Mobile Courant

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) joined U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) in a roundtable discussion focused on innovating K-12 education to improve outcomes. During the event, Senator Tuberville introduced Ruben Morris, founder of Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School, to the panel.

Senator Tuberville posed questions regarding the impact of artificial intelligence on education, the relationships between innovative schools and community investors, and recruitment efforts to raise awareness about these schools.

The roundtable also included participation from U.S. Senators Katie Britt (R-AL) and Joni Ernst (R-IA).

In his opening statement, Senator Tuberville highlighted his commitment to education: “The reason I ran for this position was education—one of the main things. Most of you know that I’ve spent a lot of time [in education]. I spent four years in the classroom, in high school level, and then I got into college. And man, has it changed over the years? It really has."

He emphasized the need for change in educational methods: "You know, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. And we haven’t changed the way we’ve skinned cats in years... You gotta move on with the times because time is not gonna wait on us."

Reflecting on his personal experience during COVID-19, he stated: "We found out a lot about our education system back during COVID... We all learned something from it."

Tuberville stressed the importance of reading skills: "They couldn’t read the way they should be able to read. That’s gotta change... Because [otherwise] you can’t learn, bottom line."

He acknowledged Alabama's efforts to address educational failures: "Alabama has recognized a lot of these failures... We’ve addressed some of those."

Introducing Ruben Morris, he said: "[I am] so glad today to have Ruben Morris here... He knows better than most the struggles facing our education system."

Discussing funding issues, Tuberville noted: "We shell out close to a trillion dollars a year for public elementary and secondary education in this country... And for what? What are we getting for it?"

He called for collaboration and innovation: "All of us need to work together to face the hard facts and start breaking away from decades-old norms... Our task today is clear. We need to dig deeper into underlying issues holding our students back from success."

Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and serves on several committees including Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans’ Affairs, and HELP.

###