Republican Women Score 2013 Legislative Session as "Poor"

TUSCALOOSA, Ala., May 24, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Alabama Federation of Republican Women credits the 2013 Alabama Legislature for accomplishments in several major areas:  gun rights, forbidding foreign law such as Sharia to be used in Alabama courts, restrictions on abortion clinics, cracking down on elder abuse, stopping the state department of education from misusing reading and math funds (ARI and AMSTI) to pay for implementation of Common Core without legislative authority or public knowledge, and repealing the bill passed in 2012 that essentially raised property taxes on the disabled and seniors who made under $12,000/year.  

Yet, AFRW President Elois Zeanah scores the 2013 legislative session as "poor" due to:

• passage of the Accountability Act, which she says is seriously flawed and cements Common Core, and whose tax credits are designed in a way that do not help poor students who need the help most;
• by increasing indebtedness when the state has a severe budget crisis;
• forsaking parental and states rights in education, allowing the federal government to basically decide what our children learn in school, despite its unconstitutionality, making states rights in education a thing of the past; and
• its failure to pass several important bills, two of which were to reform payday loans, which Zeanah said all Alabamians should champion since it affects many of the state's low income citizens; and the informed voter act, which brings transparency to bills on the ballot.

"The most important failure, though," Zeanah stated, "is the legislators' refusal to protect our children from the dangers of Common Core, which dumbs down education according to educational experts; increases indoctrination, which legislators admit is already a problem in education; and turns teachers into mere facilitators." 

She continued, "Instead of building on the strengths of exceptional teachers and finding ways to cull bad teachers and to improve education through choice and competition, the legislature put students and teachers in a strait-jacket."    

Zeanah believes the statement that legislators need time to study Common Core rings hollow.  "If sincere," she said, "they would've placed a moratorium on Common Core so millions of dollars wouldn't be wasted while they study it; and they wouldn't have passed all those bills that imbed Common Core through the back door this fall.  At minimum, legislators would have passed the Joint Resolution that encouraged the state board of education to resist taking millions of federal dollars to fast track implementation of Common Core."  She noted that this joint resolution was passed by the Senate but killed in the House Rules Committee.

SOURCE Alabama Federation of Republican Women