By T.A. DeFeo | The Center Square contributor
(The Center Square) — Georgia lawmakers are almost certain to discuss school funding and even school choice legislation during this year’s legislative session.
“I think we’re going to have a very robust discussion when it comes to school funding, when it comes to vouchers and other issues that come before us,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said during a press conference this week. “I believe we have … a very diverse state when it comes to education funding, whether you’re from rural Georgia, or whether you’re from urban Georgia, and how funding impacts us all and comes into this equation.”
During last year’s session, the Georgia Senate scuttled Senate Bill 601, the Georgia Educational Freedom Act.
The measure would have created state-funded Promise Scholarships of up to $6,000 a year. Families of K-12 students in Georgia could have used the money for private school tuition and other education expenses, such as tutoring and homeschool curriculum.
“Parents are demanding more options in education, spurred on by the seismic changes we’ve seen in K-12 schools during the pandemic,” Buzz Brockway, executive vice president of public policy for the Georgia Center for Opportunity, said in a statement in response to Gov. Brian Kemp declaring Jan. 22-28 as National School Choice Week.
“On this front, we’re proud that Georgia is leading the charge on expanding educational opportunity for every child, not just for those from families with the right income or who live in the right zip code,” Brockway added. “This legislative session, Georgia lawmakers must build on the progress we’ve made in recent years by approving Education Scholarship Accounts to ensure educational access for all.”
Features of today’s government schools that students might miss if given financial freedom to choose:
Instruction on who is a victim, and who the victimizers are in our society.
Biological males on girls’ sports teams, in their bathrooms and their locker rooms.
Several times the number of administrators that were “needed” when we went to school.
Reliable gendering of your student, regardless of whether you know about it or not.
Not demanding, recognizing or celebrating achievement in the name of equity.
Teachers who are not supported in maintaining classroom discipline.
Libraries that have been relieved of copies of Dr Suess, but feature “They She He Me: Free To Be!”
Fourth grade lessons on the definitions of “cisgender” and “transgender”.
The AFT teachers union that has made “anti-racist” instruction a priority, including what every child needs to know about “micro-aggressions” and “restorative justice”.
The list of what is happening in government schools could go on and on. Maybe it’s not in Fayette yet, but it is for others elsewhere.
School choice is an alternative for parents who value their child learning the essentials more than the latest fad social experiment.
Cue the leftists who want government control over everything your kids get indoctrinated with – er, taught – in 3….2……1……