by Eric Cochling | Feb 1, 2017
National Marriage Week will be celebrated next week, just in time for Valentine’s Day. The celebration is now in its eighth year and seeks to foster collaboration around the country to “strengthen individual marriages, reduce the divorce rate, and build a culture that fosters strong marriages.”
The Marriage Week campaign website cites to tons of research on the many benefits of marriage and they have provided a list of events taking place in Georgia next week to celebrate marriage.
At GCO, we believe marriage is indispensable to the creation of healthy families and a stable society. That’s why we encourage you to love your family, teach your children to value marriage and the commitment it requires, and to take part in next week’s celebration.
If you want to strengthen your own marriage, check our Healthy Families Initiative and the resources we offer there.
by Kimberly Sawatka | Jan 12, 2017
GCO’s Director of Government Affairs discusses school choice in Georgia with Rusty Humphries, host of Trending Today USA.
For more information visit Georgia Parents Alliance or learn more through the GCO website.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jan 12, 2017
Research evidence loves company. Consistent findings from different populations mean the results are less likely to be an accident and more likely to demonstrate a trend.
A new report from Mississippi finds that parents using education savings accounts report high levels of satisfaction, consistent with surveys of a similar law in Arizona. Ninety-one percent of respondents reported some level of satisfaction with Mississippi’s accounts, and 98 percent of respondents reported being either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their educational choices after using an account. Seventy-one percent of parents in the survey reported being “very satisfied” with their choices.
Similar to accounts in Arizona, Florida, and Tennessee, the education savings accounts in Mississippi allow parents to buy educational products and services for their children using a portion of their child’s funds from the state funding formula. Parents can make multiple purchases simultaneously according to their student’s needs.
Mississippi lawmakers gave parents of children with special needs this flexible option in 2015 after years of criticism of state services for these students. Empower MS’s Brett Kittredge says, “It was clear that many of Mississippi’s most vulnerable children were being left behind and this pattern would only continue unless policymakers took action.” In 2014, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported that just 23 percent of Mississippi children with special needs graduated from a state high school.
Kittredge explains how Mississippi’s accounts are helping children like Lana Beard, who doctors diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome and visual perception disorder. The accounts helped the Beard’s access a school that has specialized services for children like Lana when her assigned district school was no longer the right fit. Her parents used the account to help cover tuition and services at the new school.
Thousands of families across Arizona and Florida have similar stories. In some cases, families use an account to help pay for personal tutors, online classes, home educational needs, and even college savings plans. In Arizona, where students from failing schools and military families are eligible for the accounts, along with children with special needs, approximately one-third of participants are using their account for more than one learning option.
In 2013, researchers from EdChoice and the Goldwater Institute studied the nation’s first education savings accounts in Arizona and also found parents were pleased with their choice to leave an assigned public school and use an account. All parents in the survey reported some level of satisfaction, and 71 percent of participants were “very satisfied,” even among the families that were satisfied with their child’s previous public school. Focus group research conducted by the Goldwater Institute has also found similar satisfaction levels.
Georgia policymakers preparing for the 2017 legislative session should use the growing research evidence on parent satisfaction with education savings accounts to support efforts to give state families similar options.
Even though Mississippi’s program is still in its infancy, Kittredge reports the number of applicants for the accounts in 2016-17 exceeded the state’s cap of 425. He says families are now on a waiting list for a chance to participate next year.
“Parents are the ultimate accountability rating,” Kittredge says. “That is why we believe understanding parental satisfaction with [education savings accounts] is so important in judging this program.”
Jonathan Butcher is a contributing scholar at GCO in addition to his role as the education director at the Goldwater Institute and senior fellow at the Beacon Center of Tennessee.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Nov 18, 2016
New research from EdChoice finds that Georgia’s scholarships for K-12 private school students have saved the state between $12 million and $85 million since 2011. Nearly two-dozen states have similar tax credit scholarship programs that allow individuals or businesses to make charitable contributions to K-12 private school scholarship organizations. The nonprofit scholarship organizations award scholarships to eligible students, and donors can take a credit on their state taxes that is equivalent to some or all of their donation.
EdChoice’s findings come at an important moment for state families because the state supreme court is considering a challenge to the program. Two years ago, the Southern Education Foundation supported four Georgia residents’ lawsuit to block state families from using the scholarships for their children. Recently, the Cato Institute filed an amicus brief in support of the scholarships.
“We urge the court to affirm the determination that the tax-credit program does not violate the state constitution, focusing on the fact that it does not involve spending public funds for any sectarian purpose,” write Ilya Shapiro and David McDonald.
In Georgia, individuals and businesses can receive a dollar-for-dollar credit for their contribution to scholarship organizations up to certain limits ($2,500 for a married couple and businesses can claim no more than 75 percent of their tax liability). Since 2010, scholarship organizations have awarded more than 60,000 scholarships for students to use at K-12 private schools.
Teacher unions, school board associations, and other associations regularly challenge parent and student educational options in court. Fortunately for families, courts have upheld tax credit scholarships around the country, without exception. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the nation’s oldest such scholarships, in Arizona, in 2011.
The decision paved the way for students like Gabe Alba-Rivera to discover opportunities he didn’t know existed before his scholarship. In my 2014 interview with Gabe, he explains that he was born in Mexico and had little more than broken pieces of his school’s roof to draw hopscotch squares at recess. A bucket of water served two purposes when he used the bathroom—the first as his bathroom pass, the second to flush the toilet.
After moving to Arizona, Gabe used a tax credit scholarship—nearly identical to the scholarships available to thousands of students across Georgia—to attend Brophy Prep, where he was active in the school Robotics Club. Gabe earned a spot at MIT, where he studies 3-D printers.
