by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Feb 6, 2015
According to the most recent data released by the National Center for Education Statistics this January, Georgia’s high school graduation rate is still one of the lowest in the nation at 72 percent, despite good improvement over the last two years. Only three states and the District of Columbia have a lower graduation rate than Georgia. Compare this to such states as Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin, which all have a graduation rate of 88, and Iowa which leads the pack at 90.
Georgia’s struggles don’t end with its graduation rate. Education Week released the latest report cards for each state this January in the categories of Chance-for-Success, School Finance, and K-12 Achievement in its 19th annual Quality Counts – Preparing to Launch: Early Childhood’s Academic Countdown. Georgia earned a grade of C-Minus and a ranking of 31st overall amongst the 50 states, based on its rankings of 37th, 31st, and 17th in each respective category. Georgia is below the nation as a whole, which earned a grade of C.
It would be one thing if Georgia ranked near the middle of the pack in a country whose educational outcomes far exceeded those of other developing countries around the world. However, when comparing how the U.S. education system stacks up on the international playing field, the results are not promising.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assessed the competencies of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science in 65 countries and economies in 2012. Among the 34 countries who are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. performed below average in mathematics, ranking 27th, and close to the OECD average in reading and science, ranking 17th and 20th respectively. According to PISA, U.S. students’ performance has not changed significantly over time despite the U.S. spending more per student than most countries.
So, what do these statistics teach us?
If Georgia stands in the middle of the pack when compared to other states in educating our children, in a country that is in the middle-to-the-back of the pack among developed countries, it’s safe to conclude that as a state we are failing to produce the level of excellence we desire for our children in an increasingly globalized economy.
Far too many students are stuck in failing schools that stifle them from reaching their full potential simply because their zip code affords them no other options. As a state, we cannot afford to let students spend another day in a failing school. The cost is too high individually and collectively.
Mediocre results call for a change in the status quo. Instead of keeping the same old system that is failing to produce the outcomes we hope to see, why not try a different strategy?
by Eric Cochling | Feb 4, 2015
We are very pleased to report that Rep. Mark Hamilton introduced a bill today to create Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) in Georgia (Read HB 243: “Education Savings Account Act”). ESAs are a terrific way to give parents and their students a choice when it comes to education. They’re flexible, allow for parents to tailor their child’s education, and they allow the money to follow the child. It’s everything you want in a great school choice program.
For more info, read our press release on the legislation.
*UPDATE: February 9, 2015
Senator Hunter Hill introduced a bill to create ESAs in Georgia: Read SB 92
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Feb 3, 2015
There is buzz under the gold dome about the potential for a bill proposing Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) for Georgia’s students and parents. ESAs have earned the praise of many as the “next generation of school choice.”
Here is a run down of how they work and their potential advantages: Parents who choose not to enroll their children into public schools full time can receive 100% of what the state would have spent on their children at a public school – a change that is revenue neutral for the State and gives freedom to parents. The Department of Education deposits funds directly into a privately managed bank account, which parents or guardians can access through a restricted-use debit card. Child-specific factors – such as disabilities – may determine the amount of money distributed into a family’s ESA. Parents or guardians can then spend the money on private school tuition, online learning curriculum, special education services and therapies, textbooks, and a number of other qualifying education-related services and providers. Furthermore, parents can save unused funds from year to year and roll the funds into a college savings account.
Parents and students can use ESAs to tailor education to their unique learning needs and interests.
This unbundling of educational services can allow for greater innovation and diversity, since it encourages a supply-side response that puts pressure on all facets of the traditional education system to be far more responsive to student needs, which amounts to a true student-centered education agenda. ESAs promote a more market-based education system, creating incentives for producers and providers to try different ways of meeting the needs of students and parents.
Though Education Savings Accounts are still taxpayer funded, the way they are structured makes for a dynamic closer to the one involved in spending your own money on your own children: Parents still insist on the best quality education but have more incentive to find a bargain. ESAs constitute an improvement on traditional school choice programs for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, parents have a strong incentive to maximize the educational value that their children receive in an ESA, because they are not required to spend it all at one place and in one lump sum.
The best way to enhance accountability and performance is to empower parents to choose the education that works best for their kids.
Two states have already adopted ESA laws – Arizona and Florida – and more are likely to follow in the coming years. These laws hold great potential to expand educational opportunity and improve the entire education system in ways that better and more efficiently meet the needs of children.
by Eric Cochling | Oct 29, 2014
The following is a special report for Georgia Center for Opportunity by Mike Klein. Mike’s other work may be found here.
Video from the Atlanta session may be seen here:
While voters fixate on an election next week that could change Washington’s balance of power, some also are looking ahead to next year’s Federal Election Commission agenda that will include an effort by incoming chair Ann Ravel to overhaul campaign finance disclosure law. Ravel has established her target-of-choice: corporate political action committees and super PAC expenditures after a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that ended independent spending limits.
