Todd Strange, Artur Davis Talk City School System
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Montgomery’s mayoral candidates are now looking for ways to improve the county school system. This after the Department of Education released its list of failing schools for 2014.
Candidate Artur Davis says he wants to start a city school system, which would be separate from the county. But Todd Strange says that’s not the answer and would only put schools in a more dire financial situation.
Montgomery County has eight schools that qualify as failing defined by the Alabama Accountability Act. It’s a problem mayoral hopefuls say can be fixed. But they have different plans to improve the school system.
“We need a city school system so the mayor of Montgomery can be held accountable for education.”
Artur Davis wants to put the school system under city control.
“When I see Goodwyn, which used to be Clvoerdale’s old rival, thought we were the best two junior high schools in the city, when I see them on a failing list now, that tells me what we’re doing isn’t working.”
But Todd Strange says creating a city school system won’t do anything but create more problems.
“The county contributes one cent sales tax, 28 million dollars,” he says. “If you did a city school system, there would be four schools in the county and so where do you get that 28 million dollars?”
Instead, Strange says the key to improving schools is by motivating students, hiring qualified teachers and providing school choice.
“What we’ve got to do is take what we’ve got, take the hand that we’ve been dealt and see if we can’t make some alternatives and I think this school choice, if charter schools come up, fine. I know there are some great charter schools, I know there are some failing charter schools.”
Though Davis says parents already have choice with magnet schools.
“The people who are in magnets are there,” he says. “Other parents have not been able to get into the magnets or choose not to go to magnets for some reason.”
The state looks at six years worth of math and reading assessments to decide if a school is failing or not. They’re deemed failing if they’re in the bottom six percent for at least three of the last six years.
Regarding the list of failing schools, a Montgomery Public Schools’ spokesman says in part “The state is using the same data as last year as they transition to a new test, so the list is exactly the same. We are looking forward to the transition to the new ARMT+ assessment or whatever changes are made to the AAA formula so we can gauge the progress our schools are making.”
