ATLANTA – Georgia students have yet to fully recover from the disruptions of the pandemic, but they’re making steady progress, according to the latest results from the Georgia Milestones tests.
This year’s results, released Friday, showed increases on 13 of 21 assessments. Most of the gains came in English/Language arts and math, and at the elementary and middle-school levels.
Most declines occurred in science and social studies and at the high school level.
Third-grade students scored some of the largest increases, gaining on average three points in English/Language arts over 2022 scores. three points in math, and three points in reading. However, third-grade scores were still three points below the pre-pandemic year of 2019 in English/Language arts, while scores fell seven points in reading and six points in math.
Also, fewer than half of third graders scored at a proficient level in either English/Language arts or math. On the plus side, the third-grade students did better at reading, with 66% scoring proficient or above.
“Even for this year’s third graders, whose entire academic career has been impacted by the pandemic, we can see evidence of growth,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said Friday. “It’s particularly encouraging to see increases in English/Language arts and literacy, especially in the early grades – given all we know about the importance of learning to read and then reading to learn by third grade.”
On the other hand, Georgia Milestones scores continued to drop for 8th-grade students in science and social studies. Only 26% of eighth graders scored as proficient or above in science, down three points from last year and six points from 2019.
Proficiency in social studies among eighth-graders fell to 36% this year, down one point from 2022 and five points from 2019.
The state Department of Education (DOE) is launching several initiatives aimed at addressing those poor results. The agency is hiring 100 certified teachers to serve as virtual tutors in a program set to to start with the upcoming 2023-24 school year.
The DOE will partner with AmeriCorps to provide tutoring for up to 5,000 students at schools identified as in need of tutors and expand the availability of BEACON, which measures students’ progress throughout the school year to allow educators to target instruction.
“There is still work to do,” Woods said. “We will continue to invest in strategies to address lost learning opportunities.”
ATLANTA – The Georgia Attorney General’s office has approved a planned partnership between the Wellstar and Augusta University health systems first announced late last year.
A Report of Findings released Thursday evening gave the plan regulatory approval to move forward, as is required by a state law governing hospital acquisitions. The boards of Wellstar and the Augusta University Health System (AUHS) signed off on a 40-year agreement in March.
The partnership will expand the university’s health sciences training and research across the state and build a broader affiliation between Wellstar and Augusta University’s Medical College of Georgia.
“The report concluded the pending transaction is consistent with the purposes set out in the law, including that the community will receive an enforceable commitment for fair and reason community benefits, there are no impermissible conflicts of interest and that there are sufficient safeguards to assure access to affordable care moving forward,” University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue, Wellstar President and CEO Candice Saunders, and Augusta University President Brooks Keel wrote in a joint statement.
“While work remains to be done before the transaction is complete, we are working diligently toward the goal of completing the deal this summer.”
In the agreement, Wellstar has committed to investing nearly $800 million over 10 years in AUHS facilities and infrastructure, including more than $200 million allocated to Augusta University Medical Center, a more than 600-bed safety net and teaching hospital. Additionally, capital for a new hospital, medical office building and ambulatory surgery center in Columbia County will be included in the funding.
The plan has gotten some pushback from state lawmakers representing districts in metro Atlanta, who complained Wellstar’s decision to close the 460-bed Atlanta Medical Center (AMC) last fall combined with the closing of a smaller Wellstar hospital in East Point earlier in 2022 has left a “health-care desert” in majority Black areas of central and southern Fulton County. The NAACP has filed two federal complaints over the decision.
Wellstar officials countered that they were forced to close the two hospitals due to aging infrastructure, low patient volumes, skyrocketing labor costs and the loss of coronavirus relief funds that had been available earlier in the COVID pandemic.
According to the joint statement from Perdue, Saunders, and Keel, all patients at both Wellstar and AUHS will be able to continue receiving health care at the same sites and through their current insurance plans.
“We look forward to combining the best of community health care and academic medicine to improve quality and safety while driving world-class care advances where Georgians need them most,” the administrators wrote.
ATLANTA – Years of cost overruns at the nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle have made the project a poor deal for Georgia Power customers, a finance expert with the state Public Service Commission (PSC), said Thursday.
The testimony of Tom Newsome, the PSC’s director of utility finance, at a commission hearing came even as the first of two new nuclear reactors being built at the plant south of Augusta – Unit 3 – is slated to begin commercial operation within a few days.
“Vogtle’s ratepayers will be paying significantly more for the power generated by Vogtle 3 and 4 than they would pay if [natural gas-fired] units had been built instead,” Newsome testified during one of the PSC’s semi-annual progress updates on the nuclear project. “Vogtle 3 and 4 are not an economic benefit to ratepayers.”
