After six sessions under the Gold Dome, a longtime education advocate, Stephen Owens, says he’s had enough.
Owens is stepping down from his role at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization that supports increased funding for education.
The outgoing education director told “Politically Georgia” on Tuesday about his next steps.
“I am now the director of policy and advocacy at Brown’s Promise,” Owens says. “(It’s) a new organization housed under the Southern Education Foundation to work on school integration.”
It's time to say goodbye sine die
— Stephen Owens, Ph.D. (@StephenJOwens_) March 29, 2024
Today is my last day at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. I'm so proud of the work we have accomplished in the last 6 sessions that I got to be a part of. Thank you for including me in the effort to shape a better Georgia for everyone.
He says part of his decision to move on was because “in the past few years, it’s gotten darker in the Georgia General Assembly.”
Owens, a Christian, penned an op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution where he said in part, “Watching Christian groups and lawmakers rush to make life crueler for people outside the majority culture hurt almost as much as their silence in the areas that would provide relief.”
His departure comes on the heels of a particularly divisive session.
Owens noted the Georgia Senate’s hijacking of House Bill 1104 as a watershed moment for him. The bill was introduced by freshman state Rep. Omari Crawford.
Republicans took the Decatur Democrat’s proposal to provide more mental health support for athletes and morphed it into a bill that targeted transgender students from using restrooms or locker rooms that do not align with their gender identity.
Owens says he’s seen fewer policy-driven conversations under the Gold Dome. “I feel like we’ve lost a lot of lawmakers who took their work seriously,” he says. “And it feels a lot more like, ‘How can we feed red meat to the imaginations of our base?’ ”
The House ultimately blocked HB 1104 from passing.
Still, Owens says, “at some point you look at these and say, sure, the worst of the worst didn’t get across the line.”
“But it’s not written in stone that it’s always going to be that way,” he says. “We need a Legislature that cares about the details.”
Owens says despite leaving behind his work in the Legislature for now, he’s hopeful for education in Georgia.
“Zooming out,” he says, “I still have a lot of faith in the people of Georgia, this incredible state.”
Wednesday on ”Politically Georgia”: Donald Trump is coming back to Georgia for a big fundraiser. We’ll preview the event.
