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Leadership
Your Governor:
Brian Kemp (R) (75)
First term began in 2019 (two-term limit). Re-elected in 2022.
Governor Brian Kemp signed the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act into law. It was a long drawn out battle but the Governor stayed firm to his commitment of expanding opportunities to the families of the state and was able to deliver on a commitment he made at the beginning of the 2023 legislative session.
STATE LEGISLATURE:
After partnering with the Governor to pass the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, the legislature has finally backed the families of the state with expanded opportunities that enable students to have a brighter future. Perhaps they will continue to work with the Governor so that more families can take advantage of life changing opportunities.
Constitutional Issues
"The Georgia Constitution contains a Blaine Amendment, but it also contains an education provision ...that explicitly authorizes the General Assembly to provide grants and scholarships to students and parents for educational purposes, such as those of voucher programs." (Institute for Justice)
On June 26, 2017, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Georgia's tax-credit scholarship program and ruled that plaintiffs had no standing to sue.
Transparency
Locating school report cards on Georgia’s Department of Education homepage is difficult and not intuitive. The report cards can be located under the “Data and Reporting → Governor’s Office of Student Achievement'' tab, which takes the viewer to an external website called the Georgia School Grades Report. While school report cards are text-heavy, cumbersome, and hard to use, they do provide standard information like state- specific letter grades and assessment results, student demographics, per pupil funding, student mobility, and achievement performance.
Educational options are easy to find from the homepage under the “Innovation” tab, where you can access information on charters, homeschooling, virtual learning, and career pathways.
School board elections in Georgia align with the general election cycle, empowering parents with greater influence in their decision-making due to increased voter turnout.