HomePostTopic: Arizona

Arizona

education outcomes 2023

We have much to celebrate as the 2023 Georgia legislative session comes to a close. At the same time, there is still much work to be done. That’s what this blog post is all about. First, we’ll take a look at recent victories in the area of education during the session. Then, we’ll talk about the road ahead—what still needs to be accomplished for the good of Georgia’s schoolchildren and families.

The Georgia Center for Opportunity team serves as an important source of information to lawmakers on the impact new laws can have on communities around Georgia, particularly the poor and underrepresented.

School literacy bills

A bright spot in the 2023 legislative session was the passage of two literacy bills that will improve reading and writing skills among Georgia’s kids. According to the Georgia Department of Education, only 64% of Georgia’s third-graders read at or above grade level. These bills will pave the way for our children to enjoy greater literacy, which will impact their educational and professional future.

Here is more about the two bills:

House Bill 538: The Georgia Early Literacy Act requires the state Board of Education to “approve high-quality instructional materials to be used for teaching students in kindergarten through third grade.” This will give Georgia an opportunity to raise the bar on literacy education for public school students in every community. 

Senate Bill 211: This legislation establishes the Georgia Council on Literacy. The Council will work with local school systems to develop a five-year plan to improve reading and writing among Georgia’s students. Coupled with state-approved instructional materials, we have renewed hope for seeing significant improvements in literacy over the next few years.

 

School safety

The next bill passage regards school safety, which is always an incredibly important topic, but which has received heightened attention in recent months. Here’s a look at the coming changes.

    • House Bill 147: The Safe Schools Act requires local school districts to develop safety plans and submit those plans to the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA/HS). Because of the heightened threats on schools these days, having districts work with the experts at GEMA/HS will increase the safety of our children.

 It’s important to act quickly, and act together, for the benefit of our kids.

 It’s important to act quickly, and act together, for the benefit of our kids.

School accreditation

Finally, let’s go over the school accreditation bill that passed during this year’s session. 

    • Senate Bill 204: This legislation puts parameters on what K-12 school accreditation organizations can consider when they evaluate school districts. The bill is designed to address concerns that these organizations were limiting local elected school boards’ important discussions and debates.

 

Bad news from the 2023 Georgia legislative session

Now for the bad news. Despite passing in the Senate and making significant gains in the House, the Promise Scholarship bill (SB 233) didn’t get enough votes to pass on the last day of session. This delay has forced 500,000+ kids in failing public schools to wait yet another year for this critical education option.

Georgia’s General Assembly missed opportunities to adopt three other good education reforms. We’ll address each, but first, we’ll cover what happened to SB 233. 

 

What happened to promise scholarships?

The Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, SB 233, would have given parents $6,500 per year, per student to find the right education options for their kids. This would have opened up many non-traditional options, including private school, for families who want alternatives to the public school route. Eligibility would have been narrowed to around 400,000 kids stuck in the bottom 25% of public schools, based on the Georgia Department of Education’s evaluation.

    • The Promise Scholarship bill passed the Senate with unanimous support from Republican senators but, sadly, received no support from Democratic senators. It went all the way to the House of Representatives for a vote. The fact that the bill made it that far in the legislative process is good news.
    • On the last day of session, SB 233 received 85 votes in the House—six votes short of the 91 needed for passage. Sixteen Republican representatives voted against the bill. All but one Democratic representative voted against SB 233: the brave Rep. Mesha Mainor (Atlanta), who voted for the bill on behalf of her constituents’ interests.
    • Thankfully, SB 233 is still on the table for the 2024 legislative session. In the meantime, Georgia students stuck in underperforming schools will be forced to wait another year for this education option to be considered.

The ugly: Public school transfers, charter school management, and tax credit scholarships

As promised, let’s look at three other important opportunities the Georgia Legislature missed during the 2023 session. None of the following bills gained the traction they needed, depriving Georgia families and children of important or increased educational opportunities for at least one more year. 

