Baker wants bingo to fund education programs

Nearly two decades after helping Gov. Zell Miller win approval of a state lottery for education, Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker on Wednesday proposed a variation on that theme: bingo for schools.

Baker, who served as Miller's House floor leader when the General Assembly and voters passed the lottery in the early 1990s, trails in the polls in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. He hopes to replicate Miller's feat of winning the governor's race with a big idea.

Miller's was a lottery that pays for HOPE scholarships and pre-kindergarten classes. Baker wants to use the proceeds from electronic bingo -- which he said would reach $2 billion a year in a decade -- to fund higher teacher salaries, a lengthening of the school year, after-school initiatives and a host of other school programs. The Georgia Lottery would run the game.

"This will transform education in Georgia forever, and for the better," said Baker.

"Our promise is simple: We will make Georgia schools not just better than any schools in America, but as good as any school in the world. We will no longer sit back and watch Georgia’s kids get beat by students in other parts of the United States, or by students in Germany, Japan or Korea."

Baker wants to increase the number of days children are in school from 180 to 200 days. Many systems have shortened the school year because of state budget cuts.

His plan, called the BEST initiative, also calls for hiring 2,755 new teachers each year for a decade, eliminating any waiting lists on pre-kindergarten classes, having universal kindergarten in Georgia, creating two-hour after-school programs in all schools, reinstating scholarship programs for teachers and prospective teachers, and creating a new mentoring program for educators.

He said after a decade, Georgia would have the highest-paid teachers in the U.S. and the most teachers per student in the country.

The bingo games would have to raise more than twice what the current lottery takes in to pay for Baker's programs. Last year, the lottery provided $872 million for education. The new, phased in bingo-funded programs would eventually cost $2 billion a year.

"We believe the dollars are going to be there, that's not an issue," Baker said. "We believe the numbers we are proposing are conservative numbers."

Polls show Baker trailing former Gov. Roy Barnes in the Democratic race for governor. Other leading Democratic candidates include former state Adjutant General David Poythress and state House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin).

Barnes said, "If the idea has merit and public support and the funds will be dedicated to public education, the state should consider it.”

Poythress called it a bad idea.

"Everybody is concerned about funding education, but the education challenges we face are more than just funding," he said. "As a revenue source, gambling is problematic at best. It seems to me the last thing we ought to be talking about right now is creating a government bureaucracy to regulate another legalized gambling operation.

"I don't see anything good about this idea."

Porter said Baker's bingo would compete with nonprofit groups who use bingo for fund-raising.

"My plan of going after the cheaters who don't send in the state's portion of sales taxes would be a more sustainable and reliable source for funding education," Porter said.