by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Apr 1, 2015
We are happy to provide you with this update on some of the bills that GCO is following this session. Should you have any questions or comments, please email Eric Cochling.
House Bill 243 – Education Savings Accounts – sponsored by Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming
The ESA Bill (HB 243) did not make it onto the House floor for a vote before the end of Crossover Day. What that means, practically speaking, is that the bill is likely dead for the session.
Because Georgia runs on a biennial cycle, bills that made progress this year will pick up where they left off starting in the 2016 legislative session. This means that we are in a good position for January 2016 since we have a bill that has been vetted and has made significant progress in the House. We also feel confident that, given the broad and bipartisan support for the bill within the general assembly and overwhelming support among Georgia voters, our chances for passing the bill next session are excellent.
While this is disappointing news, we encourage you to continue to speak about the importance of educational choice (and ESAs specifically) with your legislators throughout the year! If you don’t know who your legislators are, find them here.
To learn more about ESAs and to support Rep. Hamilton and Sen. Hunter Hill, who is sponsoring similar legislation in the state senate, visit www.foropportunity.org/go/esa.
Senate Bill 133 and Senate Resolution 287 – Opportunity School Districts (OSD) – carried by Senator Butch Miller
The governor’s signature legislation is moving forward despite unexpected opposition and difficulty. Senate Bill 133 provides the nuts and bolts of how the OSD would operate, while Senate Resolution 287 allows voters to decide in 2016 whether they are willing to entrust new powers to the governor’s appointed OSD superintendent to take over failing schools. Each passed with the requisite constitutional majority, 108-53 and 121-47, respectively.
Senate Resolution 287 will ask voters:
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?”
There was lots of fiery rhetoric throughout the committee hearings and on the House floor both for and against the resolution. Opponents argue that the bill would allow for power to be taken away from local school boards and placed in the hands of a centralized bureaucracy. Supporters maintain that decision‑making power in an OSD is decentralized away from the local school board bureaucracy, and transferred to individual school principals, teachers, and, often, charter school boards.
In other words, both sides argue that they support local control.
At first glance it is difficult to see how a state takeover could lead to more local involvement, but with New Orleans as an example, we can now imagine a way for government to create the space and, importantly, the pressure needed for local communities and institutions to address problems plaguing our most chronically failing schools.
House Bill 440 – Business and Education Succeeding Together (BEST) – sponsored by Rep. Mike Glanton, D- Jonesboro
In February, Rep. Mike Glanton (D) introduced a bill that would create a separate corporate-only tax credit program (Business and Education Succeeding Together, or BEST) that would provide $12 million in scholarship funding. The program is separate from the current tax credit scholarship program and has many of the accountable provisions that the current program lacks. While the bill has not made much progress this session, we believe it will be seriously considered next session as an additional way to continue expanding opportunities for students and families in the state.
Senate Bill 129 – Religious Freedom Restoration Act – Sponsored by Rep. Josh McKoon – R – Columbus
SB 129, the religious liberty bill, was “tabled” by the House Judiciary Committee, because of an amendment that would have effectively gutted the bill of its purpose.
The so-called “non-discrimination” clause introduced by state Rep. Mike Jacobs, R-Brookhaven, “completely undercut the purpose of the bill,” McKoon said. Supporters of the bill felt that adding this clause, which the majority of the thirty plus state RFRA’s and the federal RFRA do not have, would effectively leave religious liberty worse off in the state of Georgia. For example, adding a non-discrimination clause could prevent private religious schools from discriminating based on religious belief when hiring staff.
SB 129 became part of a larger culture war, and its failure – tabling the bill makes it very unlikely that it will reach a House floor vote before the end of the session – was due in large part to the fear of “perception” rather than the reality of the purpose or language of the bill. The ongoing struggle over Indiana’s new law is certainly not encouraging lawmakers here to act.
Read additional commentary on the RFRA legislation on our website.
For the case in favor of Georgia’s legislation, read what these fourteen law professors had to say.
Senate Bill 8 and Senate Resolution 7 – Safe Harbor/Rachel’s Law Act – sponsored by Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford
Georgia legislators, led by Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, are seeking to tighten Georgia’s existing sex trafficking laws. The combination of Senate Bill 8 and Senate Resolution 7 would help create a new Safe Harbor for Sexually Exploited Children Fund, using new $2,500 fines on convicted traffickers and an annual $5,000 fee on adult entertainment establishments to raise money for the fund. SB 8 sets out the framework of the proposal while SR 7 seeks amendment to the Georgia Constitution by asking Georgians for permission to create the new fund. A governor-appointed commission would manage this fund and the effort.
This money would then be used to pay for physical and mental health care, housing, education, job training, child care, legal help and other services for sexually exploited victims. In addition to the new fines, the Bill would require convicted traffickers be listed on the state sex offender registry – something which surprisingly doesn’t happen now.
