State school superintendent candidates Richard Woods and Alisha Thomas Searcy discuss how they would improve Georgia’s education system during a forum in Atlanta.
ATLANTA – The two candidates for state school superintendent laid out their respective visions for improving education Thursday during a forum sponsored by the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education.
Incumbent Republican Richard Woods, who is seeking a third term in November, described his achievements as state superintendent over the past eight years.
His administration reduced the number of high-stakes tests students have to take each year and the number of observations their teachers have to undergo, Woods said.
Woods said his administration has increased support for teachers. He pointed to a recent pay raise for teachers and a new law that allows retired teachers to return to the classroom at full pay.
The state Department of Education (DOE) also recently published a report on teacher burnout in Georgia. The DOE will soon announce a program to provide free mental health support to teachers, Woods said.
“I think the best thing we could do to address mental health in the state is giving our teachers time to build relationships with their kids,” he said. “If you put a great teacher who was nurturing in front of each and every child, that means that they have hours of therapy each day.”
Under Woods’ watch, the DOE has bolstered career and technical education in the state, he said. The department is creating new English and Language Arts standards as well, which will help address sub-par literacy rates among Georgia students.
Woods said he sees the role of the DOE as “service and support” and “compassion over compliance.”
Woods’ competitor, Democrat Alisha Thomas Searcy, said her past experiences as a school superintendent, a state legislator who served on the House Education Committee and the mother of three school-age children qualify her for the position.
Searcy ran for the post in 2014 but lost in a Democratic primary runoff. Before that, she served as a state representative for 12 years.
Searcy said that she envisions a Georgia where every school has a mental health professional on staff.
“Yes, that’s expensive. Yes, that’s a big goal. But, darn it, don’t our kids and our teachers and educators deserve that?” she asked.
Searcy said that the state education funding formula needs an overhaul. A Georgia Senate study committee will begin examining that issue on Friday.
“We still have districts in rural areas in particular who don’t have nearly the adequate funding to serve the students in their schools,” Searcy said. “That should be unacceptable to educators in the state. It ought to be unacceptable to leaders in education.”
Searcy said she thinks the DOE should serve as a clearinghouse for districts across the state to share lessons learned from new programs or approaches, especially as districts look to spend millions of dollars in federal pandemic relief funds.
“While certainly districts in the state have received these funds, there’s been very little leadership on providing support and guidance to districts on innovative ways that these funds can be used,” she said.
Searcy said the state should also ensure schools have access to educational technology that can help with assessing where students need extra support, especially after the COVID pandemic caused many students to fall behind.
“I’m living with a sense of urgency,” she said. “I will do something.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
The Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (photo credit: Nate Hovee/Shutterstock)
ATLANTA – Atlanta will host the college football championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in January 2025, the Atlanta Sports Council announced Tuesday.
The city hosted the championship game in 2018, when the University of Georgia Bulldogs narrowly lost to rival University of Alabama.
Atlanta is the first city to serve as a repeat host for the game.
“This is a big win for everyone involved and we are excited for the Atlanta community,” said Dan Corso, president of the Atlanta Sports Council.
“As soon as we wrapped up the successful hosting of the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship, we were ready and eager to throw our name back into the hat,” Corso said.
“Bringing the game back to Atlanta was a simple decision when we looked at everything,” said College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock.
“A state-of-the-art stadium, a walkable downtown with venues to host all the activities … and great people made Atlanta an obvious choice to be the first city to host a second title game,” Hancock added.
Both Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens attended the press conference announcing the award of the game to Atlanta.
“We are excited that the state of Georgia and Mercedes-Benz Stadium have been selected to host the college football playoff national championship for the second time in the past 10 years,” Kemp said.
“We look forward to hosting more than 100,000 guests who will enjoy Georgia’s southern hospitality and a first-class experience.”
“Atlanta’s unmatched culture, hospitality, and infrastructure will be on full display as we welcome visitors from all over the nation,” Dickens said.
The college football championship adds to the list of high-profile sports events Atlanta plans to host over the next several years.
The city will also host this year’s Southeastern Conference football championship, the 2025 men’s college basketball regional championship, and some 2026 World Cup soccer matches.
In 2021, Major League Baseball was due to hold its All-Star Game at the Atlanta Braves Truist Park. However, it moved the game to Denver after the General Assembly enacted controversial election reforms.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday he plans to distribute one-time $350 payments to Georgians enrolled in certain public benefit programs.
Kemp said the total amount distributed will be more than $1 billion.
Georgians who were actively enrolled in Medicaid, food benefits, and the TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) programs by July 31 will receive the benefits.
“This assistance will help some of Georgia’s most vulnerable citizens cope with the continued negative economic impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency and 40-year-high inflation caused by disastrous policies that were implemented by the Biden administration,” a Kemp statement said.
The funds, which came to the state through the federal American Rescue Plan Act, will be distributed through the Georgia Department of Human Services. Potentially eligible Georgians should log in to their Georgia Gateway accounts to ensure their contact information is updated, the announcement said.
Georgia has a historic budget surplus, in part due to COVID relief funds that flowed into the state from the federal government and partly due to record economic growth.
Last week, Kemp announced that he also plans to provide income tax and property tax rebates to Georgians next year – if he is re-elected in November. Those two relief measures are expected to total $2 billion.
A spokesman for Democrat Stacey Abrams – who is challenging Kemp for the governorship – criticized the announcement as a “political gimmick.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s “heartbeat” abortion law will continue to operate while a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law is pending, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Monday.
The order represents a setback for abortion-rights advocates who had argued the judge should immediately block the law while their case against it was pending.
The Georgia law bans most abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.
Though Georgia’s law was initially adopted in 2019, abortion-rights groups challenged it in federal court and prevented the law from taking effect until this year.
A federal appeals court put Georgia’s law into immediate effect last month, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the way by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion.
The group of plaintiffs – including reproductive-rights groups Planned Parenthood Southeast and SisterSong – then turned to state courts, claiming that the abortion law violates the Georgia Constitution’s right to privacy.
During last week’s hearing, the groups asked the court to block the Georgia law from taking effect while the lawsuit was pending.
McBurney declined to do so Monday, stating that “the court is dismissing the motion not on its merits but because the court lacks jurisdiction to consider its merits.”
He made clear the case will continue to examine the constitutionality of the abortion law.
“The question of whether it is constitutional for the state to force a woman to carry to term a six-week-old embryo against her wishes, even in the face of serious medical risk, remains to be answered,” McBurney concluded his Monday order.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A three-judge bench of a federal appeals court said Friday Georgia could hold Public Service Commission (PSC) elections in November as originally planned.
The appellate court’s 2-1 decision overturned a lower court’s order from last week. That initial order had blocked Georgia from holding PSC elections in two of the state’s five districts until the state changed the rules around voting for the PSC members.
The PSC regulates the state’s public utilities and sets utility rates. Under Georgia’s system, commissioners run statewide but must live in one of five districts.
The current case began when a group of prominent Black leaders sued the state, claiming the Black vote had been diluted.
A federal district court ruled in the group’s favor last week, finding Georgia’s unusual system for electing the commissioners violates the federal Voting Rights Act. The state immediately appealed.
Today’s majority appellate court opinion said recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have made clear federal courts should not block elections close to the voting date.
“But if we are mistaken on this point, the Supreme Court can tell us,” the ruling concludes.
By Friday evening, the plaintiffs had already filed an emergency motion asking the circuit court to reverse course and indicating they would appeal.
And lawyers for Georgia had already responded.
“At the end of the day, the Secretary [of State] needs to know what to do: Does he include PSC races on the ballot proofs …or wait for further direction?,” the state’s response said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
