MUMBLINGS March 16, 2000

Speaking of schools and education reminds you of what Mark Twain said about the weather, “Everybody talks about the weather, but  no one does anything about it”.

Actually, this is not true regarding education because a lot of people are trying to do something to improve the learning skills of our boys and girls.

Last week, it was mentioned here about the fine schools in Dothan, Alabama and they are above average.   So is the school system in Baldwin County.

We have over 22,000 students in our public schools, 2,000 or 3,000 in private schools and more than 5,000 in the county community college and elsewhere.

Education is an important factor in the lives of the American people, economically and otherwise.

Fact is, Baldwin’s education system has the biggest payroll in this county from one organization.

If you haven’t visited a school  in recent years, you should do so and you will be amazed at the improvements being made almost daily in our educational system.

Mentioning Dothan again, on this trip I went with Dr. Harold Dodge, County Superintendent of Mobile, and two of his board members,  Dr. Michael  Watson and Mrs. Hazel Fournier. 

Mrs. Fournier has been in education 49 years and is a knowledgeable senior citizen and excellent board member.   After spending several hours viewing the Dothan schools, she said it was amazing how much a person her age had learned during the day, which was a compliment to the Dothan school system.

Of course,  it’s easier to handle a school system of 9,300,  which the city of Dothan has,  compared to Mobile County’s 65,000 students, the largest single school system in Alabama.   Mobile’s needs for school building improvements and new buildings are tremendous…in fact, a recent study showed they still need over $300 million for such items and they are in the process of spending about $150 million now.

Mobile has other serious financial problems too.  They get less per student per year than the average in the state.  In fact, Dr. Dodge said if he could just get up to the state average, they could make many improvements in their huge system.

It was a delight to see the youngsters working on computers in Dothan. In one room, five-year-old kindergarten children were working away at their small desks with computers.

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Guess who their instructors were?  Second grade students, who  apparently knew what they were doing and enjoyed teaching the younger boys and girls.

Of course,  an instructor was supervising the class, but it was real impressive to see what was going on.  Kindergarten students were going up to the library desk, checking out books and they seemed to know exactly what they were doing. 

Guess who the librarian was?  Another kindergarten student who had gained the honor of being librarian for the day by achieving high points…this youngster was checking them in and out  like a  veteran.

Dr. Leon Hobbs, Dothan City Superintendent, and his stall deserve credit for doing a good job.

Even though we have a better school system in Alabama than the average person may think, we still have a long way to go to be the best in the nation or even among the best.

Being the lowest tax paying state in the nation makes it hard to obtain  the money needed for our school systems.  Until we grown folk realize how important education is to the future of our state and nation, and willing to cough up more money, we are going to remain near the bottom economically and otherwise.

Money is not the answer to every problem but with it you can solve many of them.  The only place to get more money is from us tax payers and one of the best places would be to get it from our real estate or ad valorem taxes which are the lowest in the nation.

We could increase these taxes 40% and still be the lowest in the nation.  Yet,  many oppose the idea and won’t approve increases.  Some day we will, however.

Dothan is a beautiful, clean city in the wire grass section of southeast Alabama.  It is the county seat of Houston County, which is one of the smallest geographically in Alabama.  At one time, Henry County was divided into  Henry and Houston, thus making two small counties.

Perhaps more about Dothan later.

See you again soon, I hope.