The mayor's wife has a position in the Birmingham Board of Education main administrative building in downtown with a grandiose title but wouldn't be able to provide an adequate job description if her life depended upon it. Then there is the AEA-supported and elected (why I don't know) school board that seems to be always at odds with any superintendent that seems to make strides towards fixing the problem, too many employees but not enough students or reason for facilities to remain open because of the shrinking enrollment of the district. Finally, aside from Ramsey & Parker high, Powell, Epic, and Glen Iris K-8/elementary schools, the school district's schools overall performance still sucks even through there have been some improvements over the years. The quality of education in the district is still poor even compared to other urban school districts in Alabama. I've met one too many high school graduates of Birmingham school district that have gone on to 4-year universities telling me how they were playing catch-up via remedial course in their freshmen year of college or even graduate school.
In the end, charter schools may be the only practical and realistic solution to this institutionalized problem that exists within Birmingham and other urban school districts like Anniston where teacher tenureship and job security is more important than the quality the curriculum of the schools. I am all for protecting the collective rights of educators as well as other work-class jobs, but in education it is imperative that the student still come first more than anything else. This is why charter schools are very important to Birmingham and Alabama's future...
