Isakson: Window of Opportunity for World Peace and Liberty is Closing
MIKE KLEIN
One day after President Obama seemed to throw his administration’s intelligence team under the bus, and one day before the first-ever confirmed case of Ebola in the United States, the Senator and the Soldier sat before hundreds of people in an Atlanta ballroom and sought to bring clarity to what often seems like an out of control world.
“ISIS wants you to fear them. They want you to cower in your house and just not come outside,” Georgia U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson told 400 guests at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition meeting in Atlanta. “Since the threats have changed the way we deal with threats has changed,” said former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George W. Casey (Ret.). “Those threats will not be addressed or resolved through military means alone.”
On chance you are not familiar with this group, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition articulates the role American strength plays on the world stage, in particular, development and diplomacy, with a firm understanding that sometimes military intervention is essential first, but it must be backed up with resources that allow newly free people to create a new society. USGLC’s membership includes every living former U.S. Secretary of State and many of America’s and the world’s greatest non-governmental organizations that do hard work in the world’s worst places.
If you watched CBS “60 Minutes” on Sunday evening you saw President Obama throw his administration’s own team under the bus when he said the intelligence community “underestimated what had been taking place in Syria” with regard to ISIS, the terrorists whose murderous ways have paralyzed the Middle East and threaten world security.
If you tuned into almost any newscast Tuesday evening you heard that a West African man who traveled by plane to the United States was quarantined in a Dallas hospital after his Ebola diagnosis. In Atlanta, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried hard to assure everyone there was no anticipated danger to anyone else here.
The emergence of ISIS as a world destabilizing force and the rapid spread of Ebola from West Africa to Texas confirms again that much of what we think we control we really don’t control and often governance is reactionary. The message Senator Isakson and General Casey brought Monday to Atlanta is that the United States must remain engaged in every level of these conflicts, whether they are conflicts against forces or health care conflicts.
United States Senator Johnny Isakson, moderator Richard Warner and General George W. Casey
“We’re fighting the biggest all-time health war probably ever by the time it’s over in terms of Ebola in West Africa,” Isakson said. “The people (who are) going to West Africa now (are) not just the 3,000 military troops but it’s literally thousands of Americans … who volunteer to deliver the goods and deliver peace and deliver welfare to people who’ve been living in war-torn communities who are finally emerging from those wars.”
Casey is a retired four-star General whose command assignments included Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia. “Since September 11 the international security environment and the threats to the United States have changed fundamentally and for me as an Army officer, I like to say I spent the first 30 years of a 40-year career training to fight a war I never fought and the last ten learning to fight a different war while I was fighting it.”
Today 40 percent of the world’s population is online, there are about as many cellphones in the world, 7 billion, as there are total people and the 24 x 7 rapid availability of information has created what Casey described as “a global awakening and expectations.” Yet in many parts of the world people are no freer today than when World War II ended and billions live in wretched poverty without food, clean water, toilets, health care or education.
“Our window of opportunity for peace around the world and liberty for all the people of the world is running out,” Isakson said. “The Arab world is re-producing at about 6.7 children per marriage; the West is less than two now. As we are shrinking in size the poorer countries are actually accelerating. It ends up being a numbers game. The quicker we can help bring peace and security and food and stability to poorer countries the less ISIS and people like that can recruit in these poor countries because the people are no longer just fighting for another day’s bread.”
There was a dramatic end to the discussion when General Casey noted the 13th anniversary of the 911 attack on America has just passed and then he spoke about the human toll that is sometimes too easily overlooked.
“Over 6,000 men and women have given their lives and they’ve left 20,000 surviving family members. Over 50,000 men and women have been wounded, some 10,000 of them serious enough to require long-term care,” Casey said. “Over 2 million men and women have served. Over 1 million have already left the service. A quarter of them are unemployed. We can do better than that as a country. Put these veterans back to work. You hear a lot about the problems veterans are having. If they have a job a lot of other problems get a whole lot easier.”
Learn more about the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
(Mike Klein is a journalist and media executive who has held leadership positions with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Georgia Public Broadcasting and CNN where he was Vice President of News Production. Learn more about Mike at LinkedIn.)
(Photo provided by U.S. Global Leadership Coalition)
Getting Smart on Georgia Crime Moves Beyond Getting Tough
MIKE KLEIN
Not long ago, the national philosophy behind criminal justice policy was to lock offenders away and teach them a lesson. This was popular with politicians who found that it played well before crowds and it was popular in communities where prisons and jails created jobs. Some folks even seemed to celebrate the idea that prisons were real hellholes.
