September 9, 2016 
Governor Deal - We Respectfully Disagree
It's no surprise that Gov. Nathan Deal claimed in a message to educational leaders yesterday that school boards and superintendents have broken trust with him and the General Assembly by not giving teachers a 3 percent pay raise this year. The governor telegraphed this tactic during his State of the State address when he said he was allowing districts flexibility in their use of austerity reduction funds with the intent that it be used for a 3 percent teacher pay raise. "If that does not happen, it will make it more difficult next year for the state to grant local systems more flexibility in the expenditure of state education dollars ...  ." District administrators, teachers and education advocates understood the trap because there wasn't enough funding for most districts to address increased health care costs for classified employees and other insurance rate increases, costs of increased enrollment and also make up for years of decreased state funding. If the governor really wanted teachers to get a 3 percent pay raise he would have increased the state teacher salary schedule. That didn't happen because he also knows that an adjustment to the salary schedule creates an ongoing cost as it continues into future years. That also would have impacted the potential baseline cost of implementing Education Reform Commission (ERC) recommendations on some form of merit pay that would eliminate the state teacher salary schedule.

Gov. Deal correctly states that he and the legislature are spending more money than ever before on education, a necessary investment to serve the children in Georgia's public schools, whose numbers have grown by more than 10,000 in the last three years. And the reductions in austerity cuts, which topped $1 billion annually from 2010 to 2014, are much welcomed and appreciated. Despite this progress, however, the state is spending less per student adjusted for inflation now than was allocated in 2002. And the state still fell short $166 million of providing the full amount determined by the current K-12 funding formula for the current school year. At the same time, the needs of Georgia's students have grown, with about 60 percent now low-income, and so have the goals the state has set for them. These place new demands on teachers and schools and addressing them requires resources. True funding reform cannot take place unless state leaders look to the future and consider the resources that are needed to ensure that all children in Georgia's schools are successful, especially those in rural and low-wealth districts with limited local resources, which is exactly what the ERC deliberately avoided.

Many districts across this state have been and continue to fight to make up for billions of dollars in state austerity cuts over many years. Promoting the idea that state funding was adequate for a 3 percent raise for teachers knowing that it was not possible for many districts created unfair pressure on local boards and superintendents and promoted a false expectation for teachers. And, now that many local districts used state funds to address financial needs caused in large part due to the state's underfunding of the education budget, he uses this as a hammer against them. The governor seems more interested in driving a wedge between state legislators, teachers, administrators and local school boards rather than supporting them in their work. Gov. Deal's strategy was obvious last January and it's no surprise to educators to hear his comments yesterday.

Let's be real in this upcoming legislative session. We ask Gov. Deal to submit a budget that at a minimum fully funds education and that includes pay raises for teachers in the state salary schedule.

CLICK HERE for an excerpt from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute's 2017 Budget Primer showing how per student funding lags behind the needs of Georgia's students.

CLICK HERE for Gov. Deal's prepared speech.

Read the AJC article with more information about the governor's statements to education leaders below.
Gov. Deal lays out education plans and lashes out at critics
 by Ty Tagami, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016
 
Gov. Nathan Deal told Georgia educational leaders Thursday that his final two years in office will see a pivot to education policy, and he lashed out at critics of his budgets and his push for a state takeover of "chronically failing" schools.

Speaking at the Georgia Education Leadership Institute, an annual conference for superintendents, school board members, principals and other education leaders, Deal tied his previous focus on helping former convicts transition to society to his pending emphasis on students and keeping them out of the prison pipeline in the first place.

"Education reform is the best and the ultimate criminal justice reform," Deal said in an impassioned speech that went a dozen minutes beyond the allotted half hour.

The governor, who married a school teacher, said the state under his watch has spent proportionately more on education than any Georgia administration in the last half century, and he lambasted education advocates who complain about "austerity cuts" despite annual increases in the state's education budget in recent years. He had special venom for school leaders who repeatedly failed to pass along budget increases to teachers in the form of raises and reduced furlough days over the past three years, saying he and lawmakers would make such raises mandatory in future budgets.

"The General Assembly and I have lost our patience in trusting" superintendents and local boards of education, he said.

Deal unleashed his sharpest words on critics of his proposed constitutional amendment to create an "Opportunity School District." The Nov. 8 ballot item would take away some of the control of education long endowed in locally-elected school boards. If voters approve it, the amendment will allow the state to take over "chronically failing" schools - schools that Deal said have trapped mostly poor, "voiceless" and minority children for generations.

Nearly 68,000 kids are compelled by law to attend these 127 schools, Deal said. "If you think that's right, then vote against the constitutional amendment."

In a backhanded compliment, Deal credited local superintendents with keeping out of the fray, or, as he put it, "They've kept their mouths shut even if they don't agree with it."

But the clearly agitated governor noted that some school board members had spoken critically in newspaper articles about the state takeover proposal.

Deal said people should ask these critics if they send their children or grandchildren to a failing school. "I can almost guarantee you the answer will be no," said the governor, who was raised by two school teachers and whose wife, Sandra, is a retired teacher. (He noted that the choral director for the group that sang The Star-Spangled Banner ahead of his speech had been a student in his wife's sixth grade classroom.)

The governor also looked beyond the November voting, telegraphing one key legislative push next year. Deal said he plans to work with lawmakers to overhaul the decades old school funding formula. He promised that districts that would get less money under a formula change would be protected by a "hold harmless" clause. "So there is no loser in the proposal. There will only be gainers."

The two-term governor, who said he has no plans to run for another office, opened his speech saying it is an "exciting" time for education, "and I consider myself to be an educator."
His pledge for a relentless focus on education policy, with no worries about re-election as his administration winds down, promises to make it a top topic in this state.

CLICK HERE to view the article on AJC's website
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