Lawmakers ignore their moral and constitutional duty to support public education
Here is an essay by Matt Jones, president of EmpowerED Georgia, a statewide education advocacy organization of students, citizens, parents and educators. He has taught world geography, civics, and English literature. He now teaches Engineering Technology at Toombs County High School in Lyons and is the Toombs County Teacher of the Year.
By Matt Jones
In a recent speech to the Marietta Council of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston said that due to a $300 million shortfall in Medicaid, this upcoming session of the General Assembly would be “another year where you’re going to see budget cuts as opposed to adds.”
This means, unfortunately, that it is likely to be another year — the tenth consecutive — in which funding for Georgia’s public schools is less in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars than it was in FY 2002.
While most members of the General Assembly claim to support public education — and may actually believe that they do — the statistical evidence does not indicate even lukewarm support. In fact, the overall record of the Georgia General Assembly during the past decade indicates a greater willingness among many legislators to support alternatives to public schools than to support local public schools.
In the last decade, the actual per-student spending by the state has decreased by 25 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars—a total of $6.6 billion. The result: Two-thirds (121 out of 180) of Georgia school districts have had to shorten their school year and the number of classroom teachers has decreased by more than 4,000 while the number of students has grown by 37,000.
Most veteran members of the General Assembly claim that the recession beginning in 2008 left them with no choice except to cut public school spending, but that does not explain why K-12 programs have been reduced virtually every year since 2002. Nor does it explain how, under these dire budgetary restrictions, the General Assembly has miraculously been able to find funding for a private school tuition program and a new system of state charter schools.
If you ask your state representative or state senator whether he or she supports public education, it is almost a certainty that he or she will argue strongly in the affirmative and go on at length about the value of public education to our state.
Give public officials the opportunity to participate in a major school event where voters are present — or welcome local teachers and students to the state capitol—and they will generally fall all over themselves to smile, shake hands and praise the wonderful educators and students in their local schools.
The time has arrived when legislators must be held accountable for their votes on education issues and not be allowed to show support for public schools simply by posing for photos with school children and attending an occasional school event in their hometowns. No longer should legislators be allowed to give speeches at evening school meetings praising public education while voting during the day to cut public school budgets — especially when they are also voting to increase spending on alternatives to public schools.
It is certainly possible that most of our state legislators do value public education, but the day of truth has arrived. Given what Speaker Ralston recently said — that this is to be a year of budget cuts rather than increases — any legislator who votes to increase funding for programs such as Georgia’s private school tuition tax credits cannot claim to be a supporter of public education.
In past years, legislators who supported programs such as tuition tax credits, have claimed that the amount of money involved —$50 million— is just a drop in the bucket compared to the amount the state allocates for public schools, and therefore should not be viewed as a vote against public education. That excuse can no longer be accepted for two reasons.
1. Supporters of the program will continue to push for increased funding. (A bill will be introduced this session to double the tax credits allowed from $50 million to $100 million.)
2. The effects of more than a decade of reductions in state support for public schools have left many school systems in such dire financial conditions that a share of $100 million, or even $50 million, could make a major difference in their education programs. For example, in some south Georgia school systems, less than $1 million in additional funding could allow their schools to open for a full 180 days instead of the current abbreviated schedules.
This year’s session of the General Assembly will be a crucial one for public education and it will be a defining one for our legislators. With little or no additional revenue available for FY 2014, legislators have a clear choice. They can support efforts to provide additional funding for private school tax credits and other alternatives to public schools, or they can allocate that same amount of money to help rural public schools provide students with a full 180-day school year.
Any legislator who votes to provide state funds for private schools over public schools not only abandons their constitutional duty, but also their moral duty to provide the resources needed for every child to have a quality public education.
That is why in the upcoming session, EmpowerED Georgia will monitor how every legislator votes on every issue affecting public schools and let the public know which legislators support public schools in their actions as well as their words.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
65 comments Add your comment
Pride and Joy
January 7th, 2013
3:16 pm
You cannot get blood from a stone. The economy is still in the toilet. Education has to be cut and it NEEDS to be cut. There is way too much waste in the public education system.
I have no sympathy for those who complain about a lack of funding in public schools.
