by Ty Tagami | Jul 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The federal government has told Georgia it will soon release the rest of the education funding it had held back from public K-12 schools.
The Georgia Department of Education said Friday that the administration of President Donald Trump will send the state tens of millions of dollars tied to federal law.
The agency won’t know the total amount until next week, but last year’s funding in these categories came to more than $154 million.
The money that the U.S. Department of Education approved for release is tied to four sections of federal law:
Title I-C is for educating migrant children, Title II-A supplements educator training, Title III-A helps educate students who are not native English speakers, and Title IV-A is a flexible grant for discretionary use.
On Thursday, the Georgia education department confirmed receipt of $40.6 million for a fifth section of federal law, Title IV-B, for afterschool programming, which had been due July 1.
The state Board of Education has scheduled a meeting Tuesday to formally accept that money and any of the additional funding if it is received by then.
The Trump administration has already released funding for other programs, such as special education and Title I-A, for “economically and educationally disadvantaged” students.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods had been publicly pressuring the federal government to send the money. He expressed gratitude Friday for the decision to release these remaining funds. The money will be coming as schools prepare for the return students of students over the next two weeks.
“To lead effectively,” Woods said, “we must have timely and reliable access to resources approved by Congress and signed into law by the president.”
by Ty Tagami | Jul 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Thousands of Georgians will soon be spending money from the state’s new subsidy for private K-12 education, as the first quarterly payouts appear in “promise scholarship” accounts.
More than 15,000 students applied for one of the $6,500 annual subsidies, and about 8,500 were approved. That means the state is on track to give about $55 million in taxpayer dollars — far less than budgeted — to families that have chosen private schooling over attendance at their nearby low-performing public school.
To qualify for the payments, most students had to spend a year attending one of the nearly 500 public schools performing in the bottom quarter of state academic measures. But the youngest students have a way around that requirement. Under last year’s law establishing the payments, often referred to as a “voucher,” rising kindergartners need not have attended public school to qualify.
According to new figures from the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which oversees the program, a third of the recipients will be attending kindergarten. Nearly half will be in elementary school, with the rest in seventh through 12th grades.
The money will be paid out quarterly, starting this month. Families can use it for a variety of education-related expenses. Two-thirds said they plan to spend it on tuition, according to the commission. The rest will use it to cover home schooling costs and other allowable expenses, such as tutoring, therapy and curriculum.
Opponents of these vouchers argued they would mostly be used by the wealthy, who are more able to afford the difference between the amount of the subsidy and the cost of private school tuition, which can exceed $10,000 a year.
As state Republican lawmakers were pushing Senate Bill 233 to final passage last year, Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, summarized the opposition, mostly from fellow Democrats.
The vouchers are “a mirage for families like mine and for countless others across our state,” she said on the Senate floor, adding that they would undermine education for kids who don’t choose private school, since public schools would lose state funding for each student who took a voucher.
“It is a battle for the soul of our education system,” Parkes said.
“I’ve got news for you,” responded Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, the chief co-sponsor of the bill. “The wealthy already have school choice, including some wealthy members in this room who have been able to exercise school choice for their own children.”
Supporters of the bill, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a month after passage, said the loss of state funding for public schools would not hurt them because they would no longer have to cover the cost of educating the voucher recipients.
The commission reports that three quarters of recipients are “lower-income,” meaning the students are coming from households with incomes at or below four times the federal poverty level. ($106,600 a year for a family of three and $128,600 for a family of four.)
Half of the recipients are Black and a third are white.
Two metro Atlanta districts will lose the most students — DeKalb County, with nearly 900 scholarship recipients, and Henry County, with nearly 800. Others rounding out the top five districts losing students to vouchers are Bibb County, at nearly 600 students; Richmond County at nearly 500, and Savannah-Chatham County with more than 400.
The commission cautioned that the numbers are a moving target because some students may yet opt out. But the participation numbers are well below the $141 million that lawmakers budgeted for this school year.
Tony West, Georgia director of Americans for Prosperity, a group that lobbied for this program, attributed the low participation to several potential reasons: parents haven’t heard of the program yet, they know about it but are skeptical or they did not apply because they do not live in the attendance zone of an eligible public school.
