ARMISTEAD SAYS DEMOCRATS HAVE
NO MERIT FOR FABRICATED STATEMENTS
Birmingham, AL – The Alabama Republican Party has been busy this week refuting false facts that the Accountability Act of 2013 could bankrupt public education. Democrats and special interest groups filed a lawsuit to block the legislation from being signed into law by Governor Robert Bentley this past Tuesday.
Democratic Chairman Judge Mark Kennedy recently stated at a public women’s luncheon on Thursday, “this bill could bankrupt our public education system.” Kennedy then went on to say, “There’s not a woman in Alabama, in my opinion, that should ever vote for a Republican.”
Chairman Armistead’s response:
“Judge Mark Kennedy should be ashamed of himself for running around like Chicken Little, ‘the sky is falling, the sky is falling’. There is simply no merit whatsoever in his accusations that the Accountability Act will bankrupt public education or that women should all vote Democrat.
“Judge Kennedy, a long-time admirer of President Obama, continues to follow his lead by trying to scare voters into thinking ‘the sky is falling’ when Republicans offer positive solutions to the issues that have sat dormant for decades under Democrat leadership.
“Kennedy, the head of a once dominant political party in Alabama, has now been relegated to regurgitating the talking points of AEA union bosses. This clearly shows Alabamians where the Democrats get their marching orders from: liberal special interests who are more concerned with maintaining the status quo than they are in providing a better future of the students that have been failed for far too long by a broken status quo.
“Judge Kennedy and his team had their chance to lead. They got us where we are today and Alabama voters fired them in 2010 and hired Alabama Republicans to lead us forward and I am proud of the work accomplished in the last 3 legislative sessions under Republican majorities in Montgomery and look forward to a brighter day for all Alabamians”.
The Alabama Accountability Act, a bill passed by the Legislature last week and enjoined by Montgomery Circuit Judge Charles Price, provides local school systems with more flexibility from cookie-cutter approach regulations and provides an escape route to school children trapped in failing schools. The measure creates a state income tax credit for parents with children attending failing schools so they may be enrolled in the non-failing public or non-public school of their choice. A series of precise criteria included in the bill determine whether a school is considering failing.