Governor Deal's office announced last week that he is pushing back the timeline by which he expects a school funding rewrite recommendation. When he announced formation of the Education Reform Commission and its five committees earlier this year, the Governor indicated that he expected the Funding Committee to return recommendations by August 2015. In his letter the Governor indicates that he now anticipates a report by December 18^th and intends to impanel a special legislative committee during the 2016 General Assembly to handle recommendations from the ERC. The creation of a special committee is of particular interest as it appears to indicate that ERC recommendations will not move through the House and Senate Education Committees. 

Check out a PDF of the AJC'S recent in-depth coverage of the Governor's announcement and its implications HERE.

The ERC'S Move on When Ready (MOWR) Committee met with educators at Locust Grove Middle School on Monday, June 8 and heard from the impressive staff of the middle school and other Henry County educators about the adoption of competency-based personalized student learning programs created at the middle school. The middle school's principal Anthony Townsend serves on the MOWR Committee.   

 

The educators described to the MOWR committee how schedules at their school are individualized for students. They also discussed the importance of reading on grade level. When asked what state laws or rules they would like to see changed, one educator said he would like to see student seat time eliminated and suggested replacing it with competency-based requirements through which students show mastery on assessments. Another teacher said she'd like to see flexibility in service models for Special Education students who have IEP'S. The teacher said these students encounter scheduling barriers because of the IEP'S. Teachers also described frustration with state assessments that limit students from moving at an appropriate speed and with social promotion policies that fail to focus on where students are, content-wise.

 

After the session with educators, MOWR committee members met to discuss what they'd heard. They agreed on a goal of doubling the number of Georgians who obtain a college degree or other post-secondary credential. The members briefly talked about the idea of changing the age requirements for kindergarten, a proposal contained in HB 100 from the 2015 session, and seemed to reach consensus that changing the age was inappropriate and that emphasis should be placed on school readiness and quality early learning, rather than altering Georgia's kindergarten starting age.