James January-February 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 86
Then there’s the unfulfilled promise of transfers
within the public system. Georgia law requires districts
to make unused seats in their schools available to students attending other schools within the district. But in
April, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation published
a review of how well this policy works in practice. It
found that, at a minimum, consistent and transparent
information is hard to come by. Fixing that is key to
making transfers work better for students.
There’s some important context when considering
these issues: Georgia’s public schools remain fully funded, and then some. Not only have local, state and federal
sources of funding grown steadily in recent years, but
districts socked away billions of dollars into their reserve
accounts during and after the pandemic— to the point
that they collectively had more money in reserve than
the state had in its rainy day fund. There is no reason to
believe the next budget, for fiscal 2026, will provide anything less than full funding of K-12 education yet again.
FORMULA REFORM & SCHOOL SAFETY
Those with complaints about money for education
would do well to scrutinize Georgia’s funding formula,
known as Quality Basic Education. Created in 1985,
it is nearing its 40th birthday. Other states, such as
Tennessee, have updated their formulas in recent
years to become more student-centered, allowing the
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state to distribute money more directly for student
characteristics such as learning disabilities and family
income. Instead, we continue to use a program-based
approach that is not only outdated, but most beneficial
to those school districts that know how to “work” the
formula. It’s time to bring our funding formula into the
21st century.
Also sure to draw plenty of attention, and debate, is
school safety. Even before the tragic mass shooting this
September at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, in which four people were killed and seven others
injured, a Senate study committee was examining ways
to boost the safe storage of firearms. House Speaker Jon
Burns responded quickly to the Apalachee horror, with
a slate of proposals ranging from expanding mental
health services to improving gun detection. Meanwhile,
Democrats have called for more extensive gun-control
measures. This is bound to be one of the most heated
debates of the entire 2025 legislative session.
Few things have more potential to improve a child’s
life trajectory than education. Every child deserves the
opportunity for a first-rate education, and our entire
state is better off for it. Let 2025 be another year of progress in that direction.
Kyle Wingfield is president and CEO of the Atlanta-based Georgia Public
Policy Foundation, a nonprofit research institute.