This philosophy worked great if you did not care about creating better citizens in people who had made a mistake but could be rehabilitated; if you did not want to think about the effect of mingling juveniles with hardened adult criminals; if you did not care about the spiraling cost to support the expansion of incarceration — just a few of many things you could avoid thinking about.
No one reason caused inmate populations to expand but many contributed: declining family structures; more children with one biological parent or none; the failure of families to emphasize learning; neighborhoods without jobs; the widespread availability of illegal narcotics; the dependency society mindset in which government is expected to pay everyone’s bills; you can go on and on.
Some insightful people began to understand that criminal justice expenditures could not expand forever. Ohio did some good work in the mid-1990s but the reform movement really took hold after Texas began to implement community-based alternatives to incarceration about seven years ago.
Nobody has ever accused Texas of being soft on crime. The Texas Public Policy Foundation was a real reform driver, as was the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Today, the evidence points to Georgia as a national leader.
Five years ago, Georgia was on the cusp of a criminal justice meltdown. The state’s adult prison population had doubled over two decades to 56,000 inmates and the incarceration budget had doubled to $1 billion per year. That did not include the costs to administer probation and parole. And it was projected to get worse: The prison system would need to house 60,000 inmates by 2016, costing $264 million for new prison construction. All the annual operational costs were above and beyond the projected capital investment.
Prisons and jails were overcrowded and budgets were blowing up. It was ugly.
This week, however, encouraging trends were reported at the criminal justice reform council meeting in Atlanta:
- The state has reduced its adult prison population to 52,000 inmates.
- The number of annual new prison commitments is down from 21,600 in 2009 to 18,000 last year.
- Statewide, total jail populations are down from 44,000 four years ago to about 37,000 today.
- Non-violent, low-risk offenders who would have been in prison now have a better chance to succeed in community-based programs.
There is more: By getting state-sentenced inmates out of county jails more quickly, the state reduced its annual payments to county jailers from $25 million in FY 2012 to just $40,000 in FY 2014, which ended in June. This was possible, in part, because every county now files its sentencing papers electronically, saving days, weeks, even months.
At the same time, thanks to new juvenile community-based alternative programs, state juvenile courts reduced new youth secure detention commitments by 62 percent between October 2013 and June 2014. More than 1,600 youths were kept out of secure detention.
The sea change that made changes like this possible started with Governor Nathan Deal in 2011, when his executive order created a criminal justice reform council to differentiate between serious, hardened felons and people who pose little or no risk to public safety. The phrase that you often hear is to create a distinction between people who scare us and people who make us mad. Is a non-violent personal drug addict better off in substance abuse care or bunking with a killer?
The encouraging news you have read about here should not be interpreted as more than a very optimistic report about changes that will take years to implement. Indeed, the Council continues to wrestle with how to reintegrate released former offenders back into the community. Putting them away is hard, giving them the best possible chance to succeed once they return home is even more complicated.
That said, there is nothing wrong with pausing to celebrate something that is working.
(Mike Klein is a journalist and media executive who has held leadership positions with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Georgia Public Broadcasting and CNN where he was Vice President of News Production. Learn more about Mike at LinkedIn.)
Astonishing Early Results from Georgia Juvenile Justice Reform
MIKE KLEIN
Buoyed by freshly funded incarceration alternatives, Georgia reduced new juvenile justice detention commitments by an astonishing 62 percent during the nine month period that ended in June. As a result, the average daily secure population rate is also trending down as is the length of time juveniles are waiting for a detention center placement.
“While it’s still early, we feel great about where we are,” Department of Juvenile Justice assistant deputy commissioner Joe Vignati told the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform on Tuesday, September 9. This was the Council’s first meeting since May although several committees met during the summer.
DJJ Deputy Commissioner Carl Brown led off with an historical overview of Georgia juvenile justice that recalled a $300 million annual budget in 2012, nearly two thirds of that amount spent on secure detention at $90,000 per bed per year. Brown said traditionally 25 percent of youths were incarcerated for low level offenses, misdemeanors and status offenses. Forty percent were assessed as being low risk to re-offend.
Juvenile justice was the 2012 Criminal Justice Reform Council’s principal focus and it resulted in a new way of thinking about kids. Juveniles who commit the most serious crimes and who pose a threat to public safety should be incarcerated and dealt with appropriately, but there would be new community-based program options for kids who primarily are just dysfunctional, sometimes severely so, but without criminal intentions.
House Bill 242 created a framework for alternative programs. Governor Nathan Deal’s FY 2014-15 budgets provided more than $13 million to help create community-based services. The first measurement is the nine-month period that began in October 2013 and ended in June. “Here’s the big bang, what have we achieved?” said DJJ assistant deputy commissioner Joe Vignati.
