School choice story: How Hudson’s life was transformed in a matter of months

by David Bass | Jan 25, 2022

School choice story: How Hudson’s life was transformed in a matter of months

Hudson’s Story

Hudson is the third born in a family of five boys. His mom, Kristen, shared that both she and her husband went to public schools and they support the local system.

“We’ve always just said that we would send our kids to public school as long as there weren’t any type of issues,” Kristen said.

It was a no-brainer that they chose to enroll Hudson in a public school kindergarten. And he did well. But beginning in first grade, Kristen began to notice some problems with Hudson’s reading ability. He excelled in math and was considered gifted there, but he struggled with reading.

Kristen began using a private tutor to help Hudson with his reading and speech. By third grade, Hudson had an official diagnosis of a reading disability and a processing disability. The public school gave him an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

Going into fourth grade, Kristen was concerned that Hudson would get lost in the larger class size, going from about 20 kids per class to 30.

The last straw was that Hudson would cry every morning before going to school. “We weren’t used to kids not liking school,” Kristen said. “He was just so upset every day. He just didn’t want to go.”

At that point, Kristen and her husband made a decision—to move Hudson from the local public school to The Bedford School in Fairburn, Georgia.

Now at the Bedford School, Hudson is thriving. His class size is no more than 10 students.

“At Bedford, I like to write, do social studies, reading class, and also math,” Hudson said. “I can tell that I’ve improved my reading and writing.”

Before, Hudson would stay quiet in class, embarrassed that he was behind in his subjects. But now at the Bedford School, his confidence has soared. Hudson is involved with intramural sports at Bedford and the kids are supportive of one another, always high-fiving.

What’s more, all of his teachers truly know him and take the time to provide individualized attention.

More Options for More Families

“The school’s goal is to teach the kids how to learn and then turn them over back into a different traditional school system, whether that’s public or private, but not at Bedford anymore, which is good because it’s helping them learn how to succeed in a more normal environment,” Kristen said.

“I feel that the public school is just limited because of all the government roles and the paperwork, and the processes that they have to go through, which they don’t have at Bedford. What a difference there has been with him just being there a few months,” she added.

Thankfully, Hudson was able to attend the Bedford School due to financial support through the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program, which covers around one-fourth of the tuition.

Children like Hudson across Georgia need the same kind of support. It’s crucial that Georgia offers educational alternatives to all students, not just those in the right zip code or whose families can afford it. That is why we must continue to support the Georgia Tax Credit Scholarship Program, the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program, and work to create Education Scholarship Accounts for all Georgia students.

National School Choice Week

by Buzz Brockway | Jan 24, 2022

National School Choice Week

The Georgia Center For Opportunity is proud to acknowledge Jan. 23-29 as National School Choice Week in Georgia.

More than 1,000 events are planned across the state to celebrate the blessing of educational options regardless of a family’s income, zip code, or race.

GCO’s take: “One of the attributes that makes Georgia a great place to live—and a great place to relocate to from other areas of the country—is our diverse and growing set of educational options,” said Buzz Brockway, GCO’s vice president of public policy. “During National School Choice Week 2022, we are honored to join with our neighbors in Georgia committed to providing access to the best educational option for the unique needs of each child.”

Georgia’s K-12 students fell months behind during remote learning. We need solutions now.

by David Bass | Jan 18, 2022

Georgia’s K-12 students fell months behind during remote learning. We need solutions now.

Georgia’s K-12 students fell months behind during remote learning. We need solutions now.

Why it Matters:

Students in Georgia are 4-6 months behind in learning
Leaders have funding to support students and close the learning gap
Parents voices need to be heard

We can move forward. Let your voice be heard.

Between three and six months behind.

That’s how severe learning losses have been for Georgia’s K-12 students during the pandemic, according to a new official report from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts Performance Audit Division. The learning loss was prompted due to school closures and forced online learning, which didn’t work well for many students.

Not surprisingly, the impacts were hardest on kids from low-income, minority families, and those where English is a second language. In other words, the families who could least afford or navigate the disruptions were impacted the most.

For example, the report found students in majority white schools were four months behind in math and three months behind in reading. Contrast that with majority black schools, where students were behind by six months in both reading and math, on average.

For a solution, the report strongly recommended federal COVID-19 relief funds be used to combat learning losses and put the best interventions in place.

We agree, but that’s only a starting place. Every parent across Georgia must have the ability to choose the right school for their child, now more than ever. Especially during a pandemic when students are falling further and further behind, we can’t afford to make the issue of educational opportunity a political talking point. Kids’ lives and futures hang in the balance.

Now more than ever, your voice as a parent is crucial. We want to amplify your voice and make sure our education leaders across Georgia hear it loud and clear. Sign our petition and tell leaders that it’s time to get our kids back on track!

Sign the Petition

State can give parents options and support traditional public schools

by Buzz Brockway | Jan 11, 2022

State can give parents options and support traditional public schools

Educational choice is saving the state money

An updated analysis from EdChoice finds that Georgia’s two educational choice programs—the Special Needs Scholarship Program and the Qualified Education Expense Tax credit—have saved Georgia taxpayers between $605 and $1.1 billion through the 2018 fiscal year. That translates to between $4,355 and $8,013 in taxpayer savings per student participating in the programs.