We ALL do more with less. I have to buy 100% of my own health insurance and I have no paid time off. No vacation or holidays and I am one of the luckiest ones. I’ve avoided unemployment for most of my life.
Teachers need to realize that the rest of us are having a hard time out here — and stop complaining.
Beverly Fraud
January 7th, 2013
3:27 pm
“Inspite of “Beverly Fraud’s” claptrap above, this article is dead center.”
Dennis, care to explain why it is claptrap?
Fulton County spends thousands on consultants who feature mass murderers like Chairman Mao on their website and praise him for effective leadership and you have no problem with your taxpayer funds being spent that way?
Care to explain why you apparently have more of a problem with the fact that it’s mentioned on Get Schooled by a poster than with the fact that it is an actual reality in Fulton County schools?
Or shall Maureen just prepare yet another “When asked to defend my attacks on Get Schooled, I was reduced to beating a quick and hasty retreat” T-Shirts?
So many shirts…so little time.
My Opinion
January 7th, 2013
6:25 pm
I’m sick of teachers always whining about their lack of pay raises. Do they think education is the only area of state government that has seen pay cuts during the recession? News Flash: Every state agency has seen cuts! State law enforcement officers with DNR, the state patrol and GBI haven’t had pay raises, and they have had to deal with cuts, just like teachers. They risk their lives daily, yet they have had to work with less. They don’t get pay raises for every year they stay or for every little degree like you do. SO Teachers: quit whining and suck it up! These economic times are tough for everyone.
Do you really think someone who lost their manufacturing job and is struggling just to find part time work is sympathetic that you lost 2.7777% of your annual salary( 5 furlough days from a 180 day year is 2.7777%). Be thankful for what you do have and set a good example by facing adversity like mature adults.
Pride and Joy
January 7th, 2013
6:44 pm
“Supporting public education” is not required by any lawmakers. Lawmakers do what their constituents want. If the citizens don’t want public education, lawmakers aren’t required to support it…
and let’s get real here…
“supporting” education is not pouring more and more money down the drain.
Mirva
January 7th, 2013
7:17 pm
Mountain Man:: the increase in the cost of education is special education. In the 1960’s (a time you love to quote), spending was lower because students with severe needs were in institutions and special education was a warehouse. Today busloads of special needs students, all armed with a twice yearly revamped IEP and 504 plans come to the school doors, not an institution. EVERYTHING a student needs is paid for by the school, hearing aids, eyeglasses, special teachers, caseworkers, social workers, psychologists, occupational therapists and every kind of therapist you can think of. All paid for by the school. The more they need, the more expensive they are. That is where they money is going. Even adjusted for inflation.
Just A Teacher
January 7th, 2013
8:04 pm
OK. I’m going to unload on some people here. If I offend anybody, please feel free to stop reading at any time.
First, there is something that is being overlooked. Teachers are a highly skilled and educated workforce. We deserve to be compensated for the years and tens of thousands that we spend in preparing ourselves for our careers. I just spoke with a trucker with a GED and slightly fewer years on his job than I have on mine, and he makes $6,000.000 less than I do annually. This after I spent 6 years of my life earning two degrees and borrowed $75,000.00 to pay my tuition.
Secondly, when I entered the field of education, it was with the understanding that, if I worked hard and did a good job, my family would be able to live modestly, but comfortably. The state of Georgia and my local school board broke that agreement several years ago.
Finally, unless you are a teacher, you will NEVER understand what it is like to dedicate your life to improving people’s minds, to developing their characters, and giving them a chance to attain a better life only to have elected officials tell you that you are worth less now. I AM NOT WORTHLESS AND NEITHER ARE THE YOUNG PEOPLE I TEACH!
If you want me to stop whining, give me some other way to vent my frustration than writing to a blog! Give me the legal right that every American should have to use collective bargaining to establish my pay and working conditions with my employer! Show me the respect I have earned through 20 years of hard work and sacrifice made not only by me, but my wife and children! You might complain when a doctor or a lawyer charges you an exhorbitant amount, but you pay it anyhow. Just pay me as much per client as you would one of those people, then feel free to gripe about it all you want!
Teachers are in charge of developing America’s most important asset, her children, and we are tired of being treated like second class citizens!
