by Eric Cochling | Apr 3, 2014
In the wake of the recently concluded legislative session, I found myself at a local charter school discussing school choice with a group of parents, teachers, and administrators.
While upbeat in many ways, the conversation was heavy with a feeling of barely-restrained desperation. It was in the air and occasionally expressed by a frown, joined with a shake of the head.
The school’s staff explained the wonderful academic success of their students, nearly all minorities and all female, despite the statistical odds stacked against this school and others like it. At the same time they lamented how the treatment of charter schools in Georgia, which are public schools open to all students, results in their receiving much less funding per student than traditional public schools and forcing them to bear substantial additional costs.
Fewer dollars and higher costs mean that charters often must forego offering classes that are taken for granted in most public schools. Fewer dollars and higher costs mean students go without other, seemingly normal, parts of school life, like a playground, a sports field, recreation equipment, etc.
How much less funding? By my calculation, it amounts to nearly 20 percent less per student per year for state-approved charter schools. It’s that much less, yet charters – by definition – are held to a higher standard of academic achievement than traditional public schools. Unlike traditional public schools that linger forever regardless of their instructional performance or the academic success of their students, charter schools actually close for failure to meet targets. Despite the disparity in how they’re treated, charters typically perform well.
What about those additional costs? The big one for charters is the cost of renting or buying a school building, a cost that traditional public schools do not have to shoulder that can run into the many tens of thousands of dollars each month. Behind teacher pay, this is one of a charter school’s largest expenses.
For the parents in the room who were all unsatisfied with their local, traditional public schools, the issue was a lack of real alternatives. While Georgia can boast that it has some educational options, including charter schools and some private school scholarship programs, the reality is that those options are unavailable to most families.
Why? The answer is that charter schools are not present in every community and those in operation only have enough seats available for a small percentage of the state’s 1.8 million students. In a similar fashion, private school scholarships are severely limited by funding caps (this year, the cap on the tax credit scholarship was reached in the first 22 days of the year) or, by design, target only a very small group of students. The result is that waiting lists for these schools and programs often far exceed the actual number of students they are able to serve.
So what does this have to do with the legislative session, you might ask?
Well, if you were to just look at legislation that actually passed this session, you would be right to conclude that our legislature has little to do with or concern for the school choice needs of families in Georgia. You’d likely conclude that because, quite literally, nothing much happened to expand choice or to right the inequities in current education choice programs.
Now, if you followed the session from the beginning and paid close attention, you would know that the legislature had the opportunity to make serious strides in reforming the system and expanding choice, including adding more scholarships for private choice, allowing charter schools to use vacant public school buildings, and allowing charter schools to quickly replicate without unnecessary bureaucratic hoop-jumping, among others.
Yet, each opportunity ultimately withered on the vine. The unusually intense power struggle between house and senate Republicans, coupled with the active efforts of at least one committee chairman to kill school choice legislation, meant that nothing very meaningful survived to see the Governor’s pen.
So the children who desperately need a lifeline tossed to them are left to flounder another year in a system they didn’t choose and can’t leave. The powers-that-be and the protectors of the status quo win another round.
Who knew a prison could be so effectively
erected using only a zip code?
Some say that reform was mostly stopped this year because of election year politics; and we hear from some elected officials that next year will be different. After all, they say, we can’t do anything controversial in an election year; we can’t afford to anger the wrong constituency.
But wait, bills related to gun rights and abortion were hardly uncontroversial, yet they passed. Favors were called in and political capital was spent to insure their success. So being “controversial” couldn’t be the excuse….right?
Could it be, instead, that the parents of children most in need of rescue from failing schools vote neither often enough to warrant the risk, nor in the “right” way when they do? A skeptic – this skeptic – might answer “yes.” It’s difficult to come to any other conclusion. Of course, it doesn’t help that these same families are not typically campaign donors either.
It takes real courage to stand up to entrenched thinking in public education and I’m thankful for those few, brave elected officials who have done so, because they are truly standing up for our children. They recognize that few things in life offer an escape from poverty and a path to self-sufficiency as effectively as a quality education. But, what’s more, they understand that elections, holding office, and wielding power are not simply ends in themselves.