    • Senate Bill 147 would have allowed students to transfer to attend better public schools, even if it was in a different school district. Other states like Arizona, Florida, and Indiana have seen success with similar laws. The bill never gained any traction, but can be considered again next year.
    • House Bill 318 would have streamlined the oversight of state- and locally-authorized charter schools. The bill passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support, but late amendments to the bill delayed the process. The Legislature adjourned for the session without the opportunity to agree to the Senate changes.
    • House Bill 54 would have increased the cap on Georgia’s Tax Credit Scholarship program from $120 million to $130 million. After going through changes in the House, the bill passed that chamber and moved on to the Senate. In a raucous Senate Committee meeting, the Tax Credit Scholarship portion of the bill was amended several times with unfriendly amendments, and ultimately, the bill died. Fortunately, the program is still operating under the existing cap of $120 million, giving Student Scholarship Organizations the opportunity to continue serving many Georgia students.

Looking toward 2024

While Georgia made important strides forward in school literacy, safety, and accreditation for 2023, there’s still much to be desired when it comes to opportunities for students and their families. It’s our mission to continue championing the value of bills like SB 233. Putting school funding into the hands of parents who wish to depart from the state’s status quo only makes sense; families’ tax dollars should support whatever educational path they choose. 

Likewise, school choice and tax credit scholarships should be open to a wider demographic of families statewide. It’s important to act quickly, and act together, for the benefit of our kids. As we look forward to the next legislative session, we’ll do everything we can to champion positive change.



HS boy with tablet

Key Points

  • On the House side, the leadership team has nearly universal pro-educational opportunity voting record in recent history.

  • Seventy-five percent said “students are mostly still behind due to school closures” from the pandemic, while two-thirds of parents said their students have lost learning due to the pandemic. 

  • Georgia must follow in the footsteps of states like Arizona and West Virginia, which recently passed significant new laws that expand educational access for all.

Those who support opening up access to all educational options for every child in Georgia have a lot to celebrate this holiday season. That’s because a new lineup of leadership in the Georgia Legislature increases the likelihood that our state will soon see new and innovative ways for parents to access the right and best educational option for their child.

New leadership, new opportunities

Following the results of the 2022 elections, new leadership will be taking over both chambers of the state legislature. On the House side, the leadership team has nearly universal pro-educational opportunity voting record in recent history: Jan Jones (Speaker Pro Tem), Chuck Efstration (Majority Leader), James Burchett (Majority Whip), Bruce Williamson (Caucus Chair), Houston Gaines (Caucus Vice Chair), and Ginny Ehrhart (Caucus Treasurer) all have 100% pro-educational freedom voting records.

The only member of House leadership without a perfect record on these issues is the new House Speaker, Burns. But even he only has one vote off, the 2018 vote on the Educational Savings Account, the last time a bill of this nature was voted on in the House. Burns was nominated by the Republican caucus to become House Speaker beginning in the 2023 session.

What about on the Senate side? The good news is that only one member of Senate leadership — Jason Anavitarte, Caucus Chair — voted against the 2022 bill that would have created Promise Scholarship Accounts. But Anavitarte voted “yes” on other pieces of educational opportunity legislation, including raising the tax credit scholarship cap and increasing funding for charter schools. Other top members of Senate leadership — including President Pro Tem John Kennedy, Majority Leader Steve Gooch, and Majority Whip Randy Robertson — all have 100% positive voting records when it comes to educational opportunity.

Parents want more options

A recent poll from the Walton Family Foundation found that parents who voted are deeply concerned about the direction of K-12 public education in the United States.

The poll found that 72% of voters believe “improving K-12 education” should be a top priority for state lawmakers headed into 2023. Only the economy and inflation ranked higher at 76%. 

Americans are also still deeply concerned about learning losses from pandemic-induced classroom closures. Seventy-five percent said “students are mostly still behind due to school closures” from the pandemic, while two-thirds of parents said their students have lost learning due to the pandemic. 

On average, parents said their kids missed 21 days of school in 2021 due to the pandemic. 

As for what changes need to be in store for K-12 education, in Oct. 2021 36% of voters said they wanted to see “bold changes” for schools, while that number jumped to 46% by Nov. 2022. 

Voters’ top priorities include ensuring that every child is on track in reading, writing, and math; addressing the teacher shortage; offering more career and technical education; and improving security and safety on school grounds. 




Georgia must follow in the footsteps of states like Arizona and West Virginia, which recently passed significant new laws that expand educational access for all.

Georgia must follow in the footsteps of states like Arizona and West Virginia, which recently passed significant new laws that expand educational access for all.

Expanding educational access

Throughout the 2023 session, the Georgia Center for Opportunity will be advocating for a bill similar to the one in 2022, for Promise Scholarship Accounts. Key facets of these accounts would be to enable all Georgia families to attend the school that best fits their student’s needs.