During the 2012 calendar year juvenile court judges sentenced 2,603 youths to incarceration. That became the base year with an objective goal to reduce the number by 15 percent or 390 fewer juveniles sentenced to incarceration between October 2013 and June 2014. Instead of 15 percent it was 62 percent and instead of 390 fewer sentences it was 1,614 fewer sentences.
Youths incarcerated at secure facilities declined 14 percent from 1,673 in October 2013 to 1,440 in June 2014. The number of youths awaiting a detention bed placement was down from 269 at the beginning of October 2013 to 157 at the end of June 2014, and it continues to improve.
“As of yesterday it’s my understanding that we have only 39 youth awaiting placement,” Vignati told the Council. “This is important because we make sure we are getting kids where they need to be. Also, now we are able to operate safe, secure facilities. We don’t have overcrowding.”
To learn more, watch these YouTube Channel videos recorded at the meeting:
Juvenile Justice Presentation, Part One
Juvenile Justice Presentation, Part Two
(Mike Klein is a journalist and media executive who has held leadership positions with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Georgia Public Broadcasting and CNN where he was Vice President of News Production. Learn more about Mike at LinkedIn.)
Atlanta Classical Academy Educates Citizens for a Free Republic
MIKE KLEIN
Each morning students at Atlanta Classical Academy finish the Pledge of Allegiance and then they add, “I will learn the true. I will do the good. I will love the beautiful.”
ACA Principal Terrence Moore said he introduced these simple ideas because, “If they can hold by those principles and if they really commit them in their minds and hearts then they will have a life that rich and full of happiness.”
Atlanta Classic Academy opened this month at full capacity with 488 K-through-8 students in a former private school located on Northside Drive in northwest Atlanta. ACA is the city’s only classical education charter school and in Moore it has an innovative education executive who’s done this before and excelled at a very high level.
Moore was founding principal for seven years at Ridgeview Classical Schools in Fort Collins, Colorado. U.S. News and World Report ranked Ridgeview High School as the best in Colorado and the fourth best high school nationally among all open enrollment schools of every kind.
After Fort Collins, Moore moved to Hillsdale College in Michigan to become lead advisor to the Hillsdale Barney Charter School initiative that helps communities launch classical education charter schools. One of those was Savannah Classical Academy which opened in fall 2013. During his Savannah work Moore learned about the Atlanta Classical Academy opportunity.
What exactly is a classical education?
“My way of explaining it to parents is saying, think about the good books that your grandparents or great grandparents read, how those came alive and how they’re still valuable,” Moore said. “This is exactly what this country had for a long time until we started trying to train kids for particular professions and we don’t even know what the children want to do,” said Moore.
“What we call education is a conversation about the great things in the human world and the great things in the physical world and for that to work you have to have a conversation not just among students but with the teachers themselves,” said Moore, who added that he wanted “intellectually ambitious people” on his faculty.
ACA’s first faculty includes Hillsdale College, Emory University and Berry College graduates, along with several from other Georgia and southern state universities. One teacher is a former Ridgeview Classical School pupil whom Moore has known since she was 12 years old and yes, he finds that fairly astonishing! Hundreds applied for 32 current full-time faculty positions.
Every ACA student will study Spanish in grades K-5 and Latin in grades 6-12. All students will attend art or music class every day. Reading will be taught based on phonics. Every student will wear a uniform. There will be extensive emphasis on solid memory and public speaking skills. The student-to-teacher ratio will be no more than 18-or-22-to-1 based on grade level.
TERRENCE MOORE
“It’s the education the Founding Fathers had and wanted citizens of a free republic to have,” Moore said. “All we’re doing here is recovering common sense and the great tradition of reading the classics, understanding grammar and looking at our history through its original sources and through its great moments, and spending time understanding the logic and beauty of mathematics and the arts.”
The Academy has 54 students in each of nine grade levels, K-through-8. All students must reside within the Atlanta Public Schools system boundaries. The mix is former public school students and some from private or home school situations. The wait list has 1,200 names, nearly three times current enrollment. Ninth grade will be added next year and then one new high school grade each year until the school is K-12. “Three or four years from now we would be bursting out of this building,” Moore said.
Atlanta Classical Academy students will graduate when they complete high school. That means the first ACA graduation ceremony is a distant five years away. There will be no kindergarten graduation, no eighth grade graduation. “We live in an era of graduation inflation,” said Moore. His belief is that graduation should follow the completion of a “long, arduous and worthwhile” journey that prepares the graduate for “becoming a voter and eligible for active citizenship.”
