Just for a change, I come to praise Georgia, not to rant about it.
It’s easy to be negative when so many of your experiences have been negative. . My in-laws are more than a little batshit crazy. I fit in about as well as Marilyn Masons would at a Baptist picnic. I find the politics depressing and the domination of religious fundamentalism scary.
And the place gives me so much material. If they do The Dukes of Hazzard: The Musical, out governor, Sonny Perdue, is my choice to pay Boss Hogg. He is rotund and balding, with the same sleazy grin and penchant for corruption. His method for dealing with an environmental crisis brought on by drought and ten years (five of which happened under his leadership)of unchecked, unregulated, unplanned growth (ten years ago, my area of Gwinnett county was almost entirely rural, with a handful of small subdivisions but these days, it’s almost completely built up) is to hold a prayer meeting. Which, by the way, failed. My two senators look and behave like sleazy televangelists, and they’ve never met a Christian Coalition-backed bill they didn’t adore. My congresscritter is an idiot who, when I wrote to him last year about sorry state of the V.A.,the V.A., tried to place the blame on the Democrats, despite the fact that the Republicans had controlled Congress for over a decade. They provide enough material to keep The Daily Show writers busy for months.
But with all that said, Georgia does something many more progressive, even downright liberal, states with excellent public school systems haven’t done. I did an admittedly cursory Google search on the topic, and couldn’t find another State that does precisely what Georgia does. It created the Hope Scholarship. Lottery revenues will pay full tuition at a state school or up to three grand per year at an in-state private school for any graduating senior with a B average. You have to maintain a B average in college to keep getting the funds. If you didn’t manage a B average in high school because you goofed off, the state will still give you a second chance. If you take 30 credits and maintain a B average in college in the state, you get the scholarship for the remaining semesters. This is also true for non-traditional students who start their college careers long after high school.
For a lot of kids, this means the difference between graduating in 4 years, or doing college in 5 or 6 years while working two jobs and going to school part time year round. Thanks to the Hope, my eldest niece graduated a semester early while working to pay for her board. While my sis-in-law Mom makes 60 grand a year as a teacher with all but dissertation, paying for her tuition as well as board would have been difficult—my oldest nephew is also in college out of state, and she helps him out too. For parents who aren’t rich enough to pay for college out of pocket easily or poor enough to qualify for federal grants, this scholarship is a godsend. It helps middle and working class kids graduate without being burdened by crushing debt that will take them years to repay. It rewards hard work, and it allows for second chances. When it comes to helping residents get a college degree, Georgia is ahead of the pack.
There’s something else Georgia gets right. Those same lottery funds pay for universal Pr-K for all four year olds in the state. Again, this helps working and middle class parents who couldn’t afford private pre-K and don’t qualify for Head Start. Many kids , especially those with hard-working single Moms, don’t get the pre-reading exposure that is such a huge help in kindergarten—Mom is just too frazzled and worn out to give them the skills, and many daycare providers are simply babysitters. The program levels the playing field, so that children entering kindergarten all have the same skills and are better socialized and prepared to handle a full day of kindergarten.
These programs have directly benefited members of my husband’s family. Without these programs, at least one of my nieces wouldn’t have had the chance to get her A.S. and to continue one of the B.S. Her mother and my mother-in-law co-run a small Pre-K. Neither of them makes much more than thirty thousand a year—pre-K teachers and administrators do it because they love kids, not for the money. Putting a kid through college at that salary range leaves you in that gray area: too well off to count as poor for grants, but too poor to easily afford the tuition. My husband, whose VA ran out in September, is using the Hope to get through nursing school. We are all very grateful to the state of Georgia for the opportunities it’s given us.
And for those of you who wonder why we moved here despite hating the area for a lot o pretty good reasons—that scholarship is the answer. Competition for places in a nursing program is stiff. Competition is twice as tough for the accelerated clinical program he wanted to get into. My husband took 9-10 credits a time to make sure he got straight As. Without hope, he couldn’t have done it when his V.A. money ran put.
So, thank you, Georgia, for giving hard-working, smart students a chance to succeed.
I’m gonna ask Kossacks who live in Red States to share with us what your state gets right.