ATLANTA — A new proposal by state Democratic lawmakers would re-examine how we pay for student education.
The goal is to send more money to students in poorer areas of Georgia.
Republicans are concerned rolling out the plan could be complicated.
Other states give what’s called “poverty weight” to their education funding formula. Georgia doesn’t.
A state lawmaker wants to see that happen here.
“Georgia must be proactive and take control of our education future,” state Sen. Jason Esteves said.
Esteves wants lawmakers to take another deep look at how they calculate how much education money goes where and to whom.
That’s the Quality Basic Education, or QBE, formula and he thinks not entirely fair.
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“That’s why I’m advocating for today, for a full revamp of the QBE formula to meet the realities of today,” Esteves said.
Esteves told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot that Georgia is one of six states that doesn’t give “poverty weight” to that formula so that more money goes to areas that need it the most.
He and other Democratic lawmakers insist the state start giving “opportunity grants” to these areas through the formula so that more high-poverty areas get the money they need, especially with confusion coming from Washington over the future of the federal Education Department.
“I think we can take a look at what we’ve done in other states,” state Rep. Chris Erwin said.
Erwin is the chair of the House Education Committee. While recalculating the QBE formula would be complicated, he’s not against trying to get more money to poverty areas across Georgia.
“Other states have added a QBE line item for if these economically challenged children are there and you’re teaching them. We know it’s more expensive and more challenging to teach these children and we should afford to pay for that,” Erwin said.
There are currently very few details released in the Democrats’ proposal. Changing that QBE formula would be a challenging undertaking.
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