ATLANTA – There isn’t time to remove QR codes from paper ballots in Georgia, as Republican legislative leaders have proposed, before this year’s elections, GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday.
“I would support moving to human-readable text,” Raffensperger said during the second day of legislative hearings on Gov. Brian Kemp’s budget recommendations. “The challenge is getting it done for the 2024 election.”
The General Assembly passed legislation in 2019 providing for a paper backup to electronic ballots, a move aimed at giving Georgians more confidence their votes are being recorded accurately. But some voters have complained that the QR codes that accompany paper ballots are confusing and impose a barrier on transparency.
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said last week House Republicans will push to eliminate the QR codes. On the Senate side, Republicans have been calling for eliminating the QR codes since last fall.
“We’ve been talking about getting rid of the QR codes for a long time,” Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Raffensperger Wednesday. “Citizens do not trust the QR code.”
But Raffensperger said this year’s elections are rapidly approaching, starting with the presidential primaries in March and followed in short order by congressional and legislative primary elections in May.
“We’re already into the election of 2024,” he said. “We’re continuing with the system we have now.”
Raffensperger is asking for more than $5.2 million in his fiscal 2025 budget request to begin the process of upgrading the state’s voting equipment by installing new software in every voting machine in Georgia. However, that would require testing of the new equipment over six to nine months, he said.
The secretary also is looking to hire additional investigators for the agency’s Elections Division.
“Delays in investigations can have a serious impact on some voters’ confidence,” he said.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said getting rid of the QR codes would not require new legislation.
“The No.-1 issue is the removal of the QR codes,” he said.
But Raffensperger said passing a new law isn’t the issue.
“It’s really the technology and having that available from the vendors,” he said.
Raffensperger defended the current system Georgia uses for elections, pointing to a poll conducted by the University of Georgia that found 90% of respondents expressed confidence in the integrity of the 2022 elections.
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia’s new direct admissions program is off to a strong start, despite not getting off the ground until well after classes began last fall, system Chancellor Sonny Perdue said Wednesday.
Nearly 12,000 high school seniors had requested information about the GEORGIA MATCH program through Jan. 7 or taken it a step further by claiming a spot at one of the system’s 23 colleges and universities participating in the initiative.
“It’s working as we hoped,” Perdue told members of the university system’s Board of Regents. “(But) it’s the beginning. We’re just getting started.”
More than 132,000 seniors received personalized letters from Gov. Brian Kemp last October listing the public universities, colleges and technical colleges they are academically eligible to attend. The letters went on to explain how students can claim a spot being held for them at the institution of their choice.
Georgia’s workforce development needs drove the planning for GEORGIA MATCH. an effort the Governor’s Office put together in collaboration with the Georgia Student Finance Commission, the university system, the Technical College System of Georgia, the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, and the state Department of Education.
Three university system institutions – the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia College & State University – are not participating in the program because they have different, more stringent admission requirements.
The schools that are participating will waive application fees again in March to encourage students to take part in the program, as they did last November.
“This seems like an excellent generator of applications,” said Scott Lingrell, the university system’s vice chancellor for research and policy analysis, who gave the regents an update on GEORGIA MATCH.
Several regents said they were impressed with the results so far and the program’s proactive nature.
“It’s incredible what we’re doing,” said Regent Jose Perez of Peachtree Corners. “We’re chasing students and trying to bring them in.”
Lingrell said he expects GEORGIA MATCH to take off in a big way heading into the fall semester this year since the system is offering the program earlier in the year than in 2023.
The program is expected to cost $1.3 million during its first year, funding that is included in the Georgia Student Finance Commission’s fiscal 2024 budget.
Interested high school seniors and their families can log onto GAfutures.org for more information on GEORGIA MATCH.
ATLANTA – State School Superintendent Richard Woods has appointed a literacy coaching expert in the Marietta city school system to develop and lead a statewide literacy coaching model in Georgia.
As structured literacy coaching coordinator, J. Nicholas Philmon will retain his position with the Marietta district while contracting with the state agency to build the capacity of schools and districts to deliver proven, nationally recognized training in structured literacy and the science of reading.
“Developing a tiered, statewide coaching model – with buy-in from local districts and schools and a common, proven framework – is key to the continued success of Georgia’s early literacy initiatives,” Woods said Wednesday.
