by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jun 3, 2016
A school board member in New Jersey pleaded guilty to wire fraud. A “longtime educator” in Palm Beach County, Florida, resigned from a school board after authorities charged him with fraud and bribery. Nearly a dozen school leaders in Detroit accepted $900,000 in kickbacks in a phony scheme to provide school supplies. A manager of an audio/visual company in Utah pleaded guilty to fraud and theft in his dealings with a local school district.
And that was just in one week.
As we’ve documented on this blog, fraud is an unfortunate reality in our nation’s schools. For that matter, it’s an unfortunate part of providing quality services in across a variety of social needs. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the indictment of state and local authorities in Flint, Michigan surrounding the locality’s water crisis. Yet the paper lamented that federal officials—those getting their paychecks from Washington, D.C.—at the EPA and in the U.S. Office of Veterans Affairs were not being held to account for ignoring warnings at the Gold King Mine (where a flooded mine ruined a water supply in Colorado last year) and in medical malfeasance, respectively.
Fraud is a serious issue at all levels of government and enforcement is inconsistent, at best.
In 2009, Apple started advertising what was, at the time, breakthrough technology in its latest iPhone by saying, “There’s an app for that,” with “that” being whatever you needed. From finding a restaurant to playing the piano on your phone, developers were building mobile applications that allowed you to access virtually anything you needed at your fingertips. Today, programmers are building applications to help prevent fraudulent use of taxpayer money.
In some states, taxpayers can event submit photos or videos along with anonymous tips about misuse of taxpayer funds. The applications may cost as much as $10,000 to $20,000 to develop, but with the potential losses from fraud totaling in the hundreds of thousands or even millions in taxpayer resources, the upfront cost is worth it.
Furthermore, the next generation of parents and taxpayers, Millennials, are the generation that is most likely to carry and use a mobile device—making these apps a natural fit. The Pew Research Center reports that Millennials are the most likely generation to “use their cellphones in public places for a variety of reasons,” and Nielsen says Millennials “are the largest segment of smartphone owners.” This means the availability of such mobile applications is coming at an excellent time.
Is Your Mobile Phone a Smartphone?

Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services, March 2015,” https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/mobile-devices/2015-appendix-3-consumer-responses-to-survey-questionnaire.htm#Cross-tabulationsForConsumersUseOfM-C1548C7E.
While mobile apps won’t prevent fraud, such developments will help to limit the losses that bad actors cause. Research from the Goldwater Institute explains how mobile technology and education savings accounts, spending accounts that give parents choices for a child’s education, are both coming of age at the same time. Approximately 840,000 children across five states are eligible for the savings accounts. Georgia lawmakers considered legislation to create the accounts in the last session.
Millennial parents are the generation that grew up alongside mobile technology and are already using apps to get a ride from the airport or check a bank account. Flexible spending accounts that allow families to pay for online classes, public school services, private school tuition, or save for college should be designed so that parents can report fraudulent use of such accounts, check their child’s account balance, and make a purchase for a textbook, all with their mobile phone. In traditional schools and programs that give parents choices in education, taxpayers should be able to help protect students with easy, reliable ways to report misuse.
There’s no app for the American Dream, but mobile technology can help protect taxpayer resources and make sure education funding is used as it was intended—to help children succeed.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | May 25, 2016
Republicans included a non-binding referendum question in yesterday’s Primary Election ballot asking if voters support school choice, and 75 percent of voters declared their support for the concept of education dollars following the student.
The question was direct, clear, and as comprehensive as limited space would allow:
“Should Georgia empower parents with the right to use the tax dollars allocated for the education of their children, allowing them the freedom to choose among public, private, virtual and home schools?”
While these primary ballot questions are non-binding, they are a very effective way for a party to test support for an issue among their actual primary voters, not the “likely voters” approximated in poll samples.
These primary voters are the voters who will be especially important to those hoping to succeed Governor Nathan Deal in 2018 (here’s looking at you, Casey Cagle!).
Again, seventy-five percent of Republican primary voters said “yes” to school choice at the ballot. This overwhelming level of support for the ballot question is even more interesting when we consider that:
- More voters voted for school choice than voted in the U.S. Senate race–the race at the very top of the ballot. The question was a “down ballot” question, where there there is usually a significant drop-off of votes from the votes cast at the top of the ticket.