The 2022 version of the bill would have offered families up to $6,000 a year for approved education expenses. Promise Scholarships would step far beyond a typical voucher by fully putting parents in the driver’s seat when it comes to their child’s education. The funds could have been used for private-school tuition, but there would have been added flexibility depending on each family’s unique needs, extending to paying for things like tutoring, specialized therapies, or homeschool co-ops.

Georgia must follow in the footsteps of states like Arizona and West Virginia, which recently passed significant new laws that expand educational access for all.



 

Key Points

  • As of June, 35 states and D.C. have not recovered the number of lost jobs
  • The labor force has shrunk despite population growth.
  • Its stated goal of the Federal Reserve remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.

It may not matter if federal policy does not change.

We’ve seen some back-to-back encouraging news within the last few weeks. The Employment Situation Report for July showed that the United States finally recovered the number of its lost jobs from the start of the pandemic, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate for July was essentially zero. But digging a little deeper to put the news into perspective reveals real concerns that stagflation will not end anytime soon.

The States Who Are Driving the Job Recovery

On the jobs front, yes, it’s true we’ve recovered the number of lost jobs benchmarked to February 2020 before the drastic impact on the labor market from COVID-19. This indicates we’re on the mend, but the job recovery process has not been the “V” shape hoped for at the beginning of the pandemic, one that would have meant a robust job recovery. 

Two-and-a-half years later, the civilian non-institutionalized population base that feeds the labor force grew by 4.8 million. Our own ARIMA Model job forecast shows we are approximately 5.8 million jobs short of where we would have been had the pandemic not happened. 

But this is not the case for all 50 states. Astoundingly, four states—Montana, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming—have matched or nearly matched their pre-pandemic ARIMA Model forecasts, effectively eliminating any impact from the pandemic on the number of lost jobs. 

In the meantime, the national job recovery to pre-pandemic levels is driven probably by just 15 states who already recovered their number of lost jobs prior to the nation as a whole. These states are Utah, Idaho, Texas, Montana, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, South Dakota, Colorado, Arkansas, Indiana, and Nevada. 

As of June, the remaining 35 states and D.C. have not recovered the number of lost jobs. We have to wait another week before we know whether another state slipped onto the list of leading states that helped tip the balance for the national July data. 

According to our analysis, a common feature of the leading states is that they tend to have policies that value economic freedom more than the other states do. Incidentally, and for explanatory reasons and not for the purpose of getting political, all but three of the 15 leading states have given political control to the governor’s office and both chambers of the state legislature to the Republican Party.

Jobs Versus People Employed 

One problem with job data is that the dataset allows for double counting. If we want to count the number of people employed, it paints a different picture. 

The Current Population Survey shows the U.S. is still more than half a million workers short when compared to February 2020. In fact, we had fewer employed persons in July than March of this year, using seasonally adjusted data. 

The reason is that the labor force has shrunk despite population growth. This can be seen with the 62.1% labor force participation rate that is more than a percentage point below where it stood in February 2020.

This means that the 3.5% unemployment rate—which now matches its pre-pandemic level—is misleading. The shrinkage of the labor force is distorting the meaning of the metric.

Taken together on a national scale, jobs have recovered but the number of employed persons has not. This can mean only one thing. More people are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. 

Inflation versus the Price Level

July’s CPI ever-so-slightly decreased. It ticked down 0.2% at an annualized rate–a welcome change from the past 25 months. Just to keep this in perspective, the price level nonetheless increased 14.1% since the start of the pandemic. But there is no need to tell this to average consumers who have been feeling it in their pocketbooks. 

Disturbingly, the Federal Reserve shows no interest in doing something about the elevated price level–and who isn’t even discussing it. Its stated goal remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.

 

stagflation

“Disturbingly, the Federal Reserve shows no interest in doing something about the elevated price level–and who isn’t even discussing it. Its stated goal remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.”

“Disturbingly, the Federal Reserve shows no interest in doing something about the elevated price level–and who isn’t even discussing it. Its stated goal remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.”

Fiscal and Regulatory Policy

The Federal Reserve does not stand alone with its bad policy. Congress and the Administration are just as guilty, if not more so.