Legislators are working together to merge Unterman’s version of the proposal with a similar House version, HB 244, with hopes to assure final passage. The Bill passed through the Senate on a 52-3 vote, and is now working its way through the House Committee for Juvenile Justice.
UPDATE: Both of these bills were voted on Tuesday, March 31st, and passed 150-22 and 151-18, respectfully.
Senate Resolution 80 – Demand Revision of College Board of AP U.S. History – Sponsored by Sen. William Ligon Jr., R-Brunswick
This resolution demands revision by the College Board of Advanced Placement U.S. History. Since approximately 14,000 Georgia students take the College Board’s Advanced Placement U. S. History course each year, the General Assembly is right to be concerned that the new framework “reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects,” presenting, “a biased and inaccurate view of many important themes and events in American history, including the motivations and actions of seventeenth to nineteenth century settlers, the nature of the American free enterprise system, the course and resolution of the Great Depression, and the development of and victory in the Cold War.” Though the college board denies any political intent, the course content does seem to have a strong bias that focuses on negative aspects of American history, while not presenting much on America’s positive role in the world.
Those in favor of Senate Resolution 80 hope that by acknowledging this problem, other companies might form to challenge the bias of the College Board’s monopoly on Advanced Placement courses for high school students.
UPDATE: This bill, in substitute form, was voted out of the senate prior to crossover day and awaits action by the house.
House Bill 677 and House Resolution 807 – Allowing Casino Gambling in Georgia – sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah
For the last several years, some form of gambling has been proposed by various legislators under the guise of saving the HOPE Scholarship. This years’ effort is being sponsored, in part, by Rep. Ron Stephens. House Resolution 807 would place a constitutional amendment on the 2016 ballot that would empower the state to license casinos (which is currently prohibited by the Georgia Constitution), while House Bill 677 is a 127-page bill that describes in detail how the new gambling marketplace in Georgia would operate. These bills, like those in previous years, are being promoted on the basis of the jobs casinos could create, along with the revenue promised to the HOPE Scholarship program. Missing from the analysis is any reference to the problems associated with casinos – including increased levels of addiction and negative economic effects.
House Bill 1 – Haleigh’s Hope Act – sponsored by Rep. Allen Peake, R- Macon
Last Friday, Gov. Nathan Deal signed an executive order directing state agencies to prepare for the enactment of House Bill 1 which authorizes the limited use of cannabis oil to treat eight specific disorders that include cancer, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Crohn’s disease, mitochondrial disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, sickle cell disease, and seizure disorders as long as a physician prescribes the medication. The bill also allows for clinical trials to further study how the drug works.
House Bill 439 – Georgia New Markets Jobs Act – sponsored by Rep. Jason Shaw, R- Lakeland
In 2000 the U.S. Congress created the federal New Markets Tax Credit as an effort to stimulate private investment within poor urban and rural areas. Since 2000 a handful of states followed with their own versions of the law. House Bill 439, Georgia New Markets Jobs Act is another such effort.
According to the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition, the tax credits, “stimulate private investment and economic growth in low income urban neighborhoods and rural communities that lack access to the patient capital needed to support and grow businesses, create jobs, and sustain healthy local economies.”
House Bill 439 would allow for millions of dollars in private investment toward projects and communities that likely would never have received such injections of patient capital otherwise – stimulating economic growth in low-income neighborhoods. In other states this tax credit has been used to finance everything from health care centers to charter schools, groceries in food deserts, community centers, domestic violence shelters, factories and small business loan funds in distressed urban, suburban and rural communities.
HB 439 passed through the Senate last Friday 41-9. Though HB 439 differs from the federal New Markets Tax Credit, this bi-partisan sponsored bill represents innovative policy that seeks to remove barriers to opportunity.
Senate Bill 3 – Supporting and Strengthening Families Act – sponsored by Senator Renee Unterman
This bill would allow parents experiencing “short-term difficulties that impair their ability to perform the regular and expected functions to provide care and support to their minor children” a way to confer the authority to act as a temporary guardian on behalf of their children without the trouble, time, and expense of a court proceeding. The intent behind this piece of legislation is to provide a “statutory mechanism” that helps preserve family stability.
This bill passed through the Senate 43-10 and is now in the hands of the House Judiciary Committee.
Legislative Calendar
Tomorrow (April 2, 2015) is Sine Die – the last day of the 2015 Legislative Session.
Reports
These are the house and senate reports on activity in each chamber.
