Over the summer, my 12-year-old son learned math online as a prerequisite to jump ahead a grade. I admit to skepticism that he could master seventh-grade concepts math via an online learning program. But any doubts were erased by a pre-test at the start of the school that showed he was well-grounded and ready for eighth-grade math.
This may be the future of more students in Georgia and other states, as schools are asked to do more with less. As pointed out last week at a meeting of the state Education Finance Study Commission, 80 percent of the costs of education underwrite teachers and benefits.
With less money available to pay for teachers, the commission was told that it could raise class sizes or consider supplementing classroom teachers with technology-based instruction.
Marguerite Roza, senior data and economic adviser for the Gates Foundation, told the commission that one solution was to ask the most effective teachers in Georgia to teach larger classes and pay them a per-student overage; she suggested $2,000 for each extra student.
The newly formed Education Finance Study Commission consists of educators, lawmakers and business leaders charged with revamping Georgia’s three-decades-old funding formula, which barely acknowledges computers and virtual learning.
At the commission meeting, state School Superintendent John Barge held up a copy of Title 20 of the Georgia Code, which legislates education. Many of the 374 pages were marked with flags that Barge said he used to highlight regulations that contained material “that was outdated, was language that was no longer applicable or relevant, were things that could be helpful to change or helpful to eliminate, and things that just do not apply any more.”
The commission is bipartisan, best illustrated by the invitation to Joseph Martin, Barge’s Democratic opponent for school chief last year, to talk about how to reform the formula. The commission allotted Martin an hour for his presentation, reflective of his expertise in school funding. Martin helped write the Quality Basic Education Act in the early 1980s. His inclusion was all the more extraordinary because Martin led a consortium of rural school districts that tried to sue the state over how it funded schools.
The commission’s collegiality reflects the character of its co-chairs, state Rep. Brooks Coleman of Gwinnett and state Sen. Fran Millar of DeKalb.
Millar, in particular, is an open guy. (He sometimes regrets it, as when he announced at the meeting that principal training was essential because “there is probably nothing worse for a teacher than to walk in and have some moron running their school.”)
The commission created subgroups to delve into individual areas, and those groups came back with some common-sense proposals after their first go-around, including repealing the 65 percent classroom spending rule, restoring school nurses and redressing capital-outlay formulas that hurt smaller districts.
But the harder challenges await: How should Georgia fund its schools at the building level? Can the money follow the child across district lines when the state has some communities that dig very deep to augment the money invested in education by the state? What can the state do about districts that lack the political will to fund schools to a level required for adequacy, never mind excellence?
If, as Martin says, the state must at least pay for a foundational education for every child, what should that foundation include? Does it mean foreign language and physics? Does it mean art and music?
People complain that ZIP code can determine school quality, that wealthier districts enjoy better schools. But often that’s because those property owners are willing to tax themselves at higher rates to fund their extras.
Should a district be allowed to dramatically exceed the funding floor provided by the state so that their students enjoy a far broader education than most children?
Should metro schools continue to outpace most of the schools in the state because their taxpayers can afford to pay more or are willing to pay more because they have greater faith in the value of education? Within a system, should a single school blessed with dedicated and financially able parents be permitted to add more teachers or classes because its parents are willing to pay for them?
In other words, if the state funds a basic starter house, can a local community use its own resources to build a mansion?
About the Author
