The biggest recipient of Alabama's federal education stimulus funds in 2010 wasn't a school system at all -- it was the state's prisons.

Alabama this year diverted $118 million in federal dollars this year intended for education to instead pay for correctional officers' salaries and benefits, prisoner health care and other corrections costs. Pouring cash into a crowded prison system only perpetuates the cycle of incarceration. Alabama needs innovation to break free of the budget sinkhole of prison.

Urge incoming Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to fund schools before prisons and to explore alternatives to long sentences that will make Alabama safer and more productive.