How a Georgia literacy bill emerged as a central fight of session’s final days
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns is pushing to rescue one of his top priorities from the Capitol’s end-of-session maneuvering, warning that Georgia’s literacy crisis is too urgent to get hobbled by political bargaining.
In an interview with “Politically Georgia,” Burns called his sweeping literacy bill the answer to “a crisis we can solve” and said he was growing impatient to see it pass the Senate, where Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and his allies are pushing their own alternative.
“This effort is just too important to play politics with,” Burns said. “This is about our future. It’s about success of our state in the future. It’s about individual success. It’s about family success. The future of our state depends on us getting literacy right.”
The comments come at a pivotal moment for Burns’ proposal, which would steer new resources toward early reading intervention, literacy coaches and phonics-based instruction for Georgia’s youngest students.
The measure cleared the House with overwhelming support, but it has stalled in the Senate, where leaders are set to unveil their own version Wednesday as lawmakers barrel toward the final days of the session.
Relations between the two chambers are already strained. House leaders were infuriated last year when Jones abruptly ended the session early, a power-play that derailed negotiations and still lingers over this year’s session, which ends April 2.
Burns has cast the literacy overhaul as the biggest education policy shift in a generation, modeled partly on policies other Southern states successfully embraced. He repeatedly noted the “unacceptable” stat that only one in three Georgia students is reading on grade level by the end of third grade.
He was careful to say the measure is not an indictment of teachers. Instead, he said the state has failed to dedicate enough resources and attention to the “science of reading,” including phonics-based instruction and earlier intervention for struggling students.
His bill would steer new funding and resources toward early-grade reading, including literacy coaches in K-3 classrooms, expanded training for teachers and more screening to identify struggling students. A fiscal note projects the annual cost at more than $130 million.
The Senate proposal would trim administrative costs and shift more authority to state education agencies. It keeps key parts of the House plan, including literacy coaches and early screening, but adds accountability requirements for state officials and delays implementation by a year.
In a statement, Jones said any “legislation with a significant price tag deserves careful review — and this one is no different."
“As someone who has grown up around dyslexia and experienced it with family members, I know how critical early literacy is,” he said. “Every dollar should go directly into the classroom — not into growing government. The Senate’s version will reflect that.”
Senate Appropriations Chair Blake Tillery, who outlined the plan at a Wednesday committee meeting, said it pushes more than $70 million in funding “directly to the classroom.”
“The Senate’s plan doesn’t pay for additional bureaucrats and committees,” Tillery told the AJC. “We push funding for instruction directly in classrooms.”
‘Pragmatic’ policy
In the interview, Burns also defended a range of House priorities that could define the session’s closing stretch, including property tax relief, income tax cuts and guardrails on energy-hungry data centers.
On taxes, Burns backed a more gradual, “pragmatic” approach to cutting the income tax — not eliminating it, as Jones and other Senate leaders want — arguing the state should first push the rate below 4% before going further.
On data centers, Burns backed legislation aimed at ensuring large power users cover the costs they create, framing it as a way to protect ratepayers from subsidizing new energy demand.
And Burns was notably cautious when asked about the effort by Jones to pass legislation that could complicate his Republican rival Rick Jackson’s bid for governor by blocking candidates with state contracts from running.
“We’re not worried about the statewide politics right now,” he said, adding: “We’re going to focus on the policy initiatives, like literacy and like taxes and what we can do to make Georgians’ lives better.”
Here are details from the interview, lightly edited for clarity:
Data centers
Burns said the House is trying to put stronger guardrails around major energy users so ordinary Georgians aren’t stuck with the bill.
Large power consumers must “pay for the services they bring in,” and that any new costs shouldn’t fall to regular ratepayers.
Healthcare
Burns said he remains focused on expanding Georgia’s medical workforce rather than pursuing a broader cost-control package.
“I don’t think you can throw enough money at this problem that you can solve it if you don’t have a workforce,” he said. He pointed to spending on residency slots to keep newly minted doctors in Georgia, saying: “We can train them, and then we can retain them.”
Taxes
Burns said he’s still stung by the House’s failure to pass a sweeping property tax cut, a constitutional amendment that Democrats roundly rejected amid concerns it would gut funding for local schools and governments. Instead, a more scaled-back tax bill was approved.
“They should have worked with us on that, and we could have made a difference, and it could have been an issue for them,” he said. “But they have to worry about their own politics.”
Election laws
Facing a July 2026 mandate to stop using QR codes to count the votes, Burns said he supports extending the timeline and empower whoever succeeds Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to refine the policy.
“We’ll push the deadline, but then let the next secretary of state kind of help hash out the details.”
House races
Burns dismissed Democratic hopes of flipping competitive swing seats despite the party contesting nearly all of the chamber’s 180 seats.
“You can’t push a bad candidate across the finish line,” he said. “We have good candidates. We have a good message. We pass great policy.”
2026 politics
Burns acknowledged the election-year dynamics hovering over the session but tried to downplay their influence on policymaking.
“You can never take the politics out of politics,” he said.
About the Author
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
