LITIGATION
Measurable Criteria for Implementing the Proposed Settlement
- Full-Funding of a Foundation Program
- Strategic Multiples for Students Who Need Extra Help
- Will the State provide funding for additional assistance (as part of the foundation program) to all of the students in grades K-5 from low-income families who need extra support to perform at grade level on a sustained basis? Such assistance should be provided in a way that might allow but would not require separating these students from other students. The exact nature of this intervention might take another form, but solely as a benchmark for the purpose of the proposed settlement, the funding for this purpose should be at least as much as the amount that would be needed to serve these students at a staffing ratio of one teacher for every eleven students.
- Will the State provide funding for expanded opportunities (as part of the foundation program) for all of the students in grades 6-12 who need a non-traditional setting and additional assistance to meet the requirements for graduation from high school? Such assistance should not be limited to those students who have been disruptive or to an arbitrary percentage of all students. The exact nature of this intervention might take another form, but solely as a benchmark for the purpose of the proposed settlement, the funding for this purpose should be at least as much as the amount that would be needed to serve these students at a ratio of one teacher for every fifteen students.
- Accountability with Flexibility
- Adjustments for the Differences in Local Resources
Without committing to any specific form of staffing or instructional delivery, will the State provide enough funding (along with the funding that might be required from the local school system under a contractual agreement with the State) to support a foundation program for every student in every school in accordance with the minimum criteria set forth in Exhibit A of the proposal on September 1, 2006? (This exhibit is intended to be nothing more than a simple way to estimate the minimum cost of a foundation program. The staffing that would be supported by the funding for this foundation program is actually less on a per-student basis than the staffing for the prototype elementary school recently proposed by the Education Finance Task Force.)
Will the State provide some form of supplemental assistance to local school systems to enable every system in Georgia to increase its local salaries and expand its educational services beyond the foundation program indicated above on the same basis as a school system with a property tax digest per student equal to the statewide average? (The current benchmark for Equalization Grants is the system at the 75th percentile when ranking all of the local systems in Georgia by their property tax digest per student.)
Nov. 14, 2006