When we spoke Moore was upbeat about everything including the start of carpool because, as every principal knows, nobody is happy when Momma is not happy! “You don’t want to start out the morning with your parents angry at you!” said Moore.
Atlanta Classical Academy Website
(Mike Klein is a journalist and media executive who has held leadership positions with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Georgia Public Broadcasting and CNN where he was Vice President of News Production. Learn more about Mike at LinkedIn.)
Chattahoochee Hills Charter … Learning in the Natural World
MIKE KLEIN
Playing in the dirt will have an educational twist when Chattahoochee Hills Charter School opens next Monday in south Fulton County. With its emphasis on the environment, learning will take place inside and outside and classrooms will have removable walls that open to the great outdoors for hybrid inside – outside learning.
“We are part of the natural world,” said Chattahoochee founding Principal Chad Webb. “It takes all of us to create an environment that is safe and healthy and sustainable. I need individuals who want to get down and dirty with the scholars. Whatever we can do to create responsibility, stewardship and sustainability is our goal.”
With its emphasis on nature, all kids will engage in “community investigations.” This year first graders will reintroduce native plants to campus retention ponds. Eventually each classroom will cultivate an organic garden and professional chefs will teach Chattahoochee Charter kids how to prepare meals with garden crops when the new cafeteria kitchen is ready next year.
Three hundred K-5 students are enrolled. The wait list is 50 students. Most children reside in south Fulton with a heavy concentration from the Serenbe community that emphasizes nature, well-being and fulfillment.
Chattahoochee Hills also enrolled students from Atlanta, Palmetto, Hapeville, Fairburn and Union City. “We have a large net,” said Webb. School transportation is not an option so parents must make their own travel plans, regardless of distance.
Next Monday’s opening is two or three weeks later than when most Georgia public school systems re-opened and Webb said the reason is simple, “The buildings were not ready.” Thirteen buildings are being constructed on an 11-acre campus with three more acres still available for expansion.
This year Chattahoochee Charter will have traditional holiday breaks in November, December and a spring break. Whether the school adopts a more staggered calendar with multiple breaks similar to many public school systems will be decided next year.
Five years in development, Chattahoochee Hills received a state commission charter only to see that authorization vanish when the Georgia Supreme Court vaporized the state charter schools commission. Chattahoochee will open with Fulton County local authorization.
Chattahoochee Hills Charter School Facebook Photo
This year’s population is almost equally split between students who attended private and public school last year. Chattahoochee will open with 24 classroom, special education and reading teachers with an 18-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio, less for kindergarten classrooms. Before and after school care will be available with a separate staff.
Webb said Chattahoochee has a $3.3 million first year operational budget with total personnel the largest obligation at $2 million. The school anticipates $8,600 in per pupil public funding and it has a very aggressive private fund-raising campaign. First year-construction costs came in at $3.6 million. The next fund-raising phase will finance new sixth grade facilities, an administration building with a sports gymnasium and cafeteria that should be finished in time for the fall 2015 school year. Sixth grade will be added next year, seventh grade in fall 2016 and eighth grade in fall 2017.
With its emphasis on arts, agriculture and the environment Chattahoochee Charter has forged many unique partnerships that include the nearby 840-acre Cochran Mill Nature Center and the 100-acre Many Fold Farm that raises sheep for meat and cheese production. The nature center and farm both offer educational programs for kids.
Science will be integrated into all subjects and Webb said teachers who survived the six-hour interview process must have an appreciation for nature. “I told my staff, when you go home with dirt on your clothes you had a good day,” said Webb, “because you were really immersed in learning and you had the kids engaged. I told all the staff that has been hired, I need individuals who want go get down and dirty, literally.”
Chattahoochee Hills Charter School website
Chattahoochee Hills on Facebook
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
Macon’s Newest Charter School Aims to Become Truly Classic
MIKE KLEIN
When the Academy for Classical Education opened this month elementary and middle school students had already finished extensive summer reading assignments even though they had never been inside a classroom, never met a teacher, never been to the cafeteria and never met new friends at Macon’s newest public charter school.
The reading emphasis was, classical!
“Because we’ve stripped a lot of true literature out of typical public education students are no longer able to tap into the emotion that engages them when they are reading,” said ACE co-founder and Principal Laura Perkins. This summer ACE students read classical works by Ernest Hemingway, Anne Frank, Maya Angelou, William Golding and other celebrated authors. Even kindergarten kids were required to complete listening assignments with their parents.
Are you getting the feeling the Academy for Classical Education is a different school? That is intentional and it reflects the laser focus of co-founders Perkins and Esterine Stokes.