Thousands of non-profit groups could become caught in a tidal wave of proposed changes that might impact how local, state and national organizations can advocate for children’s welfare, education, health care and virtually any other policy. The concept of the “anonymous donor” who makes community projects and thinking happen could be derailed without considerable care to protect the rights individuals have to use their personal money as they desire.
“Dark money” is the pejorative term opponents created to talk about corporate political action committee and super PAC spending. Ravel speaks openly about “problems we have with these dark money groups” and her view that “people are getting disgusted about what’s happening.” She says, “Polls have shown that elected officials are primarily serving their large contributors and not their constituents. That view is held equally by Republicans and Democrats.”
The FEC vice chair was at Emory University in Atlanta last week on the final leg of a three-city swing described as a listening tour to gather public input before her 2015 planned initiative. Other stops were Denver in early October and the University of Chicago’s new Institute of Politics that was founded by President Barack Obama’s political operative David Axelrod. Obama appointed Ravel to the six-member Federal Election Commission in October 2013. The FEC has three Republican and three Democratic commissioners. Ravel becomes chair in 2015.
The 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act is the cornerstone of U.S. election law. Perhaps more appropriately, it has become at least a time capsule and perhaps even a tomb as the FECA has not been amended since 1979. Changes to national election finance laws have mainly occurred because of FEC rules and regulations or because federal courts decided various questions brought over three and one-half decades.
In 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court (Citizens United vs. FEC) struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. It opened the door to spending by non-profit groups to support or oppose a candidate without having to disclose donors who could be individuals or other entities including corporations. The Center for Competitive Politics says that spending accounted for $311 million of the $7.3 billion spent in the 2012 election cycle.
Georgia State University law school professor Anne Tucker cited higher numbers when she joined Ravel onstage in Atlanta. Tucker said corporate political action committees spent $360 million in the 2012 election cycle and she said super PAC funds accounted for another $75 million. Tucker said 1,220 super PACs that do not disclose their donors raised over $520 million for the 2014 midterm elections. Tucker like Ravel supports the expansion of disclosure.
Thursday evening’s Emory event was far from a balanced discussion. Twenty-eight speakers approached the microphone and nearly all said the same thing: Someone must stop the inflow of corporate and other big money into politics. “I tell people your vote is your voice but I recently have come to believe that I am wrong. Sadly today your dollar is your voice,” said Robin Collins. “We argue that corporate spending in elections should not be equated to the First Amendment rights of individual citizens,” said Cindy Strickland. Another speaker noted she was “invited to this and also reminded” to attend.
Context is often lost where passion prevails. There was important context from William Loughery who knows of what he speaks. Now living in Georgia, the soft-spoken Loughery is a former chief of staff to United States Senator Arlen Spector, a former FEC staffer and he participated in writing the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act which as noted above has not been amended in thirty-five years.
“When we wrote the Federal Election Campaign Act there never was any enforcement so why would anyone waste time on independent expenditures,” said Loughery. “The fundamental problem is nobody wants to change the law, nobody wants to make a significant radical change to update it because basically, the whole process would be captive of the current members of Congress and even the members of the Commission are basically captives of Congress. Technology has changed, a lot of other things have changed and there’s nothing being done to update the law.”
Battle plans have specific objectives but battles produce collateral damage. Non-profit groups that focus entirely on policies could become swept up in a federal election campaign law disclosure reform movement. As a young Emory student told the panel, “You have to look for the unintended consequences and protect individual rights, freedom of speech and the legitimacy of our democracy. That’s not an easy task.”
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jun 18, 2014
courtesy photos-public-domain.com
This week, the Center for Education Reform released its Education Tax Credit Rankings and Scorecard, which evaluates the fourteen tax credit funded scholarship programs across the country.
Georgia’s program, which was created in 2008, received a “B”.
The Georgia program scores well in many of the categories like program design and eligibility requirements. However, we fall out of the top of the rankings because the total program is capped at $58 million annually–which might sound like a lot of money but actually only represents 0.14% of the overall state budget. The program is so popular, the $58 million cap was reached this year in just three weeks. Nearly all of the Student Scholarship Organizations who distribute the scholarships to students have waiting lists.
By contrast, the Florida program, which received an “A”, allocates $286 million in tax credits to fund scholarships that allow almost 60,000 students to attend a school that better meets their individual needs.
Arizona, the other state receiving an “A” grade, does not limit the total dollar value of individual donations and caps corporate donations at $36 million annually. There are more than 42,000 students on tax credit scholarships in Arizona.
Georgia’s program serves about 13,000 students who have moved from a traditional public school to a private school using scholarships funded by individuals and corporations who receive a tax credit for their donations. That represents a mere .007% of Georgia’s 1.7 million public school students.
Because every child is different, we need a variety of options at our disposal when it comes to education. Tax credit scholarships are just one of many ways we can ensure that all Georgia children have access to a quality school. And given our grade in the report card, perhaps we still have more to learn from other states that continue to give even more families the flexibility to meet the educational needs of their children.
To learn more about Georgia’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program and other school choice options in the state, see our 2014 School Choice Handbook.