Here’s to hoping they receive reinforcements very soon because the children of Georgia can’t afford to continue to wait.
by gaopp | Apr 2, 2014
Too often, parents in Georgia who have access to great school choice options fail to take advantage of them because many parents do not know that they exist. This is a constant dilemma that the school choice movement faces. To help address this, we partnered with all-girls charter school Ivy Preparatory Academy in Norcross to host a School Choice Lunch & Learn last month. Most of the parents, surprisingly, knew of their individual school choice options for their students. Some shared stories of how their pursuits were failed attempts because they lacked charter school options in their districts or because the financial assistance they were eligible for from the special needs scholarship left them with a remaining tuition balance far beyond what they could afford.
Though we have choice options (i.e. public school transfers, special needs scholarship, tax credit scholarships, and charter schools), this event helped to confirm for me that Georgia still has a long way to go to ensure that families are not limited in access to quality education because of their lack of income or the zip code in which they live.
“Georgia still has a long way to go to ensure that families are not limited in access to quality education”
Together, we can make a difference in the school choice movement and expand available options for students in need of better education or learning environments. I am so proud of those who attended and shared their personal stories and challenges in pursuing school choice. These parents also expressed their strong desire to stay engaged in the movement because they know too well how it feels not to have access to viable choice options and they want to remove these barriers for generations to come. Will you join them in this movement?
If you are interested in learning more about school choice or would like to become an advocate, please visit the Georgia Parents Alliance.
by Kimberly Sawatka | Mar 28, 2014
This week the Atlanta Science Festival offered a variety of events scattered across the city to indulge the curiosity of students young and old. As a self-admitted nerd, I was delighted to attend an event last night with the company of my 9 year old brother.
Prompted by his 3rd grade studies of space, my brother and I took full advantage of the festival by attending an open house at Agnes Scott College’s Bradley Observatory. The evening was hosted by the Astronomy Department, and visitors were able to learn about moon phases, view a planetarium show (my favorite part!), and tour the telescope tower amongst other science activities.
As we worked our way through the activity stations, I was thrilled to see my brother enhance his knowledge of the cosmos through such a fun community-based event. It is not every day that a student gets to engage professionals who work in unique areas such as astronomy. My brother really seemed to benefit from the opportunity to ask the professors as many questions as he could. Likewise, conversations with the undergraduate tour guides were a highlight for me. Hearing one student’s aspiration to work for NASA and another student’s study of life in space, I secretly hoped this experience planted a seed of interest in my brother.
Beyond looking through a telescope, my evening at the observatory emphasized the continuing need to spark interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). In the context of the College and Career Pathways initiative, this is particularly vital as America’s economy becomes more rooted in technical and specialized industries. Events such the Atlanta Science Festival are incredibly important as they not only offer early exposure to the careers of the future, but also facilitate partnerships that benefit schools, businesses, and families alike.
(If you would like to take part in Atlanta Science Week yourself, don’t miss Exploration Expo at the Georgia World Congress Center!)
by gaopp | Mar 27, 2014
This week GCO’s Eric Cochling spoke at a “2014 Legislative Roundup” event hosted by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, their summary is included below:
Good enough on some levels but not good enough across-the-board.
That was their analysis of the 2014 General Assembly from Eric Cochling and Kyle Wingfield at our sold-out policy breakfast on Wednesday, March 26. Cochling is vice president of public policy at the Georgia Center for Opportunity and Wingfield is the conservative voice on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial pages.
“You saw a lot of excitement about certain ideas whether it was welfare reform or new school choice concepts coming through that made it through a chamber with vast majorities voting in favor of it but then it goes on to die in the other chamber,” Cochling said. “I would characterize the session as some positive things happened but many missed opportunities for a truly conservative policy movement forward.”
“Thirty-seven constitutional amendments were introduced and two will be on the ballot this fall,” Wingfield said. “Several would have been very good and would represent great progress for Georgia. They are not going to be there and the prospects of getting them on the ballot I would argue will only get worse in future years.”
Issues discussed in this YouTube video include criminal justice reform, federal balanced budget constitutional amendment initiatives, child welfare and foster care, transportation investment, tax credit scholarships and school choice, state income tax and pension reform, and Medicaid expansion and improved access to health care for all Georgians.