Two years ago Perkins and Stokes just didn’t know how to quit. Long-time educators in traditional Bibb County public schools, they jettisoned retirement after just a few months to launch ACE. The school found its home in a partially renovated 200,000 square foot former corporate building on 39 acres. The property has exceptional potential but the real potential is within the classical education model.
“Esterine and I had 30-plus years in public education, wound up at the same school the last six or seven years and we retired at the same time,” said Perkins. Back in summer 2012 they would engage in “an almost continuous conversation about trying to move into retirement, reflect on our careers, purge it from our systems and move on with our lives. We couldn’t seem to do it.”
Within months Perkins and Stokes were writing a plan for the Academy for Classical Education that opened on Monday, August 4 with 760 K-through-8 students. ACE hired 48 teachers and eight teaching assistant professionals, whittled down from 600 resumes and some 340 initial interviews. Seven hundred students are on the current waiting list.
LAURA PERKINS
ESTERINE STOKES
“The goal was to have a place where children matter,” said Perkins. “That’s not to say in other schools children don’t matter but somehow public education has gotten off track and we’re more focused on data points and less focused on the child. I want to be focused on the child.”
An ACE classical education means extensive Latin study that starts in third grade and continues in every subsequent grade. “A person who has a mastery of Latin has a solid vocabulary,” said Perkins. “They understand how to use words; they understand how to create words. That is the absolute foundation language for any student upon which to build their entire academic future.” Cursive instruction – the fancy name for handwriting – is a mandatory requirement.
Eighty students attend elementary grades K-through-5 and 100 students are enrolled in middle school grades 6-through-8. The plan is for all grade levels to expand by 20 new student slots in fall 2015 and eighth graders will roll up to a new ninth grade. Sixty-five percent of ACE students attended Bibb County public schools last year. Others were in private, home or virtual schools.
ACE quickly forged extensive relationships. Mercer University and Middle Georgia State College provided student teachers. Funding was generated from the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, the Peyton Anderson Foundation, State Bank Macon and lots of community people.
THE GRYPHON
Perkins and Stokes selected the gryphon as the ACE mascot because, “We wanted a mascot that would be the model for qualities we want in our students. We want them to be strong, fierce and courageous but we also want them to be loyal, trustworthy and dedicated. When you see the head of the eagle and the body of the lion it was ideal.”
Perkins and Stokes retired from their traditional public school careers in June 2012, totally unaware they were about to become learning entrepreneurs. “The thing I kept telling myself was beware of what you don’t know,” said Perkins. “Try to ask as many questions as you could so things you don’t know don’t slap you in the face. Second, take it one bite at a time. If you look at it in totality, it’s overwhelming. Just keep plugging away, everyday accomplish something and you’ll get through it.”
Academy for Classical Education Website
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
THINC … A New Strategy for Educating High Tech Students
Second in a series of articles about new Georgia start-up public charter schools.
MIKE KLEIN
No Georgia economic development initiative has been more stunningly successful over the past decade than the 2,200-acre KIA Motors Manufacturing plant at West Point in Troup County. The region added more than 11,700 jobs directly because of KIA. That created a special challenge.
“When KIA came into the LaGrange – Troup County area one of the things that the community realized is that they really didn’t have the workforce,” said Kathy Carlisle.“They began a lot of discussions about how do we have the workforce to support KIA and their suppliers as well as other industries.” KIA opened in 2010 and the region continues a rapid expansion.
Carlisle is Chief Executive Officer at Troup County’s new THINC College and Career Academy. Note; she is not principal. Carlisle is CEO. This charter school looks like, acts like and thinks like the business models from which it sprang. KIA has pledged $3 million; Georgia Power is a benefactor; there are many other creative regional business and higher education relationships.
“Everything we do, our culture, our vision, everything is business-driven and business-oriented,” said Carlisle. “The core of everything we do is soft skills and producing future leaders. A lot of people think soft skills is pull your pants up, take your hat off, get to work on time.
“We want to instill leadership characteristics and qualities as well as entrepreneurship thinking so students graduate understanding what business is about and what it takes to be successful in business as far as earning and producing profit. This will be embedded in our culture.”
Important initial groundwork was done with the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and Georgia Tech as Troup County focused on how to prepare workers for new high-tech careers. The region had long roots in agriculture and some manufacturing but nothing like KIA technology.
More than 100 community members participated in a steering committee that identified challenges: One-size-fits all high school educations were not working. Graduates were not college or career ready. The group found a disconnect between what high schools and colleges were teaching and what employers needed. Too much trained talent was leaving Troup County. Equally important, the committee determined that local business was willing to become part of the solution. Everyone’s future was at stake.
