The World Around You

According to ASU Board Vice President Joe Reed ASU has reached a “final” deal on teacher testing. Now, its back to the State Board of Education for approval.

If all goes as planned and the agreement is approved by Thompson, the state could begin testing in early 2006 using a nationally recognized exam called Praxis II. That series of exams tests teachers in their knowledge of the subject or subjects they will teach.

New teachers, as well as veteran teachers moving to the state, would have to pass the exam to qualify for a license. It would also require teachers changing fields to undergo testing in the new subjects they plan to teach. Alabama teachers already on the job would not be required to take the exam but could voluntarily take it to demonstrate knowledge in their teaching field.

Thirty-seven states use the Praxis II or some exam like it.

I find it hard to believe that there are no additional roadblocks in this agreement, but I hope, for the good of the state, we can finally institute testing and move forward.

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The selection of a new head of environmental management for Alabama has really gotten out of hand. The commission is trying to get some good PR by selecting a panel of Alabama residents to assist with selecting a new director, but they are opening themselves up to criticism no matter who they choose. I don’t think this is a bad move. I just hope they thought it through.

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The Political Skinny in this morning’s Mobile Register makes an interesting observation about the loyalty of Governor Riley’s staff,

With Andress’ departure, chief of staff Toby Roth is left as one of the few top advisers who has lasted the governor’s entire 22-month tenure. Riley is on his second finance director, second legal adviser, second press secretary, second senior policy adviser and third legislative director.

Now, this has been a particularly difficult 22 months to serve the Governor, but still, that seems like a staggering rate of turn over. Until you look closer. Riley himself removed his finance director by appointing him Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court and removed his legal advisor by appointing him Attorney General. So, what does this paragraph really mean? Not much.

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I’ve been following this odd story from my hometown in Indiana. From the descriptions previously offered I find it hard to believe that this is the answer,

Officials in Fort Wayne still are seeking the cause of house-rattling booms while officials in Richmond, Va., believe they have solved a similar mystery.

Authorities in Richmond last week arrested a teenager who they said had created explosive noise-makers using plastic soda bottles.

Bill Farrar, spokesman for the Richmond Department of Fire and Emergency Services, said he contacted Fort Wayne after learning that its residents had been complaining since August of booms that shook their homes.

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I hope you and yours enjoy the holiday, eat good food and generally just have a good time.

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I am enthused about the potential for development in Prattville, and I think the Mayor and Chamber have done an outstanding job marketing the city. I just hope there is going to be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.

“The clock tower is kind of a signature for this development,” says Byard.

It is here on 85 acres where they’re putting the finishing touches on an office park, an upscale development just a long tee drive away from the Robert Trent Jones Golf trail. The mayor says the business park should be an attraction to corporations, but so far no one has committed to moving in.

“Economic development is not an overnight thing. You can’t just snap your fingers and say there it is,” Byard says.

On the other side of Highway 6, 52 acres worth of dirt being turned for high-end retail and 700 homes, homes surrounded by lakes and trails.

“When this is completed, when this development is built out it’ll be well in excess of a hundred-million dollars worth of investments,” says Prattville Chamber of Commerce president Connie Bainbridge.

Public records with the city of Prattville indicate an Outback Steak House will be built right across from Longhorn’s, and there are tentative plans to build a life-style shopping district, something similar to the Shoppes at Eastchase in Montgomery, near the business park.

We have yet to see any direct economic benefit from the Hyundai, while jobs are being created all over central Alabama. Now, we have this wonderful new development that shows great promise, but we don’t know what it will ultimately bring. I have a lot of patience and am willing to wait and see how things develop, but I am also not someone who is going to sit by while the rest of the region passes us by. I have faith in our city leaders, I just hope the faith is well placed.

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Twinkle Andress is leaving her post in the Riley administration,

Gov. Bob Riley’s deputy chief of staff, Twinkle Andress, is leaving the governor’s office on Dec. 1.

Andress has announced that she will be a candidate for the chairmanship of the Alabama Republican Party when Marty Connors term as chairman expires in February. Connors is not seeking re-election.

Twinkle is well known in political circles in the state and has run for statewide office. I would prefer just about anyone to Marty Connors, but Twinkle is certainly worthy of consideration for the post.

**Crossposted at Polstate.com

**Submitted to OTB’s Beltway Traffic Jam

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Welcome to the two newest members of the Axis of Weevil (two women no less).

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When will reason and logic prevail?

The Montgomery County Board of Education will reconsider plans today to move forward with a multimillion-dollar performing arts center at one of the system’s magnet schools.

Several parents and community members are upset with the board for approving the $9.5 million facility at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School during Thursday’s meeting.

Board chairman Tommie Miller, who voted against the measure, said he understands why people are upset.

“I think the approval of this plan by the majority of the board on Thursday was one of the most irresponsible votes the board has made since I have been here,” Miller said. “It went beyond any reason or logic.”