- The Georgia Association of Educators, the de facto teacher’s union in the state, long feared by politicians, publicly opposed and lobbied against the measure.
- The question won a majority of support in every one of Georgia’s 159 counties–rural, urban, big, small, wealthy, poor–it didn’t matter. School choice won everywhere.
Will Georgia Republican elected officials start listening to these voters, or continue to ignore them?
In recent years, legislators have been somewhere between skittish and unenthusiastic (to put it kindly) about considering school choice legislation. No less than ten education choice bills were introduced in the last two-year legislative cycle and all but one was killed by leadership and committee chairmen, and none received a vote on the House or Senate floor.
Why? Largely out of a perception that teachers will be against it, Superintendents will be against it, school boards will be against it. But does the education establishment represent those they serve? Apparently not.
Now that the voters have spoken, clearly and specifically, how will legislators respond? Will they listen to the people who elected them? Legislators have the opportunity to make good policy good politics — they can give kids the educational opportunities they need and deserve, while giving primary voters what they support and demand.
How will these state leaders respond to their district voters’ support for real school choice?
- Lt. Governor (and 2018 Gubernatorial hopeful) Casey Cagle: Hall County–75%
- Speaker David Ralston: Fannin County–76%, Gilmer County–74%
- Rep. Brooks Coleman, Chairman of House Education Committee: Gwinnett County–77%
- Same goes for Senate President Pro Tem David Shafer, also of Gwinnett
- Senator Lindsey Tippins, Chairman of Senate Education Committee: Cobb County–72%
- Senate Majority Leader Bill Cowsert: Clarke County–74%
2017 could be a big year for education. The Governor plans to move forward with plans to update the funding formula, providing more resources and flexibility to school districts. Will the Governor and leaders of the legislature listen to the people and include school choice in those reforms? If not, if they once again cower in fear of the education establishment and teachers’ unions, they may just have their base to answer to.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | May 4, 2016
Now is an especially good time to support GCO financially. Thanks to the generosity of a key supporter and GCO’s Board, every donation given between now and May 31st – up to $87,000 – will be matched dollar-for-dollar. This means if we reach our goal, GCO will have an additional $174,000 that can be put to use immediately to increase job opportunities, expand access to a quality education, and promote healthy family formation so that all Georgians have a real chance to prosper.
This matching gift challenge was issued by individuals who believe in GCO’s mission and want to see others join in these efforts. Not only do your donations help us financially, they send a message that there are people who care about this work and want to see improvement in our state and more importantly the lives of individual Georgians who are ready to succeed – through hard work and determination – when given a chance.
We’re so grateful to all of GCO’s donors, volunteers, and advocates! As a non-profit organization our work would not be possible without the individuals who support us.
If you would like to make a tax deductible donation and have your gift doubled, visit GeorgiaOpportunity.org/Donate or mail a check to Kelly McGonigal, Georgia Center for Opportunity, 333 Research Court, Suite 210, Norcross, GA 30092.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Apr 27, 2016
Healthy families are the bedrock of a healthy, prosperous society. They are the place where children develop the values, skills, and habits that largely determine the kind of adults they will become.
Georgia Center for Opportunity’s Healthy Families Initiative (HFI) launch on Thursday, April 7th was a great success. The goal of the event was to bring together community leaders, certified trainers, pastors, businesses, and GCO supporters for a day of focusing on families and to provide them with news about this new initiative and the work being done in Norcross and Peachtree Corners.
Joyce Whitted, HFI Program Manager, shared detailed information about the five focus areas of the initiative, including:
1. Launching a PR campaign saturating the community with positive messaging about family.
2. Providing relationship education and enrichment courses.
3. Working with local churches and other religious organization to provide mentoring to adolescents and young couples
4. Improving vocational education and apprenticeship opportunities in the area
5. Working with leaders to ensure state laws encourage family formation
Community partners like the A.Worley Boys & Girls Club, Norcross Human Services Center, Robert D. Fowler YMCA, Single Parent Alliance Resource Center, and Community Based Mentoring were in attendance to lend their support for the program. Guest speakers Bishop Garland Hunt of The Father’s House, Greg Griffin, a Christian counselor, and Shay Marlowe, Goodwill Career Services and a HFI Certified Trainer in 24/7 Dad all echoed the importance of healthy families and how it impacts everyone in Georgia.
