The Good News

This week the state legislature is exploring a number of education reform bills. We aren’t sure what value they have in total but it is definitely a good thing that legislators are turning their attention back to the quality of education being served up in Georgia. It would seem that the pendulum is swinging back to finding ways to make sure that achievement increases across the board. We will talk more about that later, because this week we need to draw your attention to….

The Bad News

One of the bills before the legislature – HB 100 – proposes making sure that children are 5 years old when they enter kindergarten. The idea is that if children enter school too young, they enter unprepared, lacking maturity and are less successful. We are not weighing in on the merit of the bill on the face of it, but Gwinnett County Public Schools is. They see this bill as a threat for economic reasons. GCPS is watching this bill simply because it would mean that for ONE YEAR tax revenue would be down due to the number of 4 year olds not entering kindergarten when the bill is enacted.

Surprised? Outraged? You should be. This is what happens at school board meetings . The only board member at this month’s meeting on Thursday who had concerns about the bill not related to financial loss was Louise Radloff. If she is your representative, you should let her know that you value her rising above petty short-term loss to consider the affect a bill might have on your children’s success. If she’s not your representative, you might want to contact your board member know how you feel about them pushing kids into school just so they have a larger tax base.