“Marietta City Schools has been a leader in the shift to structured literacy and the science of reading, and I’m thrilled we’ll have Dr. Philmon on board to support our statewide efforts to ensure all students learn to read – and read to learn.”
In his new role, Philmon will work with a design team of experts to create a detailed coaching plan, direct the hiring process for regional literacy support coaches, and provide training to regional coaches and educators throughout the state.
His work will complement and directly support the state Department of Education’s partnership with the Rollins Center for Language & Literacy to provide literacy courses for K-5 teachers and leaders.
The state has made a major commitment to improving literacy in Georgia in the last couple of years. The General Assembly passed two bills last year introducing two related approaches to literacy instruction: “the science of reading” and “structured literacy.”
The science of reading bundles together instruction on phonics with reading comprehension and vocabulary. “Structured literacy,” as defined by one of the new laws, refers to an “evidence-based approach to teaching oral and written language … characterized by explicit, systematic, cumulative, and diagnostic instruction.”
Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposed fiscal 2025 state budget contains $11.3 million for literacy initiatives, including funds for the regional literacy coaches and screeners for K-3 students.
Philmon holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from Mercer University, where his research focused on teacher coaching.
ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is referring the cases of 17 Georgians suspected of having voted twice in 2022 to district attorneys in nine counties where those voters live.
These voters are suspected of voting once in Georgia in the November 2022 general election and again in another state.
“One illegal vote cast is too many,” Raffensperger said Tuesday. “Georgians deserve to have their voice heard fully, not have it diluted by bad actors.”
The allegations came to light as a result of Georgia’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a network of 24 states and the District of Columbia that share data on voters.
The cases of double voting came from Barrow, Chatham, Cobb, Douglas, Fannin, Forsyth, Fulton, Morgan, and Tift counties.
Voter turnout in Georgia has been on the upswing in recent election cycles. Georgia saw the largest increase in turnout of any state in the 2018 midterm election, and set turnout records in 2020 and 2022.
ATLANTA – An ad hoc committee of Georgia House lawmakers is recommending smaller class sizes, higher teacher pay, and more money for operating and capital costs to beef up the state’s pre-kindergarten program.
With few changes in state support to the lottery-funded program since its inception 30 years ago, pre-kindergarten enrollment in Georgia has fallen from a high of 82,868 students in 2012 to 73,462.
A report released by the House Working Group on Early Childhood Education Tuesday blames the decline on an inability to find teachers willing to work at state-funded salaries and inadequate state funding for opening and operating classrooms.
“We know when our children start fast in school, educational outcomes are improved dramatically,” said House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, who formed the ad hoc committee last spring. “One of the best predictors of educational success is having a strong pre-kindergarten program.”
“This is very much a workforce development issue,” added Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton, who chaired the committee. “The more children have access to pre-k, the more parents can reenter the workforce.”
The committee is recommending reducing the average pre-kindergarten class size from 22 – a move the state made during the budget crunch the Great Recession brought on more than decade ago – to 20.
The report also proposed raising the salaries of assistant teachers in the pre-k program from $20,190 per year to $25,700, which would align their pay with K-12 paraprofessionals, and increasing pay for lead pre-k teachers to the state’s salary schedule for K-12 public school teachers.
“There’s no substitute for equalizing salaries, to recognize the great important work these folks are doing,” Burns said.
The committee also is recommending updating the pre-k formula for operations from the current $8,000 per pre-k classroom per year, which has not been changed since 2004, to $30,000. Both public schools and private pre-k providers for the first time would get state funding for construction of pre-k classrooms.
The various recommendations in the report would cost just more than $100 million per year, funds that would come from the Georgia Lottery Corp.’s healthy budget reserves.
Jones said the goal is to put the state in a position to offer pre-k to every parent in Georgia who wants to enroll their 4-year-olds in either a public or private pre-k program.
The percentage of children enrolled in pre-k varies widely across the state. Some counties have waiting lists as high as 339, with 2,714 youngsters statewide on a waiting list. Statewide, only 53% of eligible children are enrolled in pre-k.
“I’m hopeful we will see a more robust offering of public pre-k,” Jones said. “I’m confident we can change what has been happening over the last few years.”
