Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

Public schools are the backbone of our nation's economic, political, and social health. No institution impacts families and communities more than the local school system. We must guarantee early childhood education for every child in this country. We must create educational environments that adapt to student learning styles while still ensuring that kids are making progress. We must guarantee that qualified students can attend college and technical schools without the burden of large debts. The future of our country depends on taking all of these steps.

Three pressure points have developed within our education infrastructure that we urgently need to address.

Early Childhood
First, early childhood education is often unavailable and unaffordable for working parents, causing many to miss out on early childhood educational opportunities. Universal preschool should be incorporated into the K-12 public schools. Wages for full-time workers need to be adequate for covering childcare costs and paid time off needs to be available for parents to take care of sick family members.

Public K-12 Schools
Second, adequate public school funding and more choices in instruction are needed. But, publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools or for-profit educational organizations, are causing a huge disparity in educational attainment and quality. We must help public school systems to develop publicly funded choices, such as special mission and magnet schools. No taxpayer should be forced to leave the public system to achieve success in educating their children.

Cost of College
Third, college costs have skyrocketed during the last few decades. A college student today would need to earn $46.32 per hour to work the same number of hours to pay for a semester of college that a student had to work to pay for tuition in 1981. Parents dig deep in their pockets and students finance their classes with debt. Other students with potential choose to not go to college because they don't want the debt. Access to college both for young people and for older adult job retraining must be approached as long-term economic development of human capital. I will fight for legislation to make every public college and university in Georgia tuition-free.

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