ATLANTA – Education bills are getting a mixed reception in the General Assembly this year.
Measures to protect teacher’s time and amp up the state’s literacy rates have received nearly unanimous approval, while private-school vouchers have drawn fierce opposition.
“The teachers I know don’t want to walk away … but too many teachers I know are running on empty,” Cherie Bonder Goldman, the 2022 Georgia teacher of the year, wrote at the start of a state Department of Education report published last year. The report recommended increasing the amount of time teachers have to deal with class planning and grading.
Lawmakers appear to have taken that advice to heart, with the state House of Representatives unanimously approving a measure last Monday that would guarantee sixth- through 12th-grade teachers a daily “duty-free” period.
The bill has now been assigned to the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
The legislature also appears eager to improve Georgia’s literacy rates.
The House has unanimously passed the Georgia Early Literacy Act (House Bill 538), sponsored by Rep. Bethany Ballard, R-Warner Robins, a former teacher who chairs the House’s Education-Curriculum Subcommittee. The bill aims to improve the quality of early reading instruction.
“It develops a framework and it begins to really seriously take a look at literacy,” said Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer, who chairs the House Education Committee. “Statewide, there’s a structure out there heavily involving our state [Department of Education] and getting them involved in working with the school systems.”
Erwin said school districts and students could begin to feel the effects of the bill as soon as next school year.
The legislation would require schools to screen students from kindergarten to third grade on their reading…
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