New National Report Critical of School Secession in Alabama
A report out Wednesday says Alabama is at the forefront of a trend: school systems breaking away to form separate districts. According to the report from the national advocacy group EdBuild, almost a quarter of the nation’s school district breakaways since 2000 have happened in Alabama. Lead author Rebecca Sibilia tells WBHM’s Dan Carsen the work started with a nationwide survey of school secession laws.
Why it’s Happening, and Why EdBuild Calls it “Alarming”
“What we found was startling in that most states do not require any consideration of what’s happening with the children that are being left behind … Our school funding system is creating gulfs. The students who are being left behind tend to be left behind in impoverished, denser, poorer districts. [And] whenever you’re breaking apart a larger, logically functioning municipality, you end up in a place where you start duplicating and tripling the costs associated with providing education, and frankly, just further burdening the taxpayers in order to create this notion of local control … Communities are being provided the incentive to break away from larger municipalities because they get to keep their wealth. You can’t blame communities for trying to do so — they’re always going to want to provide for their kids. This is a school-funding system and a set of laws that are providing the incentive and allowing that to occur.”
Race, but Not Just Race
“We don’t want to necessarily say that this is race-motivated, certainly not in all cases, but we do believe it’s socioeconomically motivated, and unfortunately that’s also linked to race in our country.”
And in Gardendale?
“The judge did find that there were some racially segregating motives behind the Gardendale effort. One of the things that was striking to us, though, is that the City of Gardendale was saying, ‘Look there are so many other neighborhoods that have seceded under this existing desegregation order. Why can’t we?”
Solutions
“The real and ultimate solution here is to reduce the incentive to [secede] by changing the way we’re funding schools, and to go back to the Supreme Court and argue that school district borders should not be the means by which we can continue to segregate our children.”
To see the EdBuild report, click here. To hear an extended conversation with lead author Rebecca Sibilia, click below:
Critics said ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ would flop. They underestimated Turtle Power
After 35 years, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is back in theaters. The film's director looks back on the obstacles to making it in the first place.
With replay review and ‘robot umps,’ who is still trying to become an MLB umpire?
Between replay review, automated balls and strikes and viral lowlights on social media, the work of baseball umpires has been transformed by technology. But none of that has deterred aspiring umpires.
Inside one of the most understaffed immigration courts in the country
The Chelmsford, Mass., court has hemorrhaged judges, a consequence of the Trump administration's seemingly contradictory efforts to downsize the federal government and increase immigration arrests.
Is Kari Lake a CEO? Her agency said so. The law suggests not
Kari Lake has sought to dismantle Voice of America and its federal parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The agency has recently called her its acting CEO. But the law suggests she's not eligible for the job.
With midterms more than a year away, a record number of lawmakers are eyeing the exits
A record number of Congressional lawmakers have announced they don't plan to run for their current seats in 2026, including three sitting senators leaving Washington to run for governor.
High prices and healthcare costs may turn Latino voters away from Republicans in 2026
Latino voters helped deliver the White House to President Trump in the last election but many of them already say they won't vote for Republicans next year, but they aren't yet turning to Democrats.
