Schools' chief presents budget to legislators

A recent report by Education Week ranked Georgia's 8th graders last in the nation in math scores.

At a joint House Senate Budget Committee meeting today, the head of the state's public schools unveiled a plan to reverse that statistic.

Kathy Cox is Georgia's school superintendent.

"When you look at our advanced placement right now, and the courses and the kids and the scores that they're getting, we're out pacing the nation in terms of the number of kids involved in AP. Other things like math achievement, we're still lagging. And that's why the importance of the new curriculum and the training of the teachers."

Cox told committee members she wants nearly 2 million dollars out of next year's budget to hire and train 17 math mentors.

The program would be similar to the state's science mentor program.

Cox is also asking for money to hire more graduation coaches, upgrade technology in schools and buy more school buses.

It would add up to almost 70 million dollars for the state schools.

And, news that Gov. Sonny Perdue has recommend slashing nearly 142 million dollars out of the state's school budget has angered some state lawmakers.

Senator Vincent Fort of Atlanta sits on the Senate Education Committee.

He says its time Georgia had an administration which invests in its children's future.

"I'd prefer to scrape the gold off the dome before I cut a dollar out of the education budget because no matter what are problem are in Georgia, its not going to be made better by cutting the education budget."

According to figures released by the Governor's office, the state's K-12 education budget will lose nearly 142- million dollars in "temporary reductions " in next year's budget.

Since Perdue first took office in 2003, he has cut nearly 1 and a half billion dollars from the state's school budget.

Finally, legislators attending Wednesday's meeting expressed concerns about the proposed GREAT plan.

Senator George Hooks of Americus warns that cutting ad valorem taxes will further increase the disparity between rich and poor school districts.

"If you remove ad valorem taxes from a local system, you may not achieve what you want to achieve. It will be balanced and heavy toward those people who pay a tremendous amount of ad valorem taxes and our little systems will again continue to suffer."