Georgia’s K-12 National Ranking Shows Progress, But Funding Woes Continue

But as WABE’s Rose Scott reports, while there are positive gains, Georgia’s state superintendent says there’s still more to do and it begins with funding.

Broadcast version of this story.

Nearly every Georgia school district has to deal with external factors that affect a child’s ability to learn.

And one is poverty says state superintendent John Barge.

“We rank very high as far as the percentage of our students living in poverty and the percentage of our students eating free and reduced lunch. And as a state in general, we have the seventh highest poverty rate in the nation.”

It takes different strategies and resources says Barge to help districts meet the needs of impoverished students

“Poverty does have an impact on their readiness for school,” says Barge.

And according to Barge that means increasing and not cutting education funding.

“I think that we need to maybe adjust our lens a little bit and look at that the fact that education is the single most important investment that this state can make in its future rather than looking at it as the single largest expense in the budget.”

That’s the only way the state can improve upon this recent ranking in the Quality Counts report.

But Barge is touting some successes highlighted in the report.

“We ranked tenth in the nation overall in increases in high school graduation rates and we ranked fifth in the nation in change [positive change] in advance placement test scores over a ten year period.”

Barge says sixty percent of the education budget is federally funded and he’s hopeful state leaders will increase education spending.

* View the full state report here: http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2014/shr/16shr.ga.h33.pdf

* View the state report cards map here: http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/2014/state_report_cards.html