I prayed, but I didn’t pray for victory.  I prayed that I be able to do my best.  I also prayed for a clean heart, a clear mind and a caring spirit.

It was all about a formula.  Yes, a formula.  It was a formula for budgeting education funds.  They called it the Rolling Reserve.

Those supporting the so- called Rolling Reserve Bill had good intentions.  And good intentions are often good.

But as my Mama often said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

I wanted my fellow senators to understand the real impact of this piece of legislation.  However, many were trapped in the web of good intentions.

Let me summarize several of the points I made.  First, a formula is no substitute for leadership.  A formula cannot respond to hurt, pain, need, hope, learning, or not learning.  Good leadership can and does.  We need leadership, not formulas.

Second, Alabama has moved up from 49th in the quality of education for school children to 25th.  Most of the things that made that rise to respectability possible have been cut out or are on the chopping block because of the bad economy.  But teachers and others in education rose to the occasion to keep forging progress because they believed that help was on the way.

Now, the formula makes it emphatically clear that help is not on the way.  In fact, it is clear that a half dozen years will pass before help comes!

Third, the Alabama education budget is based on revenues that are very sensitive to the economy:  sales taxes; personal income taxes; and business income taxes.  When bad economic times come, they fall quickly.  However, when good economic times come, they rise quickly.  Sales taxes have risen for nine straight months.  Personal income taxes have risen for several months.  Business income taxes are still down.  Fourth, saving is good, but we can never make saving the highest priority when our children are starving.  We feed the children first to make sure they live and then we save.

We have cut school books down to nothing over the last several years.  There is no money budgeted for classroom supplies.  There is no money included for professional development.

Fifth, even if this formula had been in place for 15 years, we would still have had proration.  No formula can protect us from the effects of major economic upheavals such as we just experienced.  We cannot allow fear to be the driving force in our decision.

Sixth, county and rural school systems will suffer most.  City school systems have better local funding because they are not bound and tied by the Constitution like county schools.  Unequal education will become more unequal for our children.

Seventh, proration has been painful but the quality of education has risen in spite of proration.  Now, we are under-cutting the very foundation of that progress as we greatly extend the time required to repair it.

I don’t want our children to return to the education basement.  This formula, in my humble opinion, will do just that.