Beginning this new school year THINC will focus on matching 100 work / study high school students to jobs that are consistent with their career goals. Next year – when the model expands to 500 students – Carlisle said the goal is for every student to have an employer sponsor who is aligned with their career path.
KATHY CARLISLE
CEO, THINC
“We are different. Our focus is high-tech jobs, healthcare, a real strong focus in those areas,” said Carlisle. Next year THINC will move into a 50,000 square foot facility on the West Georgia Technical College. THINC dual enrollment students will attend West Georgia tuition-free. Other dual enrollment options will be available with LaGrange College and Point University. All three schools have worked together to help launch THINC.
THINC faculty will be anything but traditional. “Teacher certification is not going to be the most important thing,” Carlisle said. “We want teachers that can teach in a hands-on learning environment, very innovative, creative, meeting the standards but at the same time teaching and inspiring youth to learn in a different way, no boring lectures allowed.”
Carlisle said launching THINC is different from her 14 years at Columbus State University and four years working at a non-profit. “Public education has its own way of doing everything,” she said. “In this position you’re working with the community, their expectations; government, their expectations; public education, their expectations, the technical colleges, the private colleges.
“It really is taking a lot of different organizations, different organisms and trying to bring them together to birth this incredible machine that we are trying to start. Negotiating, compromising, navigating, communicating with so many different people.”
THINC College and Career Academy Website
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
Tapestry Public Charter School’s Special Mission
MIKE KLEIN
First in a series of articles about new Georgia start-up public charter schools.
Devon Orland Christopher has a high profile position as the state’s senior assistant attorney general for civil rights litigation but her job as Mom is way more important.
“My son is what they call twice exceptional. He’s gifted. That is what gave birth to the school,” said Christopher who is co-founder of the Tapestry Public Charter School that opened today in DeKalb County. Co-founder Tonna Harris-Bosselmann also has an autistic spectrum child.
Autism is one among several behavioral disorders that can affect how children interact and engage socially. Their chances to succeed often are enhanced in smaller group settings and they sometimes struggle in the larger student populations found in many public schools.
Tapestry designed an individualized instruction model with a very small 8-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio in four core subjects – English, social studies, math and science. Core subject instructors will be joined in the classroom by special education teachers. “There are lots of kids who can benefit from an individualized curriculum with smaller classes,” said Christopher.
Elective courses that include drama will be offered with a 16-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio, which is still much lower than many public schools. Other electives include computer class, yearbook production and visual arts, but there are some sacrifices. “We don’t have the full conduit of services that you expect in a middle school. No football, no marching band,” said Christopher.
Tapestry Charter found its home for 96 middle school students in renovated space at Northeast Baptist Church in Norcross. The ground game to launch Tapestry began three years ago for Christopher, Harris-Bosselmann and their partners. Tapestry secured charter authorization through the DeKalb County School Board. The school receives about $8,000 per pupil in total public funding and it has raised about $100,000 in private capital, which is a small amount.
“It’s not for the faint of heart,” said Christopher. “If you do a conversion school you’ve got a building, you’ve got supplies, you’ve got all that. If you do a start-up, you’ve got nothing. You have to have space before you can submit your petition and most people aren’t really willing to sign a lease a couple years in advance. Fortunately with the folks at the church we were able to work it out but had they changed their minds we would have been in a world of hurt.”
Image from Tapestry Public Charter School Facebook page
Tapestry’s charter is authorization to offer grades 6-through-12. The plan is to add one new grade each school calendar year, starting with ninth grade in fall 2015 until Tapestry offers complete middle and high school curriculum in the 2018-to-2019 school calendar year.
A lottery was held to select this year’s 96 middle schoolers. The wait list has 100 more. “Our goal is to create a model that can be replicated,” said Christopher. “Autism has gone from one-in-10,000 in the Eighties and now its one-in-42 boys. Many of these kids have amazing skills and ability to be quite successful in a different learning environment. A sea of 1,900 people is just too much for them. Otherwise they can learn, develop, grow and become successful.”
Harris-Bosselmann teaches at the University of North Georgia. “The education piece would not have come together without her,” said Christopher. Tapestry principal Amanda Chilvers served two years on the new school’s advisory council prior to this appointment. Previously she held several positions at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf. “We birthed the baby but she’s got to raise it,” Christopher said about Chilvers. “That is our most critical hire. We have amazing faith in her.”
Tapestry Public Charter School Website
Wednesday: THINC College and Career Academy in Troup County
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
Hundreds Lose Georgia Tax Credit Scholarships
MIKE KLEIN
Carlethia Ingram easily could have become one more lost teenager, no real background, no real future. Her mother died four days after the birth of her youngest sister. For ten years Carlethia and two sisters lived with their grandmother in Savannah public housing until Barbara Ingram passed away last year. “When their grandmother died we kept them,” said Anthony Phillips. “No court has ever said they belong to you. It just happened.”
