Let’s end Georgia’s educational inequities

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June 13, 2009

Anonymous The Union-Recorder Sat Jun 13, 2009, 08:00 AM EDT

Amid budget considerations in April, Gov. Perdue and Georgia legislators, with scant debate, decided to slash $112 million from the state’s so-called “equalization” funding for public schools in low-income districts. That substantial cut will begin July 1.

Granted, Georgia faces a severe budget crisis. Yet there were fundamental choices to be made; and the education of our children, especially those without much in the way of resources, should have been among the most protected priorities. Sadly, the projected cuts will impact youth in impoverished rural areas in the most uncharitable fashion. In some of those school districts, equalization funds are typically counted upon for 10 to 25 per cent of their annual budgets. Many counties in middle Georgia, like Baldwin and Hancock, will not fare well. Meanwhile, more affluent suburban counties like Gwinnett will be treated far more charitably.

As Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, puts it: “If you’re going to cut, why not do it across the board? Why do it to the 75 percent of districts who can least afford it?” In Oglethorpe County near Athens, School Superintendent Jeffrey Welch is particularly glum: “This isn’t an education budget, we’re moving toward a survival budget.”

What all this means is that counties that can least withstand major cutbacks will now be grappling with vastly increased class sizes and, in many cases, drastic reductions in essential teaching positions, even in basic areas like mathematics and reading.

School superintendents in some low-income, rural districts are now considering a renewal of a court battle over what they view as manifest inequities in state funding. The original legal skirmish on that issue came to a halt in 2004, but it could well begin anew. Such litigation has been waged in numerous states, sometimes successfully and most notably in Kentucky.

America and Georgia, in the 21st century, should no longer condone two systems of education: one for the rich, the other for the poor. Following the lead of education critic Jonathan Kozol, underprivileged youngsters are simply saying, “We do not have the things you have … Can you help us?” Let’s commit to action that says, “Yes, we can.”

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