AEA Has Shown Alabamians Who They Are: Believe Them
The National Education Association is as clear about their love for Pride Month, Black Lives Matter, and Kamala Harris as they are about their disdain for parental rights, traditional family values, and school choice. AEA’s Josh Cowen explained it this way, “But if you ask, why more vouchers now, you also have to ask: Why attacks on LGBTQ students now? Why book bans now? It’s all part of the plan to destabilize public education.” In an article maligning the expansion of school choice programs across the nation, the NEA specifically mentionedthe State of Alabama. NEA publicized and sent out a toolkit to their state affiliates, including the Alabama Education Association (AEA), to train them on how to effectively oppose the expansion of education freedom.
An AEA paid political operative recently took to Alabama airwaves to declare that AEA, despite their clear financial and organizational ties to the liberal National Education Association, is run by “Conservative Republican women”. He also claimed AEA didn’t oppose school choice legislation and that AEA “allowed” the CHOOSE Act to pass the Alabama Legislature in 2024. Yet, Amy Marlowe, AEA Executive Director, even while publicly claiming that they were neutral on the bill, sent an alert to AEA members to demand that the Alabama Senate cap the CHOOSE Act or kill the bill, ”While AEA has worked with others in a good faith way to fashion a bill that does not hurt Alabama schools, it is important to note that Alabamians – including a strong majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents are overwhelmingly opposed to unlimited funding being diverted from the Education Trust Fund for this program. We want to continue working to find common ground on this proposal as the bill moves to the Senate, but a cap must be included to protect the future of our local schools, or it should not pass.”
AEA’s Governmental Affairs Allison King signed up as a neutral party in both House & Senate committee public hearings but then proceeded to spend her entire testimony on both days outlining AEA perceived pitfalls of the bill and her opinion on the necessity of a spending cap. Their own Action Alert articulated that AEA spoke in opposition to the bill in committee.
AEA Executive Director Amy Marlowe must have missed the portion of the ALGOP Platform regarding school choice as she asks her members to “limit the damage” and rails against all education freedom measures – even calling school choice “private school welfare”. Marlowe stated in the AEA Journal, “AEA has been sounding the alarm that the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA) was, and the CHOOSE Act is, the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.” She then lectured AEA supporters saying that, “The phrase universal school choice is about as genuine as telling someone bless your heart. What they really mean is that wealthy families who have sent their children to exclusionary private schools for generations will get a government handout for doing so. Parents will get a school voucher no matter how much money they make. Where there is means-testing under CHOOSE for the first two years, that was just window-dressing to pass the bill – the real money starts flowing in 2026-2027 when the well-off start getting their handouts. However, that gives us time to work to prevent the crisis already happening in Arizona from making its way to Alabama.”
In early 2025, Marlowe continued to call the CHOOSE Act “potentially catastrophic” and said that it, “allows some parents of students who have never have and never will set foot in a public school to get taxpayer money to underwrite their choice of private or homeschooling”. She then listed new requirements that she believes should be added to the CHOOSE Act in order to prove her point about how horrible it is for parents to use their own tax dollars to direct the education of their children.
Does this sound like neutrality to you? Do AEA leaders sound like supporters of the Alabama Republican Party platform? Does this inflammatory rhetoric villianizing Alabama parents and innocent school children sound like a “good faith effort” for students in Alabama? Does AEA realize that the CHOOSE Act passed due to the full throated support of Governor Kay Ivey and 66% of the membership of the Alabama Legislature?
Apparently not. Marlowe continues her rant by saying, “…the time is now to talk to your legislators about keeping a lid on the CHOOSE Act before it swallows Alabama’s Education Trust Fund (ETF).”
Note: The 2025 Choose Act appropriation was less than 2% of the ETF in 2025.
AEA feigns neutrality and support in public while making statements like, “The conversation you have today with a legislator could be the difference this spring as AEA moves to keep the genie of choice from creating a school funding crisis in Alabama” in password protected newsletters to their members, sending their leaders to privately sponsored political convention parties, and directing their paid political consultants to tell members of the press the exact opposite of their advocacy instructions.
Make no mistake: AEA has worked for decades to stop school choice legislation. AEA actively worked against the passage of the AAA Scholarship program, the PRICE Act, and the CHOOSE Act. AEA used political influence and political contributions to people and parties to weaken parental rights in the CHOOSE Act and then tried to kill the CHOOSE Act unless they could “control the spending” with a cap. Further, AEA worked last legislative session to minimize funding for special needs kids, military kids, and kids whose families are living in poverty; they are currently working against future CHOOSE Act schoolchildren. AEA is trying to render void the promises legislators made to Alabama parents when they passed the law in 2024. They are attempting to undercut the work and the word of Governor Kay Ivey, Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth, Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, Chairman Danny Garrett, Chairman Arthur Orr, and each of the ninety-two legislators who voted on behalf of the people they represent for universal school choice for Alabama’s children.
An oft repeated Maya Angelou quote, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” seems appropriate here. AEA has shown us time and again who they are. It’s about time for Alabama citizens and lawmakers to believe them.