This content is courtesy of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, and can be seen in its original form HERE.
by Kimberly Sawatka | Mar 10, 2014
Below is a guest blog by Dr. Eric Wearne of Georgia Gwinnett College and formerly with the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. Dr. Wearne currently leads GCO’s College & Career Pathways working group.
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Over the past several months, the Georgia Center for Opportunity’s College and Career Readiness working group has focused on big-picture concepts relating to “college readiness”. Presentations by administrators from Georgia Gwinnett College, as well as from the Foundation for Educational Success, which creates and administers programs on non-cognitive variables, have helped shape our discussion so far.
Most recently, the working group turned its focus towards “career readiness” issues. Early on in the group’s work, panelists supported the ideas coming from Mike Rowe’s foundation, and his theory that American education has not been serving great numbers of American students:
“A trillion dollars in student loans. Record high unemployment. Three million good jobs that no one seems to want. The goal of Profoundly Disconnected is to challenge the absurd belief that a four-year degrees the only path to success.”
To continue its research in this area, this month the panelists heard from both state-level and national experts on various needs and approaches specific to Georgia.
Matthew Gambill, Executive Director of the Georgia Association for Career and Technical Education, spoke to the group and answered questions. The idea of considering CTAE courses as academic credits; the need for more (and more well-supported) career academies across the state; and the idea of trying new advisement approaches to strengthen school counselors’ relationships with individual students were all topics of conversation.
The group also heard from Bob Lerman of the Urban Institute and American University. Dr. Lerman has spoken on MSNBC about the need for apprenticeship programs in the U.S., and is a founder of the American Institute for Innovative Apprenticeship.
Dr. Lerman talked about the relative strength of apprenticeships in Georgia compared to other states, noting the Georgia Youth Apprenticeship Program. He also argues that the Common Core State Standards, because of their one-size-fits-all approach, especially in high school, set up the possibility, or even the probability, of crowding out career-based programs with their focus on college readiness. Ultimately, while Georgia is actually doing some work to promote education and training for careers, Dr. Lerman felt that some opportunities exist in the state for improvements, including getting local businesses more involved in the process of partnering with schools and setting up apprenticeships; keeping the standards for entry into apprenticeship programs high (as a point of comparison, Teach for America, which is rapidly growing and has a good reputation among academically strong students, has a very high bar for entry); and making sure students are getting good counseling, especially in 9th and 10th grades.
Both speakers independently echoed some of the ideas the working group has been hearing in the context of college readiness – that individual relationships with students matter; that students are seeking more and more specific choices and options in their educational careers; and that big, sweeping programs intended to solve every problem for everyone of Georgia’s nearly 2 million students might just be too big.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Feb 7, 2014
In a recent article addressing school choice alternatives – particularly the Georgia Tax Credit Scholarship program and its $58 million annual cap – some integral details regarding the execution of various school choice alternatives were somewhat blended together. We thought we’d take a minute to unpack some details about school choice and public funding of education.
First, the Tuition Tax Credit program is not a voucher program; rather, it simply allows individuals and corporations to donate money to Student Scholarship Organizations (SSO’s) that award scholarships to kids to attend private schools. A large number of these kids come from poorer families. Individuals or corporations contributing to SSO’s are eligible to receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits against their Georgia income tax liability for that year.
Second, those scholarships can only be used for private schools, not for homeschooling and not for charter schools. In fact, charter schools ARE public schools. So for what it’s worth, when a child leaves a traditional public school in order to attend a charter school, by definition, all the money being used to educate that child is still being spent by a public school.
Finally, it’s important to know that when a child leaves a traditional public school, the school no longer has the financial burden associated with educating that child. Additionally, the child rarely takes all of the money with him/her; a portion of the money – how much depends upon the program – stays at the original school. Typically, the amount the school keeps is not greater than the amount that is lost, but it hardly matters because they are keeping some portion of the money designated to educate a child who is no longer there. That means that on a “per pupil” basis, the school does have more money after a child leaves to take advantage of one of the state’s school choice programs.
Given the span of time in which the tax credit cap was met, it is apparent that Georgians are eager to exercise choice when it comes to seeking the best educational options for their children. As previously discussed, this high demand is no surprise but there are still many Georgia students in need of the opportunities presented by programs like the tax credit scholarship.
