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Funding Committee Meets Tomorrow to Finalize Recs - Including Austerity?
Tomorrow, Nov. 12, 2015, the Governor's Education Reform Commission (ERC) Funding Committee will meet to finalize proposed reforms to Georgia's school funding formula. The proposed formula is intended to simplify k-12 funding and make it more transparent and student based. The Funding Committee's work has moved school funding more toward a block grant, in which the state sends local school districts funding with fewer expenditure controls, and would require local districts to adopt new teacher compensation plans. Teacher compensation is the biggest cost associated with public education.
The new formula, as currently proposed, would also build in almost a quarter billion dollars in recession-era school austerity cuts, which continue to hurt students and will undermine many of the reforms proposed by the ERC Funding Committee and four other ERC committees.
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PAGE Letter to ERC Funding Committee
PAGE has closely followed the work of the ERC and encouraged inclusion of professional educators in development of the ERC recommendations. We shared the following recommendations with ERC Chair Dr. Charles Knapp and members of the ERC Funding Committee in a letter available HERE, and we encourage PAGE members and other stakeholders to contact the ERC to provide feedback on all ERC recommendations. The ERC Funding Committee Should:
- Reiterate that the addition of $235 million is a good starting point to close the gap on continuing school austerity cuts. Cuts should not be built into the new education funding formula. Locking austerity into the new formula will undermine proposed ERC reforms and will hurt students. Policymakers should close the gap on austerity by restoring the quarter billion dollars in remaining cuts over the next fiscal years.
- Consider the impact of ongoing austerity reductions on teacher compensation redesign. If local districts pay existing teachers at current levels and must also design or adopt compensation models that include pay-for-performance for future Georgia educators, how will local districts afford to retain current teachers and attract new effective teachers?
- Strengthen and clarify proposed reform regarding the "grandfathering" of current Georgia educators under existing T & E guidelines. The current language does not assure that veteran teachers will continue to be compensated under the existing T & E structure. All but two Georgia school districts (Webster County and Buford City Schools) can deviate from T & E under existing IE2/Strategic Wavier and Charter System laws.
- Ensure that practicing classroom educators are involved in the transparent development of teacher compensation models created by GaDOE and that no compensation model require that TKES and LKES, which rely too heavily on standardized testing, serve as the mandatory teacher effectiveness measure for employee compensation.
- Recommend a review of Georgia teacher recruitment and retention data after implementation of ERC compensation changes are implemented. Enrollment in Georgia's teacher preparation programs is down 16 percent. The ERC should recommend that Georgia policymakers convene to formally review recruitment and retention numbers to ensure that ERC reforms, once implemented, have the desired effect.
- Add a student poverty funding weight to the new formula that targets pervasive pockets of student poverty and also provides assistance to students coming from families of the working poor.
- Review student transportation costs and ongoing $180.5 million transportation austerity cuts to ensure students arrive and depart school safely.
- Meet with representatives from the nine school districts (Burke, Coffee, Crisp, Floyd, Haralson, Lumpkin, Tattnall, Worth, and Gainesville City) earning less under the proposed funding formula to explain why the districts will earn less and what will happen when hold harmless funds expire.
- The ERC report should clearly state that the ERC did not investigate the actual cost of educating Georgia students and that the ERC'S work was intended to redistribute existing school funding and add transparency to the funding formula.
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Compensation Proposal Simplified 
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Margaret Ciccarelli - Director of Legislative Affairs
mciccarelli@pageinc.org
Josh Stephens - Legislative Policy Analyst
jstephens@pageinc.org
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