Phillips and his wife Donna are retired U.S. Army officers. Anthony owns a logistics company and serves on the World Trade Center Savannah board of directors. Donna Phillips is a dentist and board member at Ramah Junior Academy, a small Christian academy that was a large part of Carlethia Ingram’s life through ninth grade when she transferred to Savannah Christian Prep.
All three sisters – Carlethia, Parisian and Brandis – were able to attend private Christian schools, in part, because they received Arete Scholars Fund awards that covered tuition and other costs. That was last year; this year is different. This year Arete significantly reduced its scholarships, the Academy could lose perhaps 20 percent of its returning students and more than two-thirds of last year’s instructional staff left because of financial viability questions at the 100-year-old school.
The Arete Scholars Fund and about thirty other organizations participate in the state’s tax credit scholarship initiative. In the simplest description, individuals and corporations can take a state income tax dollar-for-dollar credit up to maximum allowable amounts by donating funds to help students attend eligible private schools. The program is managed by the state Department of Revenue and there lots of rules. It serves a fraction of one percent of K-12 children statewide.
The General Assembly created the tax credit scholarship program in 2008. The original amount was fixed at $50 million; the cap grew slowly and now is fixed at $58 million. Public support for this school choice approach has overwhelmed the program, especially the past three years.
The 2012 tax credit was reached in mid-August. This year’s budget cap was reached in mid-January. The turbo-charged calendar is a partial reason that Arete Scholars Fund came up well short of what it needs. Arete’s focus has been on corporate donations, not exclusively, but with much more emphasis than previously was given to individual donations.
“Our problem is when the fiscal year ends for corporations,” said Arete executive director Derek Monjure. “Some of the bigger donors we have, their fiscal year ends in January. They’re closing their books, haven’t done their tax estimations yet and the cap’s already been met.” Reality has tempered expectations this year: “It kills me,” Monjure said about Arete’s inability to expand or fund even last year’s number of students served.
Arete exclusively serves low-income students that qualify for free-or-reduced price lunch. Arete awarded 720 grants worth $4 million last year to students statewide with heavy concentrations in Savannah, Augusta, Albany and Atlanta. When school reopens this month, Arete will serve about 400 students at $1.6 million. Each scholarship was reduced by half from last year’s level.
This is the fourth year of Ramah Junior Academy’s partnership with Arete. “At one time we had 80 percent of our students on the scholarship,” said Michelle Moore, executive office staff member and a Ramah student when she was growing up in Savannah “back in the Eighties.”
Last year’s $5,800 Arete maximum award for a Ramah student was trimmed to $2,500 this year. The cost to attend Ramah ranges from $3,845 for a pre-K student to $5,460 for students who are in ninth or tenth grade. Ramah enrolled 125 students last year. About 100 are enrolled for classes that start August 11, and registration remains open. Ramah has a $600,000 budget.
“Most of the parents can’t afford it,” said Willie Walker, Ramah’s new principal who has been on the job since the middle of July. “We’ve tried our best to give them a major discount so they can still bring their children to the school. Some of them still can’t afford it. We want them here. We know they will do well here because they’ve done well in the past.”
About the Georgia Tax Credit Scholarship Law
Enacted by the 2008 General Assembly, the Georgia Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit Program increases overall education funding by millions of dollars every year. It also means families that choose to participate devote much more of their state tax obligation to learning.
Here’s how the credit helps children: About one-third of each state income tax dollar is invested in K-12 public education. Therefore, a family that pays $1,500 in state income tax contributes about $500 to education. But if that same family participates in the state tax credit scholarship program it will invest a much higher percentage and more actual dollars into education.
For example, let’s presume that the same family contributes $500 to tax credit scholarships. The family still owes $1,000 in state income tax and one third or about $330 will later be invested in K-12 public education. The family now has an $830 total education commitment which means the family will contribute 55 percent of its entire state tax obligation to education.
The $58 million cap is fixed and will not change unless the General Assembly and the state’s executive leadership decide it should change. About 13,000 K-12 children receive tax credit scholarship assistance, a micro number compared to Georgia’s 1.8 million estimated students.
One way to help the many students who saw their scholarships reduced or eliminated this year is to increase the cap. One idea would increase the cap from $58 million to $100 million. About 10,000 more students could be served. That would modestly improve the current model which is little more than a pilot project.