Mr. Miller is right. With the failure of some of the tax renewals on the November ballot, this is no time for the Board to be spending money irresponsibly. The argument is made later in this morning’s piece that there is $4 million dollars that was allocated by the previous governor for this specific purpose that is just sitting in an account. What the board should be doing is determining whether those funds must be used for that purpose. I doubt it.

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The parking situation in downtown Montgomery has been festering for sometime. Now, with the encouragement of growth and new business development in the area it has just about reached a breaking point. On a normal business day it is simply impossible to find places to park near businesses that people frequent. The city needs to start developing solutions now, because it is already hurting business and the problems is going to get much worse before it gets better.

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The number of state workers is down. This is hardly surprising given the budget cuts over the last two years,

Other big declines in jobs between September 2003 and September of this year came at the public health department, the state court system and the agriculture department, after lawmakers chopped their General Fund money.

The General Fund, expected to total $1.4 billion in the 2005 fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, is the largest of many pots of state money tapped by non-education agencies.

State courts, including appeals courts, employed 1,859 people in September, a drop from the year before of 261 employees, or 12.3 percent.

Randy Helms, the administrative director of courts, said the cuts came after lawmakers chopped the courts’ General Fund money by $9.22 million for 2004, a drop of 6.2 percent from 2003. Courts get most of their money from the General Fund.

There is little doubt that the work force is stretched and we will see the ramifications of that if nothing changes over the next few years. The age of the state work force is much higer than the private sector and when those people start retiring, its going to be harder to replace them with people who are willing to take on the workload currently being handled for the pay offered. There is a great article about this phenomenon in the federal work force in last week’s US News.

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My weekly column ran in both the Wednesday (Prattville) Progress and the regular Saturday edition of the Prattville Progress:

As a student of politics, I am constantly looking at poll numbers. Whether they’re asking what TV shows people watch or who their favorite politicians are, polls offer one window into what our fellow citizens are thinking about the major issues of the day. Over the weekend, I located a survey released by The Center for Governmental Services at Auburn University under a project called Ask Alabama.

One encouraging finding in this survey is that fifty-eight percent of those asked are “very concerned” about Alabama’s continuing budget shortfalls. An additional thirty-five percent are “somewhat concerned”. That almost ninety-three percent of the citizenry are concerned about the budget is a very positive development. At least we are not in denial that there is a problem. That is the first step toward solving it. Yet, as we all know, once you move past acknowledgement of the problem, things get much, much murkier.

One potential fix is restructuring the tax system to make it more stable. The survey finds that fifty-seven percent of respondents agreed that the state taxation system is not fair. Now, holding that belief could put you in a couple of different camps. You could believe that others are not paying their share, while you pay too much. You could also believe that you pay too little, while others pay too much (this is far less likely, but possible). So we acknowledge that we need to fix the budget situation and we also believe that the tax side of the equation is unfair. Now, we’re getting somewhere.

Even when we get to some possible solutions to the revenue side of the equation, there is some agreement. Sixty-six percent of respondents supported higher taxes on tobacco products, seventy-six percent supported higher taxes on alcoholic beverages, sixty-seven percent supported an education lottery, and sixty-eight percent supported taxation on video gaming. Now each of these propositions has problems of its own, but they do have broad public support. So, for anyone to say these proposals are off the table is denying the public will. These are all short-term fixes that can bring in some immediate revenue, but will not fix the unfairness that many people see.

The unfairness can only be addressed by dealing with the three largest taxes: property, income and sales taxes. The survey indicates majority opposition to increasing the sales tax rate, income tax rate or property tax rate. This certainly doesn’t surprise anyone who has studied this area of policy, but constructing a stable tax infrastructure will involves increases in some rates and decreases in others. Proposing a solution that seems equitable to all will not be possible, but ultimately putting the state on much firmer financial ground will mean a fairer system that requires sacrifice from everyone. Getting to that system will require the greatest sacrifice from those that will want to give the least, those who benefit from the status quo.

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Three out of five Alabamians surveyed in a new poll believe that abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother,

But on the question of Supreme Court appointments, only 43 percent polled last week said that Bush should nominate justices willing to overturn Roe, compared with 38 percent who said they preferred nominees committed to uphold the decision. And in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother’s life, almost two-thirds said the government should pay for abortions when the mother cannot. The survey sample was split almost evenly between women and men.

“I think this demonstrates the complexity of the issue, the difficulty in dealing with the issue and the fact that people in Alabama are sensitive to the problems that are associated with abortion, such as exceptions that seem reasonable,” said Keith Nicholls, head of the USA Polling Group, which conducted last week’s survey.

Do Alabamians know that they only way to get what they want is to overturn Roe? Apparently not. Or maybe people don’t think this is the most important issue out there right now and there should be more to picking a justice than his or her stand on the abortion question. I can hold out hope can’t I?