Georgia Center for Opportunity’s take:

“There is a falsehood out there that if we expand access to different educational options for Georgia families we’ll end up hurting traditional public schools. Data like this from EdChoice clearly show this isn’t the case,” said Buzz Brockway, GCO’s vice president of public policy. “Our toxic political environment sets up a false dichotomy between giving families a choice in education and supporting traditional public schools. Our state can do both. In fact, if our goal is to do what’s best for students and families, then we must do both: Have properly funded and supported traditional public schools while providing options for families who need a different environment for their children to best thrive.”

Education Disruption

by Buzz Brockway | Sep 28, 2021

Education Disruption

The COVID19 pandemic has disrupted many things here in America. As every parent knows, one of the major disruptions took place in the realm of education. News has been coming out that among the disruptions in education has been the number of parents choosing to homeschool their kids. Now, we’re not talking about the quasi-homeschooling that all kids experienced when their schools closed and all the kids went to Zoom School. We’re talking about folks who have decided to unenroll their students from public or private school and teach their children themselves, most using a curriculum and resources crafted for homeschooling.

In March, the Census Bureau released results of their Household Pulse Survey. The Survey said…

By fall, 11.1% of households with school-age children reported homeschooling (Sept. 30-Oct. 12). A clarification was added to the school enrollment question to make sure households were reporting true homeschooling rather than virtual learning through a public or private school.

That change represents an increase of 5.6 percentage points and a doubling of U.S. households that were homeschooling at the start of the 2020-2021 school year compared to the prior year.

In Georgia, the Survey additionally reported that a staggering 16% of households were homeschooling last fall. This is also the number of African-American households homeschooling nationwide (up from 3% pre-pandemic!). It will be interesting to see if data for the 2021-2022 school year reflects a return to public and private schools as school buildings reopen, or if these parents decide to continue homeschooling.

The reasons people choose homeschooling vary. Joyce Burgess of the National Black Homeschool Association explains why some African-Americans are choosing to homeschool:

“They’re making these conclusions that peer pressure, they don’t have to be bothered with unnecessary racism, they don’t have to be bothered with bullying, they don’t have to be bothered with negative peer pressure. Some parents have chosen to bring their children home because the virtual setting, some parents just aren’t able to navigate that,” said Burgess.

A recent guest post in Bari Weiss’ Substack provides further insight to why some parents chose homeschooling.

When the covid lockdowns hit in March 2020 — in a matter of a few weeks, some 124,000 public and private schools with 55.1 million students shut down — American families suddenly had to adjust to school-via-screen.

The parents weren’t just upset about all the screen time their kids were logging. They were upset about what they saw on those screens. For the first time, millions of moms and dads could watch, in real time, their children’s teachers teaching.

It was a moment of “parent empowerment,” said Kerry McDonald, a senior fellow at the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education. That’s one way to put it.

Here’s another: “My kindergartener was getting maybe twenty minutes of instruction per day,” said Pauline, a house cleaner in Durham, North Carolina, who prefers using only her middle name to stay anonymous.

Pauline and her child lasted about two weeks in remote school before she decided it was a waste of everyone’s time. After a summer of lockdown, Pauline opted for a “homeschool co-op” with four other families. She was planning to send her now seven-year-old back to public school this year. “Being isolated made my kid miserable,” she said. “And I like public school. I was excited to send my kid there.”

The Delta variant, combined with her husband’s asthma, and the fact that there is no vaccine requirement for teachers in her district threw a wrench in that plan. What started as a short-term solution has morphed into a new normal.

As my colleague Jamie Lord and I recently discussed, this demonstrates the real beauty of the concept of school choice: whether you want kids masked, or unmasked, have your school teach a certain curriculum or not, all parents, no matter their income status or location, should have choices in how and where their kid is educated.

We at the Georgia Center for Opportunity will continue to fight for the right of all parents to choose the best method of educating their children.

New Opportunities Open Up For Kids With Special Needs

by Corey Burres | May 26, 2021

New Opportunities Open Up For Kids With Special Needs

Header - Special Needs Scholarship Success

Helping Marginalized Students Access Quality Education

Mountain Area Christian Academy recently celebrated the passage of the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Expansion bill, also known as SB 47. After Governor Kemp signed SB 47 into law, Mountain Area Christian Academy hosted the Georgia Center for Opportunity, our partner organizations, and the two sponsors of the bill (state Senator Steve Gooch and state Representative Will Wade) to simply say “Thank you.”

SB 47 increases both funding and access to a quality education for students with special needs. The new law helps schools like Mountain Area Christian Academy address exceptional students according to their needs.

I don’t have to tell you how much this pandemic has damaged students’ educational outcomes—particularly for those with special needs—but what I will tell you is that we will not stop fighting for all students.

At the Georgia Center for Opportunity, we believe that this bill is an important first step as we move to help more marginalized communities access quality educational options statewide.

The Special Needs Scholarship expansion opens doors to kids not able to access education opportunities. This is a vital first step in efforts to insure that ALL our kids have access to quality education.