The state could reduce significant chaos with adoption of a quarterly or semi-annual calendar for tax credit pledges. Individuals and corporations would have more time to consider a tax credit scholarship decision. Smaller organizations like Arete and schools like Ramah Junior Academy would have a more predictable financial model. The process would become more orderly and less like an Oklahoma land rush.
Tax credit program supporters say their goal is clear: Improve school choice options.
“Families are in educational distress in our state,” said Lisa Kelly, president at the Georgia GOAL Scholarship Program which provides tax credit scholarships to 5,000 students. “Why should only a small fraction of low and middle-income parents be given access to better opportunities for their children? When a program is working it grows in popularity. That is happening here, with taxpayers, with excellent private schools and with deserving families. Let’s grow this wonderful program.”
About Similar Tax Credit Laws Nationally
Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia currently offer some version of an education tax credit scholarship, according to the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Brand identity varies with tax credit scholarship, opportunity scholarship, educational credit, and even town tuition program among many names that are used to identify this school choice option.
Florida is the national leader with a $286 million tax credit budget cap compared to $58 million this year in Georgia. Florida imposes a $4,880 maximum scholarship award, according to the Friedman Foundation, whereas Georgia stipulates an award may be paid up to $8,983 but that figure is misleading. Georgia GOAL has awarded more than 16,500 scholarships since 2009; the average value for each grant is $3,783. The statewide average scholarship amount in 2012 (latest data available) was $3,388.
Arete has awarded 3,260 total scholarships in four years and due to its financial challenge this year, Arete says it was unable to help about 300 eligible families. Arete has also begun to shift its fund raising focus with more emphasis on a different mix of corporate and individual donors. “It hasn’t been a focus,” said Monjure. “It needs to become a focus.”
Footnote
As I was finishing this article, my phone rang. It was Willie Walker at Ramah Junior Academy. He asked whether I knew anyone who might be able to pay registration fees for some of their students. “They can’t afford the fee,” Walker said. We shared an idea and he began making calls, looking for Samaritans who would pay registration fees for students they don’t even know.
Additional Resources
Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice
Georgia GOAL Scholarship Program
Georgia Tax Credit Program FAQs
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
How Does Georgia Fare in New Criminal Justice Reports?
MIKE KLEIN
Georgia was already doing nearly as well as or better than other southern states in two categories – prisoner health care real cost dollars and the percentage of max out inmates released without supervision – even before the state began to implement criminal justice reform four years ago, according to two reports from the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project.
An adult inmate health care report published Tuesday analyzed percentage increases and actual dollars spent per adult inmate for all states during the five-year period 2007 through 2011. Pew said the median increase for all states was 10 percent with Georgia at just five percent. California had the greatest percentage increase – 42% – and the highest per inmate annual cost — $14,495. Georgia spent $4,018.
One reason for increased health care cost is older inmates … there are more of them and five years ago more states began to count and report the number of inmates age 55 and older. In that regard there is now more data to analyze and compare than existed earlier than 2009.
Southern states as a group spent less per person on adult inmate health care than did states in other regions. Seven of the eleven lowest spending states are from the South. Florida did not make the bottom eleven in terms of dollars spent but Florida showed a four percent decrease. South Carolina reported no percentage increase and actual spending was ranked 49th lowest.
Tennessee reported arguably the worst results by a southern state with actual spending up 16 percent to $6,388 per inmate. North Carolina spending rose two percent to $6,287 per inmate. For a different context on those taxpayer dollars, Tennessee and North Carolina both spent about 50 percent more per person than Georgia for adult inmate health care.
Max out inmates serve complete sentences – usually longer rather than shorter sentences – before release into the community. Pew studied state-by-state data for 115,000 max out inmates released from state prisons during 2012 without any planned supervision. Georgia reported 3,436 max out inmate releases with no supervision plan which was 19.2 percent of all Georgia prisoners released during 2012.
Georgia was a bit lower than the 21.5 percent average for all states nationally and much lower than its bordering states. Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida released between 30 and 64 percent of their inmates without any planned supervision.
Arkansas released five percent without supervision but Arkansas releases were low at slightly more than 300 inmates. Texas by comparison released almost 11,300 inmates without planned supervision, but those former felons were less than 14 percent of all Texas inmate releases.
Adam Gelb is director of the Pew Charitable Trusts Performance Project.
“We shouldn’t have inmates leaving our prisons, where they are under lock and key 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and returning to their communities with zero supervision, accountability or support.,” said Gelb. “That’s not common sense, and it flies in the face of research that public safety is better served when offenders undergo a period of supervision.”
Max out strategies are one focus of the ongoing Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform.
Additional Resources:
Pew State Prison Health Care Spending Report
Pew Max Out Prisoner Releases Report
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
(Published Wednesday, July 9, 2014)
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