**Crossposted at Polstate.com

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George Will takes up with the losing cause in his Sunday column:

So try to think anthropologically about those ‘Bama fans who fire up their RVs, break out their radar detectors and sing “Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer! Give ‘em hell, Alabama!” They are not just emulating the RVer who said: “We can’t be young, but we can be immature.” They are pursuing what sportswriter Frank Deford called “that curious Southern combination of eternal knighthood and childhood.” Roll Tide.

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As a huge movie maniac, I had a wonderful afternoon reading the 400 nominees for the 100 great movie quotes by the American Film Institute. Stay tuned for my personal choices for the Top 100…

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Congratulations to Purdue wide receiver Taylor Stubblefield for breaking the NCAA record for career receptions,

The record-breaker came on a juggling 6-yard catch with 1:43 left in the first quarter. That gave Stubblefield 301 receptions since he started playing for the Boilermakers in 2001.

**Crossposted at Sportsblog

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Check out the stories in Alabama Politics, highlighted at AL Hotline

Montgomery Advertiser: Get-out-the-vote efforts targeted

Birmingham News: Cherry Dies in Prison

Birmingham News: Hammonds Gets rosy evaluation, skips raise

Birmingham News: Riley, SACS Meeting today on AU Academic Probation

Birmingham News: State board rejects textbooks

Mobile Register: School discipline bill nears passage

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Alabama Senator Richard Shelby is in a tough spot.

Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, has sponsored a provision that would bar public housing projects from using federal funds for any election activities, including voter registration, voter identification and get-out-the-vote activities. Shelby’s measure, which is backed by GOP Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, is part of a Senate bill to fund the Department of Housing and Urban Development next year.

“Congress allocates scarce resources for public housing,” said Shelby spokesman Andrew Gray. “Every dollar that is spent for any other purpose hurts the mission of providing housing for our neediest.”

Gerald Lenoir, a spokesman from Count the Vote 2004, said Shelby’s proposal is “absurd.”

“(Housing authorities) are areas where we need to encourage voter registration and participation in elections,” Lenoir said. “This is a blatant attempt to suppress the African-American vote and the Democratic vote.”

They may both be right. Senator Shelby may be supporting it because he thinks resources are scarce and should not be spent on get-out-the-vote efforts, but the effect is that voter turnout from public housing would be lower and therefore help Republicans. The positions are not dichotomous. I would expect vigorous opposition from the Democrats on this one, but if its contained in the omnibous bill, it’s going to pass.

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I can add some professional expertise and knowledge to this story in the Mobile Register this morning. I was in on the development of the plan to survey students statewide and helped assemble some of the funding for it as well.

First, the survey was not a sample, so there is no margin of error. it was administered to every student who attended school that day. Overall, the article does a very good job of presenting both sides of the argument on the validity of the survey with a response from PRIDE Surveys. The City Councilman who doubts the validity of the results because there is drug use in every school system is right. The statewide data shows that there is substantial use of illegal substances (including alcohol and cigarettes, which are illegal for those under 21 and 19 respectively)in every system, to varying degrees.

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The State Board of Education made some questionable decisions on textbooks yesterday. This is not surprising, in that the battle over textbooks has been a constant source of pride for the religious right for many years now. If you want the full story on the subject, pick up The Language Police by Diane Ravitch.

I am deeply disturbed by a process where a committee assigned by the State Board of Education to the task of reviewing textbooks makes its recommendations after a year of work. Then, based on one person’s objections, those recommendations are shunted aside. That is WRONG. The Board members should be held accountable. On the flip side, bravo to Dr. Morton, state superintendent of schools, for backing up the correct process.

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Bobby Lowder should be just a little bit nervous this morning,

Gov. Bob Riley plans to meet this morning in Atlanta with Auburn University’s accrediting agency to clarify what the school must do to get off probation.

“What I want the people of Alabama to know is, I’m still committed to doing whatever it takes to get Auburn off of probation this year,” Riley said Thursday.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools holds its annual meeting Dec. 4-7 and will consider Auburn’s status.

The Governor is well aware that “whatever it takes” may very well mean removing one of the most powerful businessman in Alabama from the Board of Trustees. He will get a lot of credit from a lot of people if he can be the catalyst to make that happen.

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No one is talking to tell us why Michael McInnish, Director of the Montgomery Area Housing Authority was suspended with pay yesterday. The Housing Authority has had a variety of problems over the years, but it had appeared they had dealt with most of them. If I had to guess, it may be a personal issue of impropriety that is under investigation, but that is purely a guess. I was way off-base and we will soon see what the accusations really are.

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The fact that anybody would support keeping these two Auburn trustees on board, even though their presence could jeopardize the accreditation of the school, tells you everything you need to know. The Governor should get involved and put an end to these games. There is no doubt that the Auburn University Board of Trustees has shown a pattern over many years of intermingling their relationships with each other and with the University in a way that is unethical and inproper. The book needs to be closed on this sitaution, and soon.

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