Beverly Washington, a resident of Norcross, stated that her greatest take-a-ways were “Networking and seeing so many passionate individuals focused on helping our community.”
The certified trainers who have been on the ground helping to educate individuals and families on healthy relationship skills were also on-hand to give personal accounts of their interactions with participants in the programs being offered through the HFI Initiative.
The event was a success because those in attendance expressed their passion to be part of the positive focus on healthy families and, ultimately, to see the negative trends plaguing families in Georgia reversed.
For more information about how to get involved with the Healthy Families Initiative visit www.hfigeorgia@opportunity.org or call 877-814-0535.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Apr 12, 2016
By April 1916, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s crew wanted to see land. The men spent more than a year sailing to Antarctica and six days drifting in lifeboats with little food or sleep. Finally, the men spied a narrow, 30-mile long enclave called Elephant Island.
Writing in his book Endurance, Alfred Lansing says the crew had “a feeling of astonishment which soon gave way to a sense of tremendous relief.”
A century after Shackleton’s adventure, Georgia parents should know the feeling. A state supreme court ruling almost disbanded many of the state’s charter schools due to a lawsuit five years ago (voters subsequently approved a ballot measure in 2012 that resolved the issue). In 2013, the Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent said no new charters should open in the city until a pension lawsuit was complete. Charter schools have served the city for years, and, according to a Georgia Department of Education report, half of the charter campuses in the state are located in metro Atlanta (the pension case was settled two years later).
Having weathered these storms, parents and policymakers would welcome the sight of land in the form of student success.
Yet charter school achievement does not always have a simple explanation. This is especially true in Georgia, where charter schools fall into four different categories. Raw test score analyses benefit from comparisons of similar students and schools (and random student assignment to schools if possible).
Even without such data crunching, there are strong results that vary across school types and grade levels that should give students, parents, and lawmakers hope for the direction of state charter schools.
First, on the nation’s report card, more low income Georgia charter school 8th graders scored at the “Basic” level or above than their peers in district schools (Figure 1). In reading, 82 percent of charter students score at Basic or above, while 69 percent of their peers in district schools scored at this level. In math, 65 percent of charter 8th graders scored above Basic, compared to 63 percent in district schools. Fourth grade students are behind their peers in reading and no data are available for math.

Source: National Center for Educational Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress Data Tool. Author calculations.
These results mean a higher percentage of low-income 8th grade Georgia students attending charter schools demonstrated at least the basic skills necessary in these subjects. Similar research is available from the Goldwater Institute using Arizona charter school data (with even more positive results) and in the American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual report card.
The complication in these data is that Georgia charter schools fall into four different categories (the number of schools of each type is in parentheses):
- “Start-up” (77): These are the independent public schools most policymakers and parents are familiar with. Teachers and community leaders form these schools as an alternative to assigned district schools.
- “Conversion” (18): A “converted” public school, as the name implies, is a school that changed its status from a traditional public school to a charter school and given more operational autonomy in exchange for higher levels of accountability.
- “State start-up” (20): A state commission authorizes these schools (the state supreme court ruling mentioned above threatened these schools).
- “Charter systems” (326): These school systems are traditional districts given more autonomy so that the rules under which the schools operate resemble charter school regulations.
More test scores are available in the the state department of education’s annual report on charter schools to help parse through these distinctions. According to end of grade test results, converted charter schools and start-up charters are well ahead of their district peers in nearly every subject in 8th grade in the percent of students exceeding the state standard (see Figure 2 for an example of 7th and 8th grade comparisons; for more results, see the link beneath the chart for the full report).

Source: Georgia Charter Schools and Charter Systems, 2014-15 and 2015-16, Georgia Department of Education, p. 44, https://www.gadoe.org/External-Affairs-and-Policy/Charter-Schools/Documents/2015%20Charter%20Schools%20and%20Charter%20Systems%20Annual%20Report.pdf.
The most encouraging finding is that the average results for all charter schools (the orange bar in Figure 2) are higher than non-charter schools (light blue bar) for every subject, in every grade except 8th grade Social Studies and Math in the state report. Charter high school students also out-performed district peers in English, geometry, biology, and economics.
Georgia charter schools should have parents breathing a sigh of relief. The project of creating and sustaining quality schools so that every child has the chance to succeed is never finished, but Georgia has given parents several ways to do so. With all that Georgia charter school families have been through, this success is welcome.