Happy new year! Although much of Atlanta was shut down yesterday due to weather and traffic concerns, the Georgia legislature did convene for the first day of the 2018 legislative session. There are some big issues potentially looming this year at the state and national political level that could impact public education. Here’s a quick overview of some of them:
Will Georgia’s public school funding formula finally be updated? The state’s “Quality Basic Education” (QBE) funding formula has remained unchanged since it was first adopted in the mid-1980’s. The complicated, byzantine calculations that go into it have long been criticized for being both confusing and not good at effectively allocating resources to the most critical areas of need (here’s an attempt to simply explain how the formula works). Over two years ago, Governor Nathan Deal urged a revamping of the formula based on the recommendations of the Education Reform Commission he’d created with the hope of implementing a more straightforward process of funding driven by student needs. While many other elements of the ERC’s recommendations have been adopted, tackling a QBE formula revision has been delayed for a number of reasons–stated and unstated. With this being Deal’s final legislative session as governor, perhaps this 37-year-old formula will finally get overhauled, despite critiques about some of the proposed changes.
How will the new governor approach public education issues? Deal has been very active in influencing public education in Georgia during his two terms in office. There are already numerous declared candidates vying to replace him. A number of significant legislative changes over the past few years might leave the next governor feeling little need or desire in the near term to take on big education initiatives. However, there are always specific pieces of legislation–like this year’s likely push to increase the cap on tax credit scholarships for private schools–that inevitably draw a governor into education issues.
How will Georgia’s new federal education plan change (or not) public education in our state? Once some legal issues get resolved, the “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA) plan the Georgia Department of Education submitted to the federal Department of Education will be approved and begin guiding how schools in our state are assessed under a new accountability framework. Though quite a bit of time and energy went into the plan–especially revising the College and Career Readiness Performance Indicators (CCRPI)–over the past year, whether or not it accomplishes what the GaDOE hopes it will is up for debate. As I’ve written about in the past in this blog, using “carrot and stick” approaches based on a single score (like CCRPI continues to do) as a strategy to improve public schools is misguided, and, therefore, usually doesn’t result in significant change.
We’ll circle back to these questions at the end of 2018 to see where we wind up with all of them.