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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 20 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USSubcommittee backs flexibility on grad coaches
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
High schools with 95 percent graduation rates, and combined middle school/high schools, would not be eligible for graduation coaches under budget recommendations approved today by a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.
The proposal also would give school systems the flexibility to move around graduation coaches to better serve at-risk students. That means some eligible schools would not have a coach while others could have more two or more coaches.
The Education Subcommittee also recommended budgeting $5 million to help start-up charter schools and restoring more money to Quality Basic Education, the state funding formula.
The state now provides about $1 million in grants for new charter schools, far less than the total amount requested by charter start-ups.
QBE has been under-funded for five years. Gov. Sonny Perdue has recommended restoring almost $30 million to the formula in the FY 2008 budget; the subcommittee wants to add another $7 million.
Just 12 high schools had graduation rates of 95 percent or better in 2006. Forty-five schools are combined middle-high schools. Making those 57 schools ineligible for a graduation coach would save an estimated $3 million.
But Rep. Jan Jones (R-Alpharetta), the subcommittee chairwoman, said the intent of the recommendation is not to save money but to give school systems the ability to double up coaches at schools with disappointing graduation rates.
Cobb County, for example, would be able to move the graduation coach at Lassiter High School, where the graduation rate last year was 94.2 percent, to Campbell High School, which had a 63.2 percent graduation rate.
The subcommittee’s recommendations now go to the “green door” budget committee, made up of House leaders.
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