Only 56% of applicants were approved, which suggests that many who applied do not live near an underperforming school. Address and state residency were the two main qualifying criteria.
“I think that strongly suggests that the eligibility requirements are too restrictive,” said West, who noted that 16 states with similar scholarship programs have not based eligibility on address. He can see his group lobbying state lawmakers to convert Georgia’s program to universal access.
“We’ll see what the political appetite is moving forward,” he said.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The field in the next election for U.S. Senate in Georgia just shrank.
John King, one of the two Republicans who declared his candidacy to unseat Democratic incumbent John Ossoff next year, has suspended his campaign.
“Right now it’s clear there’s little path forward to the nomination,” King said on social media site X Thursday.
The retired major general in the U.S. Army National Guard and former police chief was the first GOP official elected statewide to join the race. Elected Georgia’s insurance and safety fire commissioner three years ago, King announced in May that he would challenge U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter of St. Simons in the Senate GOP primary.
Carter had jumped into the race days after Gov. Brian Kemp announced he would not be running against Ossoff, opening the Republican primary.
The names of other potential GOP candidates have been tossed around, but so far no one else has stepped up to challenge Carter.
King was already behind on campaign fundraising. He and Carter reported gathering a similar amount from donors in their April through June federal filings, but Carter loaned his own campaign another couple million dollars, putting him well ahead of King.
Neither could match Ossoff’s fundraising prowess. The Democrat collected more than $10 million during that same period, ending the second quarter with over $15 million.
More Republicans could jump in, including college and pro football coach Derek Dooley. The son of legendary Bulldogs coach Vince Dooley is rumored to be favored by Kemp.
King, meanwhile, will run for re-election to his state post.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Federal dollars that Georgia has been counting on to cover afterschool program costs have been disbursed.
The administration of President Donald Trump was expected to release funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program July 1 but withheld it until this week.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods had been calling on the federal government to release the money since early July.
“I deeply believe in fiscal responsibility, which means evaluating the use of funds and seeking out efficiencies, but also means being responsible – releasing funds already approved by Congress and signed by President Trump,” Woods said July 7. He repeated that message last Friday upon hearing reports that the money would be released Monday.
Monday came and went, but the Georgia Department of Education said it had not yet received the money.
Finally on Wednesday, the agency confirmed receipt of its $40.6 million share.
Nationally, the program serves about 1.4 million youths through state education grants that are in turn paid for with about $1.4 billion from the federal government, according to the Afterschool Alliance.
It is the largest single funding source for a program that provides afterschool learning for more than 27,000 youths in at least 230 Georgia communities, according to the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network. The organization attributed the administration’s decision to release the funds to a collective effort by parents, program leaders, youth advocates, “community champions” and bipartisan efforts by lawmakers.
“Working parents in particular are breathing an enormous sigh of relief,” the group added.
Last Friday, while still awaiting the funds, Woods underscored how important that money is.
“With a new school year about to begin,” he said, “it’s critical that all approved funds are made available to ensure students start strong and educators have the support they need.”
by Ty Tagami | Jul 23, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A two-year-old Georgia law requiring teachers to use the “science of reading” in their lessons has led to literacy gains in the state’s lowest performing schools, the Georgia Department of Education announced Wednesday.
House Bill 538, which passed unanimously in the state House of Representatives and with just one ‘no’ vote in the Senate, called on the state agency to overhaul teacher training and develop new literacy tests.
The education department responded last fall by sending literacy coaches to 60 schools that had been performing in the bottom 5%.
Scores on the new reading tests improved 15%, with the strongest gains in kindergarten, according to the agency.
The law, which took effect in July 2023, required all public schools and school systems to provide onsite teacher training, with model lessons for students and prompt instructional feedback. It also required all teachers in kindergarten through third grade to complete literacy training by the beginning of this month.
The education department coaches reached 1,000 teachers and affected 18,000 students, the agency said, noting that teachers reported improvements in their confidence, their instructional ability and their use of data.
“Targeting intensive supports where they’re most needed, by placing coaches directly in our most challenged schools, has shown immediate promise,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said, adding that the initiative laid “a strong foundation for lasting, statewide literacy success.”
