Faith Meets Funding
Birmingham has always known how to blend grit, grace, and a good front-porch conversation about what really matters. And lately, one topic keeps floating to the top like steam off a Sunday pot roast: school choice, and who gets to make it.
Enter the Carbonell family, a lively crew of seven who call the Magic City home and send their five children to St. Rose Academy. Like countless Alabama parents, they’ve wrestled with rising tuition and the desire to keep their kids in an environment rooted in their family’s values. This fall, Governor Kay Ivey stopped by to spotlight the Carbonells as the kind of family the state’s new CHOOSE Act aims to empower and you could practically hear church bells ringing in support across the city.
Starting January 2026, the CHOOSE Act will make education savings accounts (ESAs) available statewide, offering up to $7,000 per student for private school tuition or other qualified expenses. To date, more than 23,000 Alabama students have already been approved, a signal that families aren’t just curious, they’re committed.
A New Chapter in Alabama Education
For decades, Alabama’s education landscape has been steady, familiar, sometimes steady to a fault. The CHOOSE Act marks one of the boldest shifts in the state’s education policy in years, moving public dollars with the student instead of the system. In Birmingham and beyond, conversations around the dinner table and yes, the church pew, are shifting.
Parents are talking choice, not just chance. Flexibility, not just hope. Opportunity, but rooted right here at home.
And while critics raise concerns about public school funding and oversight, supporters say this is Alabama trusting its families. They are putting the decision-making pen in the hands of the people who pack the lunchboxes and sign the homework folders.
What This Means on the Ground
For families like the Carbonells, the impact feels personal, practical, and profoundly local:
- A faith-aligned education stays within reach
- More breathing room in household budgets
- Less trade-off between values and affordability
Will this rewrite the playbook for education in Alabama? It’s early. But from Birmingham’s tree-lined neighborhoods to rural church communities miles from the interstate, the message is clear: parents are stepping into the driver’s seat.
And whether you call it empowerment, investment, or good old-fashioned Alabama independence, it’s a chapter worth turning the page for.
Head to the Guide to Alabama directory to explore more education options across the state: guidetoalabama.com/education-childcare!