establishing programs for prevention.
Oh, and did I mention that next year the caps and limitations on the program go away? That will allow millionaires in the state to enter the program, sucking more than a half-billion dollars away from public schools and funding the elite private schools that were mostly established as segregation academies and still serve an overwhelmingly white student body.
School choice … yeah, right.
You want school choice? Let parents decide where to send their children regardless of ZIP code. Let them pick the schools that are highest performing. Let the folks from the inner city of Birmingham send their kids to Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills. Let the folks in Huntsville go to Madison City.
But no one proposes that. That’s a little too much choice. A little too much freedom.
Remember when the Republican-led legislature (illegally) shoved through the Alabama Accountability Act—the program that first brought us the “failing schools” designation? That program gave students in those designated failing schools the right to transfer to any non-failing schools.
Well, at least, at first.
Then the lawmakers representing the breakaway, predominantly white school districts in the suburbs got involved and the options for transferring were whittled way down. And all of a sudden, schools got the option to deny entry to any student they didn’t want.
Because this ain’t about choice. And it sure as hell ain’t about opportunity.
It’s about exclusion.
It’s about using taxpayer dollars to pay for segregation and religious teaching. It’s about propping up private businesses operated by big political donors. It’s about undermining the idea of a well-educated society.
So, yeah, keep making it an issue during the campaigns. Keep shining a bright spotlight on this child-harming monstrosity. Keep giving people like me the opportunity to tell everyone about the twisted, absurd things their tax dollars are paying for through this stupid CHOOSE Act.
I’ll bet on public education.