Excessive fiscal spending also drives up the price level. Worse, increasing business taxes will pull  resources from businesses. These resources are needed to produce goods and services that we all use and enjoy. It also enables these very same businesses to pay workers and compensate investors, and it leads to more economic growth and prosperity. Likewise, more excessive regulatory restrictions have similar negative effects on people and the economy.

Increasing business taxes and regulating businesses even more at this time will not help keep prices down. Rather, a good portion of these higher costs will be passed onto consumers.  And they will be passed on to consumers to the degree that individual businesses are able to do so. If businesses can’t pass all or even some of those costs on to consumers, then they will be forced to make more difficult decisions, such as cutting back on the number of employees or suspending pay raises to employees. Profits will clearly suffer that may cause a few businesses to scale back or exit the industry altogether. These consequential actions all aggravate stagnation. Add in the price increases and we get more stagflation, not less.

Unfortunately, the President just signed into law the erroneously named Inflation Reduction Act that will do nothing about inflation, but it will hike business taxes and increase regulations that will only worsen the economic situation. 

Congress and the Administration need to start following the lead from the states who are doing it right. Only pro- growth policies relying on innovation and production organically sprouted from within the economy will help us out of this mess, and it won’t work if politicians think that means taking money from successful businesses or imposing new mandates on others or picking the winners and losers in the economy.



 

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Unless you’re a taxpayer, in which case you will get less than you wanted from Washington even though they used your money.

President Obama has left office, and the results of the ideas issued under his watch are coming in. Education research demonstrates we didn’t always get a bargain. A new study finds that a multi-billion-dollar federal grant program that incentivized district schools to change their operations neither changed such operations nor resulted in student achievement.

From 2009 to 2016, the U.S. Department of Education awarded School Improvement Grants (SIG). Each year, the agency divided approximately $500 million between states as part of Obama’s stimulus package to help ease schools out of the financial crisis that started in 2007. Georgia schools received approximately $16 million per year from 2014-16.

Schools could fire the principal, replace half of the teachers, and change instructional strategies like adding instructional time to the school day (part of what are called the “transformation” and “turnaround” methods); convert to a charter school; or close the school and send students to better-performing schools.

The result? SIG had no effect—none—on student achievement, graduation rates, or college enrollment.

Note this key detail: Researchers studied 1,200 participating schools and found that the transformation/turnaround methods were by far the most popular choices for schools. Just 33 schools converted to a charter school and 16 closed and allowed students to attend higher performing schools (3 percent and 1 percent of 1,253 schools, respectively). Thus, more money and grant applications promising to teach differently did not result in drastic changes.

Remarkably, researchers had already documented that some of the strategies SIG incentivized in the transformation/turnaround approaches were not supported by rigorous evidence: “Previous literature provides mixed evidence on the effectiveness of some of these practices at raising student achievement.” Yet Washington still spent some $7 billion over nearly a decade encouraging these activities.

Meanwhile, approximately 2,000 new charter schools opened without this federal slush fund from 2009 to 2016. Today, more than 6,000 charter schools operate nationwide. Charter schools are different state-to-state, but in some areas where all public school results disappoint, like Detroit, Michigan, charter schools are outperforming district schools. Those opposing President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Department of Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, have cited Detroit’s low scores and DeVos’s support of parental choice in Michigan as evidence that she is not qualified for the post.

But multiple studies demonstrate that Detroit charter school students are outperforming their peers in traditional schools. DeVos’s skeptics are free to scrutinize her policy positions, but opponents lose credibility when they misrepresent data.

Likewise, in Arizona, charter schools outperform district schools in terms of eventual college graduates. Charter schools account for 14 percent of Arizona’s total public school population, yet charter schools make up for 5 of the top 10 public schools in the state for students finishing college in 4 years.

Arizona charter schools—like nearly all charter schools in the U.S.—are producing these results despite being funded with less money per student than district public schools. Georgia charter schools are funded at approximately $3,000 less per student than district schools, and low-income 8th grade charter students are outperforming their peers in a national comparison. Now there’s a bargain.

Again, more SIG schools opted not to convert to a charter school with their grant money, choosing more administrative changes instead. And researchers did not find better student outcomes.

Let’s hope policymakers learned a lesson from a failed experiment relying on more taxpayer money for public schools. Lawmakers should commit to giving parents and children more quality educational choices over the next four years. Families will get a better deal when they can choose how and where their children learn.

Subscribe

* indicates required

Subscribe

* indicates required
Donate