– House Daily Report (daily)
– Senate Daily Report (weekly)
Use Our Website to Follow Important Legislation and Contact Your Elected Representatives
Visit our Take Action page to see all of the bills we’re tracking this session, to take specific actions on bills we support or oppose, and find out how to contact your elected representatives.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Mar 30, 2015
This past week, Indiana enacted a religious freedom law much like the one that remains under consideration here in Georgia. Despite Governor Mike Pence’s assurances that the bill has nothing to do with discrimination, there was a swift—and very negative—reaction on the part of some in the business community.
Leading the charge was SalesForce.com CEO Marc Benioff, whose Twitter feed, according to the Washington Post “has been an all-out campaign against the new law, with threats to ‘dramatically reduce’ the company’s investment in the state, calls for other tech CEOs and tech industry leaders to vocally oppose the measure, applause for those tech leaders who have come out against it, and ultimately, a decision to cancel all Salesforce programs that would require the company’s employees or customers to travel to Indiana.”
Others have followed suit: Apple CEO Tim Cook, NCAA President Mark Emmert Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle, and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, among others, have also issued statements of concern, punctuated by varying levels of passion or, some might say, hysteria.
I get that—apart from those closely-held companies, like Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby, whose owners are deeply religious and treat their work as a calling—business as business has no great immediate concern with or interest in religious liberty. Indeed, religion often presents itself in the business world as somewhat of an inconvenience. Employees don’t want to work on their Sabbath or on a religious holiday. They sometimes believe they have a religious duty to dress in a particular way, which may or may not square with the dress code. Or perhaps they have religiously-inspired scruples about performing certain sorts of services, as when a pharmacist doesn’t want to fill a prescription for an abortifacient. To be sure, I would argue that if business owners took a wider view, they might have a greater appreciation for employees who were conscientious and worked hard because, for example, they themselves regarded their work as a calling, or because they belonged to a religious community that held them accountable for their character. But that’s not the point of this essay.
My question here is why so many business leaders reacted so negatively to a law that doesn’t depart significantly from the 1993 federal law that won overwhelming bipartisan support and that already was on the books (either by a positive act of legislation or by judicial interpretation) in twenty-nine other states.
Some business leaders are, I think, simply averse to conflict. When a sympathetic, well-funded, and vocal constituency makes a stink about an issue, when a piece of legislation is “controversial,” they shy away from it as being “bad for business.” They may not be particularly well-informed about the details of the issue, but they do know that there is controversy and conflict, and that’s unlikely to boost their bottom line (unless, I suppose, they’re in the news business).
That certainly explains some of the business opposition to the Indiana bill and its counterparts around the country. Gay rights groups have been vociferous in mischaracterizing the religious liberty legislation as offering a license to discriminate, and their efforts have been aided and abetted by a press that too readily puts “religious liberty” in scare quotes and lazily adopts the “right to discriminate” shorthand in describing the bill. It’s not my purpose here to speculate about the motives of either gay rights groups or reporters in taking this tack. Suffice it to say that they have, and that too many people—among them CEOs who are paid to know better about a good many things—have simply fallen for this ploy.
Other business leaders—I put Marc Benioff and Tim Cook in this category because they have chosen virtual megaphones to trumpet their opposition to this legislation—act less on the basis of reasons connected to their bottom line and more because they are committed to the cause of gay rights and same-sex marriage. I’m the last person to say that they’re not entitled to their opinions and entitled to use any legal means to promote them.
But I’m also entitled to call them out. Let me begin with Tim Cook, who authored (or at least put his name to) an op-ed in the Washington Post. I’ll leave aside the fact that he repeats the entirely predictable mischaracterization of the Indiana bill. He then ties it to what he says are “nearly 100 bills designed to enshrine discrimination in state law.” But the only example he offers is a Texas bill that would, as he puts it, “strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue licenses to same-sex couples.” It is indeed a striking piece of legislation that would be unlikely, I think, to survive a legal challenge. But I would be surprised if the bill proposed by a Republican backbencher even came to a vote in the state legislature. So, yes, there are people out there who are seeking legislative means to oppose same-sex marriage, though I think it is illiberal to describe such efforts as “dangerous,” as Cook does. He wants to make it easier for us to get to that adjective by assimilating this brand of religious freedom to racial discrimination:
I remember what it was like to grow up in the South in the 1960s and 1970s. Discrimination isn’t something that’s easy to oppose. It doesn’t always stare you in the face. It moves in the shadows. And sometimes it shrouds itself within the very laws meant to protect us.
So there you have it: according to Cook, people who support religious liberty are kinda sorta like the people who supported Jim Crow. Some of them may be; I don’t know. But when you actually read the legislation, which tracks the 1993 federal legislation supported by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, it’s hard to believe that language endorsed by Senate minority leader-in-waiting Charles Shumer (in the 1993 federal law) and Barack Obama (when he voted for the Illinois RFRA in 1998) is the functional equivalent of Jim Crow.
