Hey, this is Todd Stacy and welcome to In the Weeds with Alabama Daily News. It has been a while since our last podcast, two months in fact. I sincerely apologize for that and I appreciate so many folks saying they missed the program. The truth is I just found it difficult to produce during the stay home orders, and once the legislative session was postponed, the whole Alabama Daily News team had to throw ourselves into reporting on stories of the day. You see, part of what we do at the Daily News is provide state government and political coverage to several papers and TV stations statewide and the almost two month break made us really work hard to get quality content to our news partners. Anyway, In the Weeds is back now and I’ll try to have more regular episodes.

As always, the point of this podcast is to talk about politics at an in-depth level, including from interviews with various politicians and officials. I spent about 15 years in politics and government myself, so that helps inform the questions I ask and the perspective I bring to the conversation.

This week we are talking education, and I was pleased to sit down with State Superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey. Now, the coronavirus outbreak has impacted just about every aspect of life, including on public policy. But I would argue that education has been one area most profoundly impacted, both in terms of its effect on student achievement and the long term policy implications it will bring.

Most schools in Alabama took spring break either the first or second week of March and then never returned to school. The Governor’s order to close schools statewide came on March 26 with a full two months of school left. Systems scrambled to come up with learning from home options and suddenly parents became part time teachers.

Specifically in Alabama, the outbreak came at a time when the state was attempting to move forward with some policy initiatives that are aimed to improve student performance. A lot of that has been put on hold, which Dr. Mackey talks about in detail.

Another policy Alabama is trying to move forward with is implementation of the new Alabama Literacy Act. A lot of people are familiar with Alabama's top rated First Class Pre-K program and the incredible difference it is making as it expands to more students throughout the state.  The same studies that show quality pre-K can improve education outcomes also show that those gains can be quickly lost if students don’t continue to grow in their learning. There’s no question that the biggest obstacle for that in Alabama is children falling behind on their ability to read and comprehend. Children who do not read at grade level by fourth grade are unlikely to graduate, which is why Alabama passed a literacy law last year with a renewed focus on early reading, identification of reading problems in students, and stronger preparation for teachers. And, yes, students are required to read on grade level before being promoted to fourth grade, an approach other states have taken with success to show for it. However, this program will not work without proper funding, and the Legislature delivered with a full $27 million appropriation that will fund summer reading camps, regional literary specialists and special support to the lowest performing schools. We have the law, we have the money, and now it’s time to implement it, and that’s no small feat. I asked Dr. Mackey about how that’s going so far and what to expect over the next year.

Perhaps the newsiest item we discussed is the department of education’s plan to build a statewide online learning portal. This would be for K-12 students whose parents may not want them to return to traditional classrooms this fall. The online platform will also be an option should school systems have to close their physical doors again. This is a big deal for a few reasons. Obviously, if done right it could be a game changer for giving parents a needed option and making sure students don’t fall further behind. But more broadly, it represents maybe the biggest single step toward school choice the state has ever seen. My understanding is that it is meant to me temporary, and in fact if could be paid for with federal coronavirus relief  money. But, if parents like this option and it works quality wise, you could see a larger proliferation of online learning in the future. We already have virtual academies like the once run by K-12, but this is much broader in scope. Anyway, that was breaking news this week and you’ll get to hear Dr. Mackey’s full discussion of that.

So here it is, my interview In the Weeds with state superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey.