Recently, after my seventh-grader’s orchestra recital, I stuck around after the concert for an impromptu meeting of about a dozen concerned parents who were just getting their first taste of the education funding crisis in Georgia.
As I listened to the parents of this North Fulton middle school, I alternated between sympathy, frustration and anger.
I was sympathetic to these parents who were just finding out, halfway through the General Assembly, that their children’s orchestra classes were likely to get cut in the face of the Fulton County School District’s $113 million budget deficit.
But, I was also frustrated that these same parents, in one of the better school systems, albeit in one of the lowest-ranked school states in the country, were oblivious to the funding crisis that had been brewing in the news media for six months.
These poor parents were realizing for the first time that their kids’ schools were having to choose between teacher furloughs, layoffs, cutting arts, athletics and special education programs, raising property taxes, shortening the school week, or all of the above.
My anger came from the fact that our elected officials seem to be doing absolutely nothing to deal with the situation, and, in fact, are pushing tax and education legislation that will only serve to siphon off even more revenue from our public schools at a time when they need that revenue the most.
Last week, I attended another meeting of about 150 parents and teachers who attended a meeting of the Woodstock Middle School PTA and our legislative delegation.
There were two marked differences between this group and the orchestra group. First, there was about 150 people in attendance. Second, they came prepared and asked questions about school vouchers, lottery money, special education, merit pay, budget cuts and other issues at the heart of the education funding crisis.
Unfortunately, their queries, pleas and entreaties to the elected officials resulted in few, if any, answers. Instead, they got a mountain of information that was neither helpful, nor hopeful.
To their credit, the delegation – except for Sen. Jack Murphy, R-Cumming, who apparently had more pressing matters to which to attend – showed up and took questions for two hours.
To their discredit, their responses didn’t offer a single solution. Instead, they blamed the recession; they said the media is distorting the education funding crisis; they suggested Cherokee’s school district should be more like Forsyth County’s; they blamed previous legislators; they offered pointless lectures on how the Legislature works; and they swore up and down they support public education but repeatedly implied they were powerless to do anything to help.
Here’s a sampling of what they offered:
• Rep. Sean Jerguson, R-Holly Springs, expressed outrage that the Georgia Lottery Corporation isn’t living up to the terms of the deal that allowed them to be created by holding back about 4 percent of the 31 percent of their profits they are supposed to turn over to the state. When someone yelled out of the crowd to do something about it, he offered a lecture about the difficulty of passing a constitutional amendment and why it is important that the constitution be hard to amend, basically letting the crowd know not to expect any action on that front any time soon.
• When asked why the General Assembly is one of the state agencies among those getting the least cuts, Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, made the case that legislators are tightening their belts during this recession, too, and they are now required to return $1,000 of their discretionary expense funds at the end of the legislative session. Let’s see, 180 representatives, plus 56 senators, at $1,000 a pop equals $236,000 … about one-fourth of what Cherokee teachers lose from one furlough day.
• When a Creekland Middle School teacher suggested the legislators adopt a temporary 1 percent state sales tax increase to get us through the state’s revenue shortfall, Rep. Calvin Hill, R-Canton, dismissed the idea and said a better short-term solution was for parents to ask the school board to raise the property tax millage rate.
• Throughout the evening, Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, hammered the point that Georgia has suffered 21 consecutive months of falling revenue, saying that only 21 months of rising revenue will make things right. He espoused the benefits of enticing companies to move to Georgia and the benefits of choice, which he says his school voucher legislation will encourage. To me vouchers mean siphoning even more money from public schools into the coffers of private, charter, home and any other private-sector schools that might emerge.
• Other than reiterating Jerguson’s point that it takes two-thirds of the Legislature to pass a constitutional amendment, Rep. Charlice Byrd, R-Woodstock, didn’t really say or do anything. At one point, she did manage to stump for the only piece of legislation I can recall her ever having introduced, a program she copied from Texas, which has the seal of approval from the right-wing free market advocacy group Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party Coalition, to see if state agencies are wasteful.
Meanwhile, the hits keep coming. The day after the PTA meeting, Haralson County announced it was going to a four-day school week; DeKalb County said it was closing four schools; and Fulton County said it was laying off 500 teachers.
To be fair, with the exception of Hill and Hamilton, who bolted for the door, Rogers, Byrd and Jerguson stuck around after the meeting to talk with a handful of people. I probably should have wandered over, but, to be honest, after almost two-and-a-half hours, I’d had enough of this dead-end discourse.
I also realized, as a parent of two public school students, I am fed up. I have heard our legislators speak about their valiant efforts on behalf of our public schools, and their message was loud and clear: We are on our own to fix it.
There are many who think our legislators’ end-game is to privatize the public schools, and I really want to believe that they aren’t trying to dismantle the school system … but, consciously or not, that’s exactly what they are doing.
So, when the elections roll around, I will do what I can to stop them, and I hope the parents of our 37,000 public school students will, too.