Then there’s Marc Benioff, who has gone one giant leap beyond editorializing. He has proposed to pull his company’s business from Indiana because of the “anti-gay” (the scare quotes are quite appropriate here) legislation. Interestingly, however, he has not said the same thing about his company’s business in, say, Dubai, whose anti-gay (note there are no scare quotes, since the animus is very real) policies are notably harsh. According to the State Department’s 2013 report on human rights:
Both civil law and sharia criminalize consensual same-sex sexual activity. Under sharia individuals who engage in consensual same-sex sexual conduct are subject to the death penalty. Article 177 of Dubai’s penal code allows for up to a 10-year prison sentence for consensual sex. There were prosecutions for consensual same-sex activity during the year. At times the government subjected persons against their will to psychological treatment and counseling for consensual same-sex activity.
At the very least, then, he looks like a hypocrite, since his treatment of jurisdiction in regard to this issue is inconsistent. Perhaps he can explain what good reason there is for treating his fellow Americans more harshly than the citizens of Dubai. He might answer that he has more clout in Indiana than he does in Dubai. Some might call that picking one’s fights wisely. Others might regard it as being a bully.
In the end, businesses will do what they will do. Mostly that means following their bottom lines. If there is business to be done and money to be made, they will do it. At least that’s what they keep telling us. If it’s true, then I have confidence—if only our political leaders displayed some backbone—that threats of boycotts and so on, won’t be long-lasting, and that any vacuum left by a business leader who acts against his company’s interest will be filled by someone else who sees an opportunity. As for the ideologues in the corporate corner offices, I assume that if they act against their company’s economic interests, their shareholders will eventually punish them.
Ain’t capitalism grand?
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Mar 25, 2015
I have been following the legislative peregrinations of Georgia’s religious liberty (notice that, unlike the Atlanta newspaper, I don’t use “scare quotes” to describe it) legislation with a great deal of interest and concern. There are just a few days left in this year’s session, and I’d love to see the legislature do the right thing and provide additional sensible protection to what we have for a long time called our “first freedom.” I wish I were more confident.
To get you up to speed, let me give you, dear readers, a brief recap of what has happened so far. Different versions of the proposal were filed in the House and in the Senate. The Senate version passed overwhelmingly on March 5th. It now sits before the House, where it will be the subject of a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, March 24th. Proponents and opponents of the legislation have turned up the heat, with RedState/WSB pundit Erick Erickson becoming very vocal in favor of the bill and opponents continuing to claim—wrongly, I would argue—that it is a license to discriminate.
My biggest fear is that some legislators—especially those with the most influence—will simply choose to keep their heads down, seeking to propitiate the noisiest constituency. In this, they will follow the risk- and bad publicity-averse business community. In this connection, the latest straw in the wind is a speech delivered by House Speaker David Ralston to the Atlanta Press Club. Here’s what the Speaker had to say:
That gets the bill title of the year award in my book. And I want to say a few things about that bill today. I have said before: I am talking with and listening to people on both sides of this important issue.
And I will continue to do so. I do not take lightly the importance of protecting a person’s right to worship and express their faith. The framers of both the United States and Georgia constitutions saw this right as paramount. And that’s why we find this protection in our most basic and important and even sacred legal documents.
As with any issue of this magnitude, there’s a lot of misinformation swirling out there through the modern rumor mill that we refer to as social media. Despite what you have heard, I haven’t made my mind up. I am still seeking the right way forward, and I don’t apologize for that.
Some things in our legislative process, unfortunately, do take time to work out. Before we move forward, we have to understand what the impact of this legislation will be on the rule of law in this state. We need to know if this legislation opens the door to unintended consequences of any type, that some may try to exploit.
I take proponents of this measure at their word that discrimination toward anyone is not part of this effort. At the same time, I appreciate the concerns of those who have strong opposition to this legislation.
The good news is that Georgia is a global destination for people from all over the world who want to come visit and for businesses that want to come create jobs. And that is not going to change.
But closing the door to anyone is closing the door to all.”
A few things are worth noting here, beginning with his ironic reference to the bill’s title, which I take to mean that he’s of a mind to adopt the “scare quotes” approach taken by the AJC. Second, I’m certainly willing at the moment to take him at his word when he affirms the importance of religious liberty. Third, his concerns about unintended consequences and the rule of law are certainly appropriate, but, I think, rather easily allayed. We have more than twenty years of experience with a federal RFRA, and I don’t think that any honest observer could assert that that piece of legislation amounts to the greatest threat to the rule of law in America today. (I have other nominees for that prize, but that’s a subject for another day.) Of greatest concern is his final comment: “closing the door to anyone is closing the door to all,” offered in the context of a reference to Georgia’s global business ties. As I said earlier, there are noisy constituencies that insist—loudly and at every turn—that the bill offers a license to discriminate, that it is anti-gay, and that it will, in effect, send a signal to gays and others that Georgia is hostile to them. Under those circumstances, they will simply take their business elsewhere. That line of argument seems greatly to concern the Speaker and his allies in the business community. The easy way out is let the bill die this session, sending a signal that Georgia is still open for business. This is easy because the bill’s proponents are, generally speaking, business-friendly and not given to the kind of “bad behavior”—economic boycotts, threatening people’s jobs, and demonstrating at people’s homes—that folks on the other side have displayed. They’ll still shop at Home Depot and book their tickets on Delta.
