Yesterday marked the start of the 2017 session for the Georgia legislature, and the 40 days of the session are likely to focus quite a bit on education issues. Though maybe not exactly the education issues we thought might dominate the session a few months ago.
The November victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election and the defeat of the proposed Opportunity School District (OSD) constitutional amendment seemed to have shifted the priorities among some in the legislature. Trump’s election and his nomination of Besy DeVos for the U.S. Secretary of Education position has emboldened some who want to see another attempt to pass legislation enabling the creation of “education savings accounts” (or, more clearly, vouchers) for parents to use to choose school options for their students. Similar attempts have been tried—and failed— in the Georgia legislature to pass voucher bills, including just two years ago. (For what it is worth, my blog post about the DeVos nomination linked above includes links to research on large-scale school voucher plans, all of which point to little benefit to students or taxpayers).
In the wake of the defeat of the OSD ballot question, Governor Nathan Deal has indicated that he may shift his attention and political resources away from pushing for adoption of the recommendations of the Education Reform Commission (ERC) he formed two years ago and instead seek a legislative path to “deal with chronically failing schools”. A year ago this time, I wrote in my blog about how the Governor was poised to advocate for the ERC’s recommendations, including a sweeping revision of the state’s school funding formula that had remained unchanged since the mid-1980’s. Then Deal backed off addressing those recommendations so as not to jeopardize the passage of the OSD. So now we may again be faced with another delay in long overdue reforms. And given that 2018 is a gubernatorial election year in Georgia, I wouldn’t be surprised if there legislation gets delayed yet again, as apparently jockeying for your next elected office can be more important to some than taking on critical legislative issues.
With the incoming federal administration likely to push more control over K-12 education issues back to states, it will be important for all of us concerned about public education in Georgia to pay close attention over the course of this session.