Newsome said the cost of Georgia Power’s 45% share of the project has soared to $15.2 billion, $9 billion more than the Atlanta-based utility forecast when the PSC approved the nuclear expansion in 2009. As a result, the average residential customer’s bill will increase $14.10 per month during the first five years after the work is completed, up from the $9.60 hit on monthly bills estimated 14 years ago.
The other 55% of the project’s costs are being picked up by three utility partners: Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power, and Dalton Utilities.
Newsome blamed the overruns on poor management throughout the project, including the period before original lead contractor Westinghouse Electric Corp. went bankrupt and after Southern Nuclear, a sister company of Georgia Power, took over the work in 2017.
Specifically, he said designing and building the two reactors at the same time was not the way to go about such a complex project. There also were labor productivity issues caused by workers essentially getting in each other’s way, he said.
“The people out there trying to get the work done were doing the best they could,” he said. “[But] they just had too many people out there.”
Newsome said many of the same problems encountered with the current project occurred during the 1980s when Georgia Power was building the first two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. The budget on units 1 and 2 ballooned from an original forecast of $660 million to more than $8 billion, and the project took 12 years to complete.
Units 3 and 4 originally were expected to go into service in 2016 and 2017.
Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft disagreed with Newsome’s assessment, saying the utility has consistently shown the two new units are economical and will provide an emissions-free source of electrical generation for the next 60 to 80 years.
“Nuclear energy is the only zero-emission baseload energy source available today, offering high reliability, consistently low and stable fuel costs, and efficient operations around the clock,” Kraft said. “Regarding costs, there will be a thorough review and vetting process before the Public Service Commission that will be open and transparent to the public.”
William Jacobs of GDS Associates, an independent construction monitor on the project, testified Thursday that lessons learned during the construction of Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle are being applied to save time on Unit 4, which is expected to go into service early next year.
For example, he said hot functional testing for Unit 4 – when plant systems achieve normal operating pressure and temperature without nuclear fuel in the reactor – was completed during the spring in just 42 days. The same testing on Unit 3 took 94 days, Jacobs said.
“I’m excited,” added Steve Roetger, an analyst with the PSC, referring to the upcoming opening of Unit 3. “This has been a long road.”
Steven Prenovitz of the consumer advocacy group Concerned Ratepayers of Georgia said the commission should not allow Georgia Power to recover Plant Vogtle’s cost overruns from customers.
That decision won’t be made after the Unit 4 reactor goes into service and the PSC holds a “prudency” hearing on the cost issue.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Lottery raised more than $1.5 billion for education during the fiscal year that ended June 30.
Fiscal 2023 marked the eighth consecutive year the lottery surpassed the $1 billion mark in profits for education – specifically the HOPE Scholarships and statewide pre-kindergarten programs – and brought the total transferred to education since the lottery began 30 years ago to more than $26.8 billion.
“With all Georgia Lottery profits benefitting HOPE and Pre-K, these strong results ensure that Georgia’s students and families in every county remain our biggest winners,” said Gretchen Corbin, president and CEO of the Georgia Lottery Corp.
During the last fiscal year, Scratchers and iLottery sales reached record highs. Mega Millions and Powerball played a huge role in lottery sales as well, with four of the top 10 jackpots in U.S. history occurring during the year.
More than 2.1 million students have received lottery-funded HOPE scholarships since the program’s inception, while more than 2 million 4-year-olds have attended voluntary pre-kindergarten classes.
ATLANTA – A Georgia man has been sentenced to one year and a day in prison for assaulting a law enforcement officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Bruno Cua, 21, of Milton, also received 36 months of supervised release Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss.
According to stipulated facts, Cua and his parents attended the rally at the Washington Monument that day, then walked to the Capitol. After arriving there, Cua separated from his parents and entered the building armed with the type of baton police typically carry.
After reaching the doors to the Senate Gallery, he assaulted a Capitol Police officer trying to lock the doors by violently shoving him. The officer Cua attacked and fellow officers on the scene retreated from the doors without locking them.
After rushing into the Senate Gallery, Cua jumped to the floor of the chamber, walked to the dais, and sat in the vice president’s chair with his feet propped up on the desk. He was escorted out of the chamber by law enforcement personnel.
Before the attack, Cua made multiple statements on social media about his plans to violently interrupt the proceedings certifying the election of Democrat Joe Biden to the presidency over incumbent Republican Donald Trump.
After Jan. 6, Cua admitted on social media that he took part in the attack using violence and that more violence might be necessary in the future.
The case was investigated by the FBI’s Atlanta field office, working with the federal agency’s Washington, D.C., field office and the Capitol Police.
During the 30 months since the attack, at least 1,070 have been arrested in all 50 states. More than 350 have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