There’s bit more to the speech that gives me a little hope and more than a little concern:
In this and other passionate debates, however, there always seems to be a few for whom honest, reasonable, and civil discussion is an alien concept that they are simply not acquainted with. These pundits-for-hire and self-professed thought leaders are not looking to protect anything, or anyone. They seek profit, relevance, and attention by preying on people’s worst fears through loud volume, lies and distortions.
I have no interest in rushing to act on this or any other issue merely to coddle over-inflated egos or help grow someone’s bank account.
Here’s what I propose we do: Let’s all take a deep breath and look at this thing in a reasonable way – and we’ll find the right way that really does what both sides hope to accomplish. Because I believe that at the end of the day, Georgians don’t have time for the politics of personal destruction. They don’t expect us to waste the limited time we have here playing these kinds of games.
As an American, and Georgian, and born-again Christian, I value inclusive discussion. I believe the Old Testament prophet got it right when he said, in the Book of Isiah, ‘Come, let us reason together.’
I don’t expect or demand that the members of the House agree on everything. What I do ask, and what we have done, is debate the issues constructively…
The AJC reporter believes that the Speaker’s remarks are largely directed at Erick Erickson, who (as I noted earlier) has turned up the volume in favor of the bill. Erickson may well have hit a nerve, but he’s hardly the only participant in the debate who may have crossed a line or two in promoting a favored position. I wish that the commentary here were more even-handedly directed at transgressors on both sides, rather than focusing much of the ire against a perhaps overzealous supporter of the legislation. Then I’d be more confident in the Speaker’s willingness to “reason together.”
I’ll close by noting an argument proffered by AJC columnist Kyle Wingfield: if the bill is killed this year, it will surely come back next year, after a Supreme Court decision that will likely create a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, with even more heat and less light surrounding it. Genuine friends of religious liberty don’t want it tied too intimately to the hot button social issue of the day. If David Ralston is a genuine friend of religious liberty, he could do much worse than take Wingfield’s advice. Bring it to a vote this year, for next year the acrimony and vitriol will only be worse.
Update: After yesterday’s hearing, some are speculating that the House will approve an alternative to the Senate version that narrowly tailors protections to faith-based non-profits, specifically excluding for-profit businesses like Hobby Lobby, whose owners have religious scruples about contraceptives or abortifacients, for example. I would rather see a robust protection of religious liberty, even in the marketplace. And I would prefer, even more, that people display enough respect for the religious scruples of their fellow citizens that they wouldn’t demand that a business owner act against his or her conscience. But I, personally, would prefer some legislative protection to none at all. I remain persuaded by Kyle Wingfield’s argument that, in the next legialtive session, after a likely Supreme Court decision, getting even a narrow religious liberty bill will be exceedingly difficult. And I am acutely aware how hard it is to persuade the Georgia legislature—even when it’s controlled by people who identify themselves as conservatives—to pass sensible legislation that takes reasonable account of the role of religion in our culture and civilization.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Mar 24, 2015
This article is the first in a series of posts that will address key issues impacting college and career readiness in Georgia, as discussed in the overview report, Fortifying Pathways: Themes to Guide College and Career Readiness in Georgia.
By Aundrea Gregg and Eric Wearne
Introduction
For each student in Georgia, education is a personal experience that will ultimately impact his or her life’s circumstances and opportunities as an adult. Students who matriculate from high school on to college graduation and careers greatly increase their earning potential as adults and are less likely to experience family breakdown, need government assistance, and become entangled in the legal system than those who fall through the cracks.
Stunted Success
In Georgia, however, the number of students who do not advance beyond K-12 remains astronomically high. Over 1 in 5 young adults in Georgia are not attending school, not working, and have no degree beyond high school. Additionally, almost 1 out of every 3 Georgians does not graduate from high school in four years, placing Georgia 48th in the country.
Remediation
For students who do graduate high school, many still leave inadequately prepared for the demands of universities and Georgia’s industries. In 2011, Complete College America reported that 18% of freshman entering 4-year universities in Georgia required remediation in at least one subject area. Another 37% of freshmen entering 2-year colleges required remediation as well. The need for remediation not only significantly lowers the likelihood of completing a degree program; it also comes at an annual cost of millions to the state.
