Blog For Georgia’s Children

Better late than never, I suppose.

The 4/23  AJC has a brief article referring to the report issued two weeks ago by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) that grades progress made by states offering Pre-K to four-year-olds.

Link to the article here

The news is encouraging but much needs to be done.  Georgia’s groundbreaking Pre-K program serves only about half of eligible children whose parents want it.  Voices was happy to see that the Georgia General Assembly did not cut the proposed 3000 new slots out of the 2010 budget.

Full coverage at the Voices for Georgia’s Children website is here

I promised to only talk about or post items telling good news, but I could not ignore the commentary by 18-year-old Jonathan Wall in the  Monday, April 20 issue of the AJC.

Jonathan discusses the disparity in student achievement between white and non-white students, which is a sad thing.  But his writing style and the poise with which he expresses himself – at his age – is refreshing.  It’s one of those instances where you see a glimmer of hope for the future.

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This report in today’s NYT was initiated by the NIEER (National Institute for Early Education Research) to promote its annual report on the state of the country’s preschool programs.

Georgia’s Pre-K program is funded by the state lottery, but many states are planning to use federal stimulus dollars as a means of shoring up theirs.

Education secretary Arne Duncan’s quote stating that spending a dollar on preschool brings states a return of $10 is powerful.  Let’s hope the data backs it up.

Link to the NYT article here

You can also read a summary about the NIEER report and get more information from the Voices website.

The new legislation introduced today by Georgia State Sen. Bill Hamrick (R-Carrollton) as the Child Protection and Public Safety Act (SB 292) recommends that the state adopt a revised juvenile code for delinquent and deprived children.

This could prove to be a landmark bill, modernizing a set of laws that were first set in place during the early 1970’s and amended haphazardly over the decades.

The actual bill hasn’t been posted to the Georgia General Assembly website yet, but you can learn more about SB 292 in a press release posted on the JUSTGeorgia website.

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