Pardon Our Dust
We recently launched this new site and are still in the process of updating some of our archived content. Some details of this article may be incomplete, links may be broken, and other elements may not display properly yet. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Week Six Update
Charter School Growth
A national nonprofit advocacy group has stated that the enrollment in public charter schools in Georgia is up 11,000 students. This year a total of 13 charter schools have been added in Georgia showing significant growth in their popularity. Nationally a total of 2.9 million students now attend charter schools. Read more…
Deal’s plan to take over failing schools
Governor Deal has proposed a plan that would take schools with an “F” grade be taken over by a state district superintendent. An “F” grade is one that is determined by using student performance on various exams and other measures. Deal’s staff has approximated that about 6% of schools statewide would be eligible to be taken over. Not all of the schools could be included in this state district; it would be limited to 100 schools at any period of time. Deal hopes that if this proposal goes through it could help turn around performance by taking over the operations of the school, and applying to the state charter commission to become a charter school. Read more…
Transportation Plan
The transportation funding bill has been revised to help raise $1 billion to cover maintenance of Georgia’s roads and bridges. Initially the plan was reliant on removing the sales tax, and adding more to the excise tax to gasoline purchases. Many Local government representatives were critical of this plan as local government received a share of the sales tax but would not any share of the excise tax. A way that they have tried to remedy this concern is through letting a local board vote to add up to a 6 cent/ gallon excise tax in addition to the 29.2 cent/gallon that the state has already planned. In addition to this change in the initial plan, a house subcommittee has also proposed to eliminate the state’s $5000 tax credit for having an electric car. Eliminating the $5000 tax credit would generate about $45 Million to invest in a bond package. Supporters of the bill to give a tax credit to the people who purchased electric cars have proposed instead decreasing the maximum credit consumers can receive, because a harsh stop to the tax credit will slow down Georgia’s electric vehicle sales. Read more…
Alcohol Sales
A bill has been proposed in the senate that would loosen some of the restrictions imposed on alcohol sales. The bill would allow local governments to sell beer and wine within 100 yards of a school building. The bill was especially popular with representatives from Athens as they believe that it would greatly improve local economic development in their area. Read more…