| TOP TEN Issues to Watch in 2012 in Georgia Education
The Partnership for Excellence in Education publishes a yearly snapshot of Georgia's educational trends and issues. This year's issue, in addition to focusing on the hot topics in Georgia education, also reveals where Georgia stands on critical indicators of child well-being, educational attainment, and workforce readiness. Here are the Partnership for Excellence in Education's Top Ten Issues to Watch in 2012. (Click here for the full report from http://www.gpee.org. )
1. Georgia's New Performance Standards -- With a waiver from the Federal Department of Education, Georgia will be measuring its schools through an entire index of indicators as opposed to looking at just graduation rates, attendance rates, and test scores. Schools, beginning in 2012, will be measured by an index that includes college and career readiness indicators with school systems measured on more data than ever before.
2. Assessing Teachers: From Highly Qualified to Highly Effective -- How much should a good teacher get paid? Historically, Georgia educators have been paid based on qualifications, years of service, type of degree/license held. Georgia's educators may see changes in how they paid in the next two to three years with compensation tied to teacher evaluation which includes students' performance on standardized tests.
3. Common Core Implementation -- Common Core state standards that Georgia, along with 44 other states, adopted mean that big changes are coming to Georgia's curriculum at grades K-12. The Common Core initiative has five main priorities: equity, preparation, competition, clarity, and collaboration. Georgia has begun the massive effort to make Common Core Georgia Performance Standards a reality.
4. Challenges to Rural Schools -- A national committee was recently charged by the presidential administration to study the challenges facing rural America. The number one challenge, according to that committee, is education. Between 2004 and 2009, rural enrollment in schools nationally grew from 22 percent to 24 percent. More than half a million children in Georgia attend rural public schools -- approximately one-third of Georgia's students. Closing the city to rural achievement gap is a nationwide effort that will include focus on Georgia schools in 2012.
5. The New Normal: Georgia's Educational Financing -- The economic reality of continued "lean times," despite some growth in the private sector, dictates that school systems are in for tough budget choices again. With outdated funding formulas and state budget cuts disguised as program priority changes, districts are having to make difficult decisions. Regardless of today's economy, why should today's student deserve less of an education just because of funding gaps or program priorities?
6. Georgia's PK Program: Quality and Quantity Needed -- Multiple nationally recognized research studies point to Georgia's PK Program as a winner. A high-quality early learning system that prepares children to be successful in school is good for Georgia's students. With cuts made reality in 2011-2012 school year, what will happen to the quality of the program if it suffers more cuts in 2012-2013?
7. Choice. Where do we go from here? -- In Georgia, the demand for school choice mirrors a national landscape. Magnet schools, charter schools, virtual schools, and homeschooling are growing. Research on most of these entities is mixed, and how these educational delivery systems evolve in Georgia will continue to be an issue to watch.
8. Economic Development Pipeline: The Role of Education -- Unemployment in Georgia mirrors the national rate and data points to techical skill gaps, high school dropout rates, and low college completion rates as factors for that unemployment rate. Look for emphasis in 2012-2013 on graduation rates as the formula for those rates changes to mirror a national formula for all states to use. Georgia is also changing as the relationship between Georgia's technical colleges and its university system gets stronger and more "student-focused."
9. Leadership and Ethics in our Public Schools -- School systems are businesses. In most Georgia counties, they are the largest restaurant, largest trucking company, largest employer, largest service-based business, and more. That school system's customers, its students and their families, are that county's most precious resource. Through efforts to create a culture of ethics and excellence, Georgia school systems can rise above some highly publicized system-specific cheating scandals and ethics violations that shadowed the majority of Georgia's school systems who are creating and sustaining cultures of excellence in their efforts to be the best trucking company, the best restaurant, the best employer, the best service provider, but most of all, the institutions respected for growing our most precious resource -- Georgia's children.
10. Where's the glue? Tying it all together. -- Georgia has made great student achievement gains in the last 15 years. The achievement gaps are closing, but there is much to be done so that all of Georgia's educational institutions and systems (PK through post-secondary) are working cooperatively in tandem for the same goal: raising student achievement and success for Georgia.
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