Raising the age that a student can voluntary drop out of school
Although this has been described by teachers and superintendents across Georgia as a “No Brainer “ bill, it has not passed the Georgia State Legislative as of yet. Parents across our state agree with raising the age that a student can voluntarily drop out of school. This would help to stop the pipeline of young people leaving our schools and joining gangs. Stopping this pipeline will decrease violence in our streets and crimes in our communities. A child that is nowhere near an age of maturity, should not be able to make a monumental decision of dropping out of school. By increasing the age where a child can make this decision will automatically increase the Georgia graduation rate and decrease the high school dropout rate. When Georgia goes in the right direction with increasing graduation rates, then our state is much more marketable to industries and businesses. We then are giving our local elected leaders, as well as our state elected leaders the best tool to bring in major businesses with careers and not just minimum wage jobs. That tool is a well educated work force.
Increasing funding to local county school systems for literacy programs
Unfortunately literacy is a major problem in the Georgia public school system.
When a student cannot read or has major literacy problems with reading, it then creates a horrible environment within the classroom reaching throughout an entire school. Literacy problems do not start in high school, they start in a child’s early years of school. If we are not fully funding those educational programs that focus on literacy of our youth in elementary schools, then we are setting our children up for failure. Our local school systems should not bear the burden of our state balancing the budget on its back. Public school system must be fully funded starting with early literacy program initiatives that focus on every child in Georgia becoming a proficient reader by third grade. A fully funded education system means not having school officials scratching their head trying to fund early learning literacy programs.