Employer Satisfaction
As educational attainment in K-12 and college sets the stage for placement in the workforce, reports have noted the discord between high school and college graduates’ preparedness and employers’ expectations for new hires.
Whether in search of applicants with rudimentary skills, such as the ability to arrive on time every day, or applicants in possession of the skills to fill advanced technical positions, approximately 5,000 jobs in Georgia remain unfilled in 2015 due in part to a “skills gap.” A study in Michigan found that businesses across the state spend about $222 million each year correcting the shortcomings of their employees who leave high school without the basic skills needed for their job. Given the exorbitant cost, it is understandable why employers in Georgia would not want to spend time training employees for skills they should already possess.
Something More Than Academics
Providing access to quality education from the start of kindergarten all the way through high school and beyond is of course necessary for Georgia’s citizens to thrive and prosper.
To narrow the gaps, major reforms have focused almost exclusively on improving student achievement by employing more rigorous academic standards in schools, as measured by reading and math scores. Though academic achievement is certainly vital to success, this narrowed paradigm for student advancement has done little to change the status quo regarding outcomes.
A Gray Area
Grade Point Averages (GPA), scores on the SAT, and completion of state exit exams are all black and white expectations on the pathway to college and a career. Probably more important, however, are the challenges students face in terms of cultivating themselves as individuals, of forming the habits that support personal growth, and of fashioning an early idea of what their purpose in life will be.
With a wider and more abstract understanding of readiness, motivation, responsibility, planning and decision-making, Georgia can begin to define a current gray area of learning needs that have been underdeveloped in K-12 schools.
Not “Soft Skills” – Necessary Noncognitive Factors
The term “soft skills” has long been used to describe non-academic learning factors that aid students’ ability to grasp content knowledge. There is, however, nothing soft about the personal traits such as perseverance and self-control; skills such as time management and goal setting; and interventions such as attachment to community and access to support systems that shape a student’s mindset for learning, both positively and negatively.
This wide package of traits and tools comprise what have been commonly referred to in a large body of research as noncognitive factors. While noncognitive factors have been given credence as important components of student success, there are very few programs and policies that encourage their development in students, schools, and communities.
This post seeks to explain the importance of these skills and propose recommendations that support their development in K-12 settings in Georgia.
The Value of Developing Noncognitive Factors
Preparing students to succeed in school and life requires the development of two sets of skills: cognitive abilities that constitute what is often referred to as hard knowledge, as well as noncognitive factors that help individuals apply that knowledge. Whereas cognitive functions include processes such as thinking, reasoning, and remembering, noncognitive factors include a person’s aptitude for planning, emotional maturity, interpersonal interactions, and communication skills – both verbal and nonverbal.
Noncognitive factors largely shape a person’s behavior and greatly influence their ability to function in educational settings. For students with a strong base of noncognitive factors, such as strong study habits, eagerness to ask questions, positive self-image, and determination to reach goals, just to name a few, the ability to bridge knowledge gained in the classroom with actual success increases substantially.
Further, research led by the Center for the Economics of Education concluded that noncognitive factors can be a strong predictor of compatible occupations, wage potential, and the likelihood of risky behavior as an adult.
Noncognitive Factors Chart
| Traits: |
Self-Control |
Perseverance |
Realistic Self- Appraisal |
Responsibility |
| Skills: |
Planning & Decision Making |
Constructive Time Management |
Conflict Resolution |
Critical Thinking |
| Interventions: |
Youth Programs |
Parental Involvement |
Connection to Strong Support Person |
Caring School Environment |
Noncognitive Factors and College and Career Readiness
Noncognitive factors are becoming more prominent considerations in college admissions and hiring processes across the country. This is largely due to institutions of higher learning and employers desiring candidates that possess abilities that extend beyond mastery of math and English.
Research led by Dr. William Sedlacek, a foremost expert on noncognitive variables and Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Maryland, highlights that assessing noncognitive abilities in admissions processes is an important basis for colleges and employers to discern intelligences beyond those tested on standardized exams such as the SAT.
One practical example of this is the applicant assessment board for the Gates Millennium Scholarship. This project has focused entirely on evaluating noncognitive factors to discover students’ experiential intelligence – the ability to interpret information in a changing context or be creative – and contextual intelligence – the ability to adapt to changing environments and negotiate within a system. While neither of these intelligences is tested on the SAT, which only examines knowledge learned in a fixed context, the Gates’ board has had some success selecting students ready to perform in rigorous academic settings at institutions of higher learning. It should also be noted that Gates Scholars include demographics with statically lower chances of reaching college graduation such as first-generation college goers, low-income, and minority students.