This writer knows exactly what he is talking about. Georgia is throwing away its future by refusing to adequately compensate those who are shaping it! Do you really think that bright and talented people will go into a job where they are underpaid and taken for granted? Where they are told that their value as employees depends on the whim of a group of people who have never done their jobs and whose only experience is as clientelle of the same institutions they are now in charge of running?
WAKE UP, GEORGIA! Your future is in the hands of educators! As the saying goes, you can either pay to educate them now or incarcerate them later! Guess which one is cheaper!
Beverly Fraud
January 7th, 2013
8:05 pm
“I’m sick of teachers always whining about their lack of pay raises”
I’m sick of it too @My Opinion. I think they’d be much better served by talking about teaching conditions not teacher pay. You can have good learning conditions with the current pay, but you seriously compromise learning conditions with the current teaching conditions.
And that’s the argument teachers have completely failed to take to the public.
Private Citizen
January 7th, 2013
8:38 pm
Spent part of the day doing some demolition with electric jackhammer. http://postimage.org/image/9gexkbbvb/
Difference in this and being a school teacher.
1. I have the tool for the job. Am not given specifications and no tools.
2. there is no $100k year boss required.
3. someone heard the racket and stopped by and then helped for an hour. this never happens for a school teacher, especially from the bosses. the $100k-ers may come by to “observe” but they will never lift a finger to do any work or help you, join in.
Private Citizen
January 7th, 2013
8:40 pm
To add, everything brick in that picture is now gone.
mountain man
January 8th, 2013
6:43 am
Mirva – Exactly what I have been saying. However, because there is no new money, then in order to educate the SPED students, you have to take from the non-SPED students. Which has a greater payback to society: The SPED student, the student whose cares and whose parent cares, or the troublemaking loser who thinks education makes you act “too white”. Yet it is the middle group that gets shortchanged so we can ineffectively try to teach the first and last group.
KIM
January 8th, 2013
11:23 am
I would like to see more retired educators serve our state in the Senate or House because they understand the issues related to education. However, let me say that there are many other issues and if they happen to be a retired administrator, they also know law and budgetary issues. Brooks Coleman has served the state well. I hope Valerie Clarke is too, but I haven’t heard much. The other Senators and Reps owe their state to put education at the top. Unfortunately across the state there are few legislators who understand the issues. We are inundated with agri interests, utillities interest and those making a dollar on their taxpayers’ dimes.
Ernest
January 8th, 2013
12:08 pm
Beverly’s point at 8:05 pm is one worth reading again. I wonder why teachers haven’t been more vocal about advocating for better teaching conditions. One would think they would get a lot of community support for this.
DeKalb Inside Out
January 8th, 2013
1:37 pm
Of course nobody can say from which body cavity the numbers in this report came from. Does anybody do fact checking?
Governor’s Budget Report – FY ‘13 – Page 20
Georgia Budget & Policy Institute – FY 2013 Analysis – Page 2
Both references references report education funding is up from ‘12 to ‘13
FY 2012 – $6.9 Billion
FY 2013 – $7.17 Billion
If you look at the History of Spending Per Student in Georgia, spending on students in adjusted dollars has gone up and up over the last 16 years.
Big Mama
January 9th, 2013
8:02 am
Mountain Man- I have a question for you since you have information I don’t have- how much money is spent each year in the state of Georgia on a non-SPED child?
I do not have the data to support my supposition, but I would put forth that the increase in spending matches the increase in mainstreaming SPED children ( and no longer sorting children in classrooms by abilities) as well as the ridiculous increase in administrative growth. As a child in public schools in GA during the 70s we had one principal and one secretary for a school of more than 500 children. Today, schools of comparable size have a staff of 6+ floating around trying to look busy. Add in the constant and dubious conferences and I bet you can find the source of the money spent today.
Jen DeKalb Educator
January 21st, 2013
8:48 am
I am loving these comments! Thank you Matt for the statistical background as to why every year that I work in DeKalb County I am seeing more students, less pay, more demands on us and absolutely NO resources for my students other than old books. Yes, we need funding but we also need a democratic system where teachers, educational staff, and parents have a definite say as to how and where money should be spent. Right now I am hearing talk of all students getting their own laptops when I can’t even do essential science labs due to no supplies!