Twenty-eight scholarship organizations serve Georgia families, and these groups awarded more than 13,000 scholarships last year. The state supreme court should uphold the lower court ruling and protect families’ freedom to choose the best learning opportunity for their child.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Sep 30, 2016
In 1952, Patrick Skene Catling wrote The Chocolate Touch, a retelling of the King Midas fable that reminds us we can have too much of a good thing. In Catling’s story, the main character finds that everything he eats turns to chocolate (with King Midas, everything he touched turned to gold). Hilarity, and nausea, ensues.
The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute’s latest report on the state’s HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships provides valuable findings about college scholarships and the students using the funds. The Institute’s recommendations, however, might give us too much of a good thing.
The Institute reports that a smaller percentage of low-income students use the scholarships (30 percent) than middle and upper-income students (42 percent). The authors are correct when they say that college tuition has “skyrocketed” recently—a finding that is true for colleges around the country. The authors also make a compelling point when they write, “Students need more options to gain valued skills and enter successful careers, regardless of their families’ background or bank account.”
Yet their solution will not solve the college cost problem nor the opportunity issues. The Institute suggests lawmakers find “an enhanced approach to financial aid that ensures students from all backgrounds…can gain the benefits of a college degree.”
If the Institute’s goal is to help qualified students—regardless of background or income—get help paying for college, such an objective may result in better candidates entering the workforce. But the report’s emphasis on sending as many students to college as possible should give taxpayers and students pause.
The Cato Institute’s Neal McCluskey has documented research that links increasing college tuition with increased levels of federal aid (similar to the “Bennett Hypothesis,” formulated by former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett). State lottery proceeds fund the HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships, but universities’ incentives remain the same: If scholarship funding is almost guaranteed, why lower tuition, especially if students can combine a scholarship with federal aid? Scholarships help students pay tuition, but this assistance does not create an incentive for schools to keep costs down.
Moreover, both scholarships require students keep their grades up in order to participate. The Institute says the merit-based awards are “disproportionately out of reach for students of modest means.” Yet the state should not lower the bar for this assistance because sending a student to college that is unprepared for higher education does not help that student.
Policy debates on college tuition and student opportunity intersect when unprepared students step on campus. If an undergraduate drops out without a degree, they find themselves in need of a job but without a degree to improve their prospects. According to an Urban Institute report, “Not completing a degree is a significant predictor of repayment difficulty and default,” as 43 percent of college dropouts that used college loans have debt levels of $10,000 or lower. A quarter of college dropouts that used loans have debt levels of between $10,000 and $20,000.
Sending everyone to college, even if they are unprepared, puts students from low-income families at great risk for debt later in life. Students with few resources that struggle in school and dropout of college will struggle to attain the American Dream even when well-intentioned policymakers try to help.
The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute’s report on scholarships provides a useful analysis of the kinds of students using state scholarships for higher ed. Furthermore, the Institute’s suggestion that the scholarships be available to students in their 20’s and 30’s may help nontraditional students that enter college later in life.
But in order to help more students succeed in their education and career, state lawmakers should give students better access to quality learning opportunities in K-12, like education savings accounts and encouraging the growth of high-quality charter schools. Meanwhile, policymakers should commit to helping students, no matter their socioeconomic status, make informed decisions about whether college is the right choice.
With the prospect of long-term debt, the idea of sending as many students to college as possible should make taxpayers—and students—nauseous.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Aug 31, 2016
Computational model exposes severe problems with the welfare system
Previously, it was shown how a single mom with two kids in Gwinnett County could lose welfare program benefits by earning more money. This explained why $9 + $1 can equal negative $6,000.
The Gwinnett county example showed only two wage levels. However, the computer model provides results for a large range of wage levels and family structure. This enables policymakers, administrators and interested citizens to see a more complete picture of the challenges facing a family in poverty.
The computer model can generate scenarios in any of the other 158 counties in the state of Georgia.
No matter the county welfare cliffs (that unintended consequence of the current welfare system whereby an individual or family loses by earning more) can be found – essentially trapping families into a level of income.
These cliffs can be clearly seen on the chart below. Wherever there is a drop in a line, there is a loss in benefits that exceed the gain in earned income.
Also clearly seen, the benefit levels are very high and the severity of the cliffs significant. More surprisingly, there is not just one cliff but a series of cliffs that cascade down.
The chart shows that when government benefits are taken into account, it is financially better for a single mom to earn an hourly wage of $9 than an hourly wage three times as much, or $27 per hour.
Of course, it is important to point out that the severity of the cliffs and the income levels where they drop off change depending on the county, the characteristics of the family, and other factors.
These findings underscore the need to undertake fundamental welfare reform beyond the various reforms already being implemented. The system needs to become more rational so not to punish families who try to get ahead by earning more money.
A forthcoming study will highlight other examples.
Chart showing welfare cliff for typical family in Gwinnett County:
How to read the chart: The chart above illustrates the scenario highlighted in this and the prior posts , that is, a single mom with two children in Gwinnett county. The horizontal axis is gross earned income, and the vertical axis is the sum of net earned income plus the various welfare assistance benefits. The first line on the bottom is net earnings. The next line above is net earnings plus refundable tax credits. Each line stacked above adds another government benefit in the following order: TANF Cash, food benefits (Food stamps, free school meals and WIC food packages), housing (Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers), subsidized child care (the CAPS subsidized childcare program), medical assistance (Medicaid and PeachCare), and Affordable Care Act subsidies.
