ATLANTA — After watching high school graduation rates soar despite poor reading skills documented in tests, Georgia lawmakers have decided to send tens of millions of dollars to elementary schools to boost literacy rates.
The Georgia Early Literacy Act approved by the General Assembly Tuesday would hire more teachers and overhaul curricula and training, with a focus on the phonics-based teaching methods credited with accelerating reading apprehension in other Southern states.
“Our youngest students won today,” said Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer, a former school superintendent who leads the House Education Committee and was a main author of House Bill 1193.
The measure passed the Senate unanimously Tuesday with amendments after it passed the House 170-2 in February.
Later Tuesday, the House approved the Senate changes, sending the bill to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, speaks about the adoption of House Bill 1193 at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta on Tuesday, March 31, as his wife Dayle (on his left), a retired educator who urged him to tackle literacy, watches, with Lt. Gov Burt Jones by her side. The trio are flanked by Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer (left) and Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro (right). (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
The main pillar, employing a literacy coach in every K-3 school, remained in the bill after the Senate’s amendments. But the funding method changed.
Instead of using the state’s education funding formula to reimburse school districts for employing 1,313 literacy coaches, the Senate elected to pay for them with a $70 million grant.
Rather than recurring automatically like money in the funding formula, the Legislature would have to appropriate money each year for future grants.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said there was no doubt that would happen. Lawmakers may move the funding into the Quality Basic Education funding formula in the future, he said.
“But I can assure you,” he said, “with the support we’ve received, this bill has received, the literacy initiative has received in the Senate and the House, there will be a continued investment in the young people and the children of our state.”
The coaches — teachers with enhanced literacy training — would work in classrooms alongside teachers.
Also, school districts would have to use curricula vetted by the state, and the state would help cover the schools’ costs for acquiring it.
A literacy task force would be empaneled to oversee the process. It would collaborate with the Georgia Department of Education and the state Board of Education to guide the initiative.
Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, said literacy rates in the lower grades had been far lower than high school graduation rates. That could only mean that Georgia schools had been handing diplomas to students who could not read well, said Hickman, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
“Now we know the graduation rates were not reflective of the true answer,” said Hickman, who collaborated with Erwin on the bill. “The true answer was our children could not read.”
Hickman, Erwin and other Georgia lawmakers have gradually steered schools toward the teaching of literacy using mainly phonics, part of a broader approach dubbed the “science of reading.”
The best methods for teaching literacy have been subject to debate in academia for decades, but successes with the science approach in other Southern states, including Alabama and Mississippi, led Georgia to follow their lead, first with small steps and, should Kemp sign HB 1193 into law, a big step.
ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate overhauled one of the state House’s top priorities for the year, passing an amended version of the Georgia Early Literacy Act Tuesday.
But the measure that the Senate approved unanimously maintains nearly all the core elements that were in House Bill 1193 when it passed the House 170-2 in February.
The main pillar, employing a literacy coach in every K-3 school, remains in the bill, but the funding method changed.
Instead of using the state’s education funding formula to reimburse school districts for employing 1,313 literacy coaches, the Senate would pay for it with a $70 million grant, with new money to be appropriated each year.
Also, school districts would have to use curricula vetted by the state, and the state would help cover the schools’ costs for acquiring it.
A literacy task force would be empaneled to oversee the process and collaborate with the state education board.
Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, said literacy rates in the lower grades have been far lower than high school graduation rates. That could only mean that Georgia schools have been giving diplomas to students who cannot read well, said Hickman, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
“Now we know the graduation rates were not reflective of the true answer,” said Hickman, an architect of the state’s approach to literacy over the past few years. “The true answer was our children could not read.”
Georgia lawmakers have gradually steered schools toward teaching literacy using mainly phonics, part of a broader approach dubbed the “science of reading.”
The best methods for teaching literacy have been subject to debate in academia for decades, but successes in other Southern states, including Alabama and Mississippi, led Georgia to adopt their approach, first with small steps and, should HB 1193 become law, a major step.
ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate passed a measure Tuesday that would reduce homeowner property taxes by creating a new sales tax in exchange.
House Bill 1116 came from the House as a cap on property tax valuation increases.
The Senate’s amended version would create new special taxing districts overlayed on county lines, and those districts could implement a 1% sales tax. The revenue would go toward reduction of homeowner property taxes.
The bill would also generally prohibit revenue increases from property taxes of more than 3% or the federal Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater.
Homeowners would benefit most from the combined effect of the cap and the sales tax, said Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, who presented the bill on the Senate floor. But he said properties without a homestead exemption would benefit too.
