Education is dominating the governor’s race, where the latest skirmish between Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and Democratic challenger Jason Carter is over the HOPE Scholarship and its devolution to HOPE Lite.
A Deal robo-call contends Carter wants to wipe out HOPE for middle-class students based on a bill he proposed two years ago. In response to flagging lottery revenues, Carter called for an income cap on HOPE eligibility so kids with the greatest need would still get full tuition.
The issue came up last week when Carter and Deal attended the Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students summit. Asked about the cap, Carter retreated from his 2012 stance: “I don’t think anyone is talking anymore about a solid cap. It’s probably too blunt an instrument. We want to make sure what we’re doing is maximizing the number of people, and finding ways to make sure we consider need without a full-fledged cap.”
Historically, HOPE has affected where Georgia students went to college rather than whether they went. Studies have found 4 percent of the money spent on HOPE went to students who might not otherwise have gone to college.
Some Georgians contend keeping bright middle- and upper-middle-class Georgia students in the state is an important accomplishment. Others counter it would have been wiser to target HOPE to poor kids for whom the scholarship would have played a more decisive role in their college attendance.
That debate is pretty much over, as middle-class voters value HOPE, and no sane politician is going to charge willingly into that morass. No matter who wins the governor’s race, HOPE is safe.
The more pressing question in the race for governor is who has a better vision for education.
And that depends on whether you believe state involvement and leadership helps or hinders schools.
I have written about education in three states and never saw a governor more focused on it than former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes. Most governors have policy advisers who read the latest education research and share snippets with their bosses or insert a snappy line or two in a speech. Barnes read it all. When a new charter school program called KIPP reported high achievement gains in Houston and New York, Barnes invited the founders to Atlanta and funded a KIPP school here. When Kentucky saw more parental engagement through its innovative school councils, Barnes embraced the idea for Georgia.
He talked to other like-minded governors about what they were doing and whether it might work in Georgia. Barnes believed in the transformational power of education, not only for the individual, but for the state as a whole.
Many in the profession during the Barnes era would argue his intensity did not help schools, and that it put teachers on the firing line and created accountability pressures never before felt in Georgia classrooms. (Few then foresaw the accountability pressures yet to come.)
Like Gov. Sonny Perdue, Deal has been more focused on improving the business climate in Georgia than the schools. He cares about education, but it’s never been his passion, and he’s never offered a cohesive plan. Deal doesn’t have Education Week under one arm and the latest Stanford study under the other.
Deal appears more authoritative on business development than education reform. Deal’s also more hands-off. While he supports charter schools and has floated the concept of state-controlled schools, I suspect he would personally prefer to see education treated as a local issue.
Carter has a greater interest in and intensity about education, likely from a Barnes-like conviction that the future belongs to states with highly educated citizens and premiere schools. I am not saying Deal doesn’t want those things, too. Of course he does. The difference between Deal and Carter is the degree to which they see the state’s role in attaining those goals, and how far they are willing to commit state resources to reach them.
There is a legitimate debate whether state leadership benefits education, and what form that leadership should take in Georgia. That is the debate we ought to be having.
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