As the consideration of noncognitive factors has allowed institutions to rethink admissions, hiring, and retention strategies, their recognized importance as a critical component of college and career readiness has increased for all students.
Opportunity: Building Strong Relationships between Schools and Students
As a means to develop noncognitive abilities, students require access to small-scale connections. Dr. Sedlacek, in his list of noncognitive variables, emphasizes strong support systems – specifically “a strong support person” that students can turn to to provide guidance on common child-to-adult transition situations. Emphasizing this point, Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D notes in her acclaimed book A Framework for Understanding Poverty, “support systems are simply networks of relationships.”
Why Relationships Matter
Fostering personal, strong relationships between teachers and students and even schools and families is important for many reasons. On the most basic level, establishing trust, communication, and understanding – all commonly accepted components of a healthy relationship – are prerequisite to creating environments in schools where students will thrive and parents participate.
Teachers who know their students personally are better equipped to tailor lesson plans and speak directly to specific needs. For historically disadvantaged groups such as young men of color and first generation college students, accessing mentors at school where familiarity with the college process is limited at home is key to closing persistent educational gaps.
Barriers to Opportunity
Home Matters
Noncognitive traits develop most prominently during early childhood, and parents play an important role in developing the noncognitive abilities of their children. Though noncognitive factors are more malleable, even during later stages in life, home life matters greatly and students may miss development of these skills due to issues such as family breakdown or poor socio-economic circumstances (as education levels of parents also factor into development).
While active parental involvement and a stable home environment are foundational to the noncognitive skills training that should take place in school, unfortunately, not all children in Georgia find the role models they need at home.
Though it only takes the support of one invested adult to guide a child, studies find that the representation of two parents in the home can greatly increase a child’s educational attainment. One study found in examining a sample of children who completed eighth grade that high school graduation rates were 90 percent for those in two-married-biological-parent families, 75 percent for those in single-mother-divorced families, and 69 percent for those in single-mother-never-married families. Similarly, when it comes to college attendance, 71 percent of children who live with two married, biological parents went on to college, while only half of children living with only their mothers took this route.
Increasing parental involvement in early childhood development, as well as maintaining positive relationships between parents and between parents and their children remains a paramount barrier to improving outcomes for students in K-12 and in adulthood.
Academic Attainment Rules
As it currently stands within many schools and school systems, the focus on noncognitive factors is embedded haphazardly through character education hours or small discussions about the need to build study habits. In fact, many of the habits and skills colleges and employers deem most valuable, are often addressed as periphery learning needs and go underdeveloped through curricula.
The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research notes, “teachers would play a vital role in helping students move from being passive recipients of academic content to active learners” who wield noncognitive abilities to progress through elevated academic challenges and, more importantly, demonstrate understanding in real world situations. To do this, focused development of noncognitive factors must parallel instruction on hard content in schools.
Misplaced Incentives
More rigorous academic standards remains the exclusive focus of schools because educational institutions are incentivized to worry about themselves as institutions, or on policy as an abstract, and not on students as individuals. In other words, policymaking has become too big in education and it incentivizes the wrong things. Schools worry about test scores. Much like colleges and universities worry about enrollment and sometimes retention, these are all measures that point back on the institutions, but say nothing about how well-prepared their students are to move on to college or a career. There remains an opportunity to better prepare Georgia’s students for college and careers by shifting more of the focus in schools from increasing academic standards to cultivating noncognitive factors.
Recommendations: What is Working
Continue Research on Strengthening Families and Communities
The importance of a stable home life cannot be stated enough in the process of cultivating noncognitive factors for Georgia’s children, although the impact of family breakdown and what to be done about this problem remain outside of the scope of this paper. Below are recommendations from Georgia Center for Opportunity’s College & Career Pathways Working Group regarding what is being done and what might be replicated within existing structures.
Intrusive Advising at All Levels of Schooling
Paul Tough highlights in his recent New York Times article, “Who Gets to Graduate?” the powerful feelings of stress that at-risk students can feel without the assistance of parents and mentors to mitigate minor bumps in the road. The point is made how quickly a first failing mark or trouble with a roommate can lead to feelings of inadequacy, and premature dropping out.
Educational institutions such as Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) and Paine College in Augusta, GA have begun to employ new advising strategies that combine personal relationship building with “tough love” to ensure at-risk students understand challenges that are common in college, reprogram bad habits, and overcome obstacles to stay on track for graduation.
Model: Georgia Gwinnett College
As an institution with an access mission, GGC’s students enroll with varying levels of preparedness for college. For instance, 30-40% of CCG’s incoming students enroll in at least one remedial class, meaning a large cross-section of students is off track to graduate from the start. To safeguard the large at-risk population, GGC’s administration has made it a point to increase access to teachers and administration. The school boasts no office hours, students may arrange meetings at any time, and students are given the (school issued) mobile number of every professor.