“Just about every city and county would eliminate their homeowner property taxes. … And the rest of city and county taxes would be eliminated in some counties and reduced in other counties.”
Hufstetler said property taxes have been rising at an unsustainable rate.
“Our citizens who have to live within their means are frustrated,” he said.
Democrats criticized the measure, saying sales taxes consume a larger portion of the household budgets of lower-income people. They also said renters would not enjoy the same benefit from the property tax rollbacks as would homeowners.
“We are choosing to say that the people who own homes really are more important,” said Sen. Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta.
The Senate’s amended version of HB 1116 passed in a party-line 31-19 vote.
The bill returns to the House. The version that chamber passed in early March sought to restrain property value increases for taxation purposes at 3% a year or the federal Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater.
In a rare bipartisan moment during this year’s legislative session in Georgia, Democrats and Republicans agreed on how to do something about what they said was a core cause of Georgia’s housing affordability problem.
The state Senate passed a bill that sought to punish institutional investors with more than 500 single-family rental homes.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, accused investors of exacerbating the housing crisis by outbidding regular purchasers trying to buy a house, thus driving up prices and forcing many would-be homebuyers to rent instead.
“I have a grave fear that we are becoming a nation of renters and not homeowners,” Dolezal said at a Senate committee hearing last month. The Senate went on to pass his legislation 49-3.
Senate Bill 463 would have enforced the ownership cap by allowing lawsuits against these companies and by withdrawing their tax credits and deductions.
But Dolezal’s bill fell apart Thursday, when a committee of the state House deleted the language, replacing it with another measure.
The legislative session ends Thursday, so time is running out.
Something similar happened last year. Legislation that sought a 2,000-home cap for institutional owners failed to exit a House committee after the industry raised constitutional concerns, as happened with SB 463.
The lawmakers were pursuing a popular cause.
An Atlanta Regional Commission survey in 11 metro Atlanta counties last summer found housing affordability was the No. 1 concern. The 2025 Metro Atlanta Speaks Survey said 44% blamed developers and 35% blamed investors buying up homes to rent.
Last spring, U.S. Sen. John Ossoff announced an investigation into “large, out-of-state companies driving up home prices in Georgia.”
A news conference at the Democrat’s Atlanta office featured renters complaining about unsafe conditions. One reported dangerous debris embedded in his backyard. Another reported gas leaks that she said went unaddressed for weeks.
In a demonstration of bipartisan frustration, President Donald Trump, in January, penned an executive order titled “Stopping Wall Street from Competing with Main Street Homebuyers.”
Two weeks later, Dolezal, who is running for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor, introduced SB 463.
A 2024 report by Georgia State University and Rutgers University found that three companies collectively owned more than 19,000 rental homes in metro Atlanta. The report said corporate landlords were drawn to the area by cheap housing and lax tenant protections.
One of them, Amherst, told Capitol Beat that the industry provides housing to families that cannot qualify for a mortgage.
“We understand that we’re easy scapegoats,” said Dagney Gomez del Campo, an Amherst spokeswoman. But she pointed to data about the service her company provides: Amherst spent over $526 million renovating more than 8,300 homes during at least 14 years of operations in Georgia when it housed about 57,000 renters.
Renters’ credit scores were typically in the 600s, below the 700s common among first-time homebuyers with a government-sponsored mortgage, according to Amherst.
Sharon Franklin, a renter through Amherst subsidiary MainStreet Renewal, described an idyllic home she and her two older sisters, both retired, are renting in Stockbridge.
It is a quiet street with wildlife roaming the property, she said, and the company has been responsive to repair requests.
At 61 and nearing retirement herself, Franklin said she had no interest in buying a house with a 30-year mortgage.
If lawmakers penalize companies like Amherst, she said, “who are we going to rent from?”
Industry fights back
Former Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, now working for the National Home Rental Council, helped the industry attack SB 463 at a House committee hearing two weeks ago.
It was a repeat performance of his efforts against the legislation for a 2000-home cap last year.
He said Dolezal’s bill had “numerous constitutional infirmities” and was “a gift to lawyers to sue.”
The assumption of the bill — that renters would be homeowners if the investors did not already own the houses — was false, he said. The reality is that they cannot qualify for a mortgage and there is “an abject shortage” of housing, he added.
Others from the industry who spoke at the hearing contended that such a law would lead to less rehabilitation of dilapidated housing and fewer rental options.
“Good policy should be grounded in facts and data, not assumptions and misleading narratives,” said Stephen Davis, a lobbyist for Progress Residential, a multistate rental home company. “SB 463 creates serious unintended consequences: mass evictions, higher rents, lower home values, and greater school turnover.”
Jason Parker, president of rental home construction company Two Resi Build, pointed to a foundational problem. He said his company builds 100 to 150 houses a year.
“If we could build more homes, it would absolutely reduce the average house price,” he said. “Our biggest challenge is the land cost.”
Why houses got so expensive
Institutional investors bought up large swaths of housing stock when prices cratered during the Great Recession.
As of June 2022, they owned a quarter of Atlanta’s single-family rental home market, according to a 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The report said these investors may have contributed to rising rents and home prices. This may have helped “stabilize” neighborhoods, the report said, adding that it was unclear whether this affected homeownership opportunities.
The rate of institutional ownership of single-family homes in Atlanta is six times the national average, said Alex Horowitz, project director of the housing policy initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts.
But institutional investors own just 3% of all Atlanta single-family houses, he said. “Nothing that’s 3% of the market is driving the market. … And most research on single-family rentals suggests that they lower rents by adding new supply to the market overall.”
Pew’s research indicates that one main driver of housing unaffordability is the tightening of mortgage lending rules after the recession, when so many owners went into foreclosure. The standards increased while their credit ratings fell.
Another big driver is government development policy, and it is something state lawmakers could do something about, Horowitz said.
Pew released a report in mid-March that showed how Austin, Texas, reduced housing costs by implementing policies to encourage denser development, such as allowing large apartment buildings near jobs and transit and reducing minimum mandated lot sizes and parking space requirements.
Median rents fell from $1,546 in December 2021 to $1,296 by January 2026 even though Austin had added 18,000 residents.
The city added 120,000 housing units between 2015 and 2024, a 30% increase that was three times the national average, Pew reported.
Pew’s findings in Austin echoed its findings about similar policies in four other cities: Minneapolis; Portland, Or.; New Rochelle, N.Y.; and Tysons, Va.
Horowitz said Texas enacted seven laws last year that should result in a lot of new housing, such as allowing apartments on commercially zoned land and homes on smaller lots, and expanding use of manufactured housing.
A path forward for Georgia
One Georgia bill would have taken the state in the direction of Texas.
Senate Bill 508 sought to offer financial incentives to encourage Georgia communities to reduce minimum lot sizes and parking requirements and to take other steps to increase density.
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, the main sponsor, said it is difficult for local elected officials to make such changes because existing residents tend to push back. Not in my backyard, or “NIMBYism,” is a powerful force, she said.
Lawmakers are more insulated from local pressure, she said, so if zoning is to change, the push can more easily come from the Legislature.
Her legislation probably never had a chance because all the other sponsors were Democrats, and the General Assembly is controlled by Republicans.
But Parent and every other Democrat present voted for Dolezal’s corporate homeownership cap when it reached the Senate floor. It’s a good bill, she said.
Next year, Republicans should reintroduce her bill and call it their own, said Parent, who is not running for re-election.
“I think it is something they should hop on and pass it themselves,” she said. “It isn’t really a partisan issue.”
ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate approved its version of the $38.5 billion fiscal year 2027 budget Friday, sending it to the state House for negotiations over the disagreements.
The House started the budget process, passing its version earlier this month.
Among the big differences: the Senate reduced the House’s increase in funding for the state’s public colleges and universities by just over $110 million, increased the amount for private K-12 school vouchers by $31 million and added $100 million to the state employee pension system.
“I think this is one of the most important lines in the budget,” Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told senators before Friday’s unanimous vote for passage. Pensions have been eroded by decades of inflation as increases have failed to keep pace, he said. The extra money is intended to trigger regular annual cost of living increases.
The Senate agreed with the importance of the House’s focus on literacy but amended the way that new program would be funded. Instead of building money to hire 1,313 literacy coaches for K-3 classrooms into the public school funding formula, the Senate chose a $70 million grant.
The Senate made myriad smaller changes. It cut the $11 million the House had allocated to hire staff to confirm all food stamp enrollees are eligible.
Georgia has one of the highest “error” rates in the country, which can mean loss of federal funding. Lawmakers in both chambers want to reduce that rate, but the Senate chose to accept an offer from the company Equifax to do the work for free.
The House disagreed with the Senate’s changes and the Senate held fast, sending the budget to a conference committee to iron out the wrinkles.
Higher education funding could be a sticking point. Tillery said he had heard complaints about the Senate cutting the University System of Georgia’s budget. But he pointed out that the system budget would still rise under the Senate’s proposal, from $3.6 billion in state funding this year to $3.76 billion next year. It just would not rise as much as the House proposed.
“Only in government,” he said in an interview, “can you give an agency more money next year than this year and it be a cut.”