Additionally, through GGC’s intrusive advising programs, students who have already been placed on academic probation or worse receive a second chance to reach graduation. Under the watchful eyes of counselors, teachers, and peer coaches, students receive intense, regular engagement, mandatory tutoring and workshops, as well as student success classes.
While tactics such as intrusive advising remain largely isolated in the higher education realm and for at-risk students, these strategies could greatly influence college and career strategies for all students in K-12. At GGC, these “high engagement, individual focused efforts” created to serve a substantially high-need population have shown some success in student retention and graduation.
Conclusion
Parallel to the development of vital traits and skills at home, schools and communities are equally important places where students hone the necessary skills they will need for adulthood. Ideally parents, schools, and communities should work together to develop these noncognitive factors on all fronts. Schools and institutions would be well-served by taking these developmental gaps into account and addressing them formally.
Strong, healthy relationships between teachers and students, schools and families can be the x-factor that allows students to reach success. Interventions must extend beyond rigorous academic standards. Cultivating noncognitive factors through K-12 provides a more holistic approach to college and career readiness.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Mar 18, 2015
Critics of Educational Savings Accounts often raise the issue of the constitutional challenges of using taxpayer funds to purchase private education.
Recently, Jason Bedrick of the CATO Institute and Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation highlighted this issue in their article published in National Affairs, writing, “While the United States Supreme Court has ruled that publicly funded school vouchers are constitutional under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, most state constitutions contain a version of the so-called ‘Blaine Amendment,’ which bars state aid to parochial schools.”[1]
The Blaine Amendments owe their name to James G. Blaine, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who proposed a U.S. constitutional amendment in 1875 prohibiting states from funding religious education. The amendment’s original intent was to prevent Catholics from acquiring taxpayer support for their schools. While his proposed amendment failed to become part of the U.S. Constitution, more than two-thirds of the 50 states adopted their own constitutional amendments barring state funding of religious organizations that include schools, which have come to be known as the Blaine Amendments.
To understand how the Blaine Amendments affect ESAs in Georgia, a recent report written by GCO Scholar Dr. Eric Wearne and the Georgia Public Policy Foundation provides important insight on this issue:[2]
In recent decades, these [Blaine] amendments have been interpreted by some to be prohibitions against any use of state funds for any schools other than public schools, and to prevent public funding of other faith-based initiatives, of any kind. Georgia’s Blaine Amendment reads:
…[n]o money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of any sectarian institution. Ga. Const. art. I, § II, ¶ VII.
However, Title 20 of the Georgia Constitution also states that,
Educational assistance programs authorized. (a) Pursuant to laws now or hereafter enacted by the General Assembly, public funds may be expended for any of the following purposes:
(1) To provide grants, scholarships, loans, or other assistance to students and to parents of students for educational purposes.[3]
ESAs avoid many of the legal issues that may arise through other programs, such as vouchers and tuition tax credits… Matthew Ladner argues that “It is unlikely that ESAs would ever be less constitutionally robust than vouchers. … Designing programs so that the aid has multiple uses and is clearly under the complete control of parents can only help or be neutral in a constitutional challenge.”[4] Though vouchers have been held to be constitutional under certain conditions by the U.S. Supreme Court,[5] ESAs may avoid even these challenges.”[6]
Bedrick and Burke argue this point even further:
The example of Arizona is encouraging on this point for advocates of ESAs. Despite having previously struck down vouchers, in March 2014 the Arizona Supreme Court declined to review an appeals-court decision upholding the state’s ESA law. The court distinguished the ESAs from vouchers because the latter “set aside state money to allow students to attend private schools” whereas under the ESA law, “the state deposits funds into an account from which parents may draw to purchase a wide range of services” and “none of the ESA funds are pre-ordained for a particular destination.”
Given the precedent set by the Arizona Supreme Court and the authority granted by Title 20 of the Georgia Constitution, supporters of ESAs should not allow themselves to worry too much concerning the constitutionality of this innovative program.
Notes
[1] http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-next-step-in-school-choice
[2] http://georgiapolicy.org/ftp_files/ESA_121714.pdf
[3] http://sos.ga.gov/admin/files/Constitution_2013_Final_Printed.pdf
[4] http://www.edchoice.org/Research/Reports/The-Way-of-the-Future–Education-Savings-Accounts-for-Every-American-Family.aspx
[5] https://www.edreform.com/2012/01/legal-summary-zelman-v-simmons-harris/
[6] See, for example, the current challenge to Georgia’s Tax Credit program. http://reason.com/archives/2014/05/07/georgia-school-choice-legal-challenge
