Sort of A Plug for Student Scholarship Organizations…

You may not agree, but I’m gonna start this post with a premise that I truly believe to be a statement of fact: the Georgia public education system is fucked. For whatever reason, as Georgia stares down the gaping maw of a budget crisis, it seems logical to the Georgia state legislature to target the already imperiled public education system with massive budget cuts, while other positively useless government funded projects and programs (useless to you and I, of course - not to the corporate interests which stand to make a buck because of them) continue to receive funding. I think I heard on the radio that the education system was the top target for budget cuts. Fuck if I understand why that makes sense. I guess Sonny and the Republican legislature figure that if they run the public education system all the way into the ground, there’ll be no choice but to privatize it – throw it to the wolves of “free enterprise”, make it into a way for rich people to make themselves richer rather than a program which serves to make the citizens of Georgia better, smarter, and more productive.

Anyway, I didn’t start this post to go off like that – but I sort of had to, to lay the foundation for what this post is really about.

It’s about a way I’ve discovered wherein I can actually divert up to $2000 of my tax responsibility to education, rather than let the pork ranchers in the Georgia state legislature use my money to further their ends. Now, granted, I’m diverting my $2000 to private schools, and that may make me a bit of a hypocrite. In my defense, though, there’s this: 1) I’ve already given up on public education in Georgia. I see no way to rescue it from the inevitable, but I do see this as way to rescue some of our children from the whims of greedy politicians, out-of-control lobbies, and yes – the bullshit called political correctness, because 2) the $2000 will go to a Student Scholarship Organization (SSO), which is a non-profit group that funds scholarships which specifically go to students in the public school system, enabling them to attend private schools when they might not ordinarily be able to afford it.

That’s right. Because of 2008’s House Bill 1133, taxpayers in Georgia can contribute up to $2000 to an SSO, which serves to fund scholarships specifically aimed at public school students who want to attend a private school but can’t afford it. They then get a dollar for dollar tax credit on their state taxes.

That effectively means all Georgians can all take $2000 of their tax responsibility – which certainly ISN’T going to education anymore – and MAKE IT go to education. It might not directly impact them – they might not know a child who will benefit – but at least they know where their money’s going, and at least they know that the somewhere is a good thing, a great thing for someone. In fact, when you make your $2000 contribution, you can actually designate the school you want your money to go to. It’s that specific.

Now, some of you may know that my children go (or will go in the case of Eli) to Woodward Academy, one of the top private schools in Georgia. Let me tell you how they will benefit from me diverting my money to their school.

They won’t.

At least not directly. The only students eligible for SSO scholarship money are those already enrolled in public school who want to cross over, or children who are just entering school. Eli WOULD be eligible under the auspices of the law, but Woodward simply doesn’t provide ANY scholarships to students K through 6. So the only way my children could ever see any of the money would be if I sent them to public school in the 6th grade and then put them back into Woodward. And screw that.

But, given the economic climate today, even Woodward is suffering some level of financial woes. Shit’s just more expensive, and the money isn’t coming in like it used to. So the way I see it, if I can give Woodward some money to use for scholarships, my $2000 will offset those expenses for them and allow they to free up money that MIGHT eventually help my kids.

Even without that self-serving incentive, I see the opportunity to take $2000 of my tax obligation out of the hands of the current state legislature as something I can get behind. Fuck me if that isn’t a Tea Party-ish sentiment, but since the current Georgia legislature is mostly comprised of good old boy Republican clowns, why not? When they start spending my money on things I approve of (like putting money back into the public education system, like funding public transportation, like maintaining wildlife preserves statewide), then maybe I’ll let them have the $2000.

It’s ironic that the same state legislature who’s mis-spending our money in a wanton fashion is the same one that passed a bill which actually allows us to take money out of their hands…. The only trouble I see is that, if enough of us participate in HB 1133, then a lot of money will get diverted out of an already tight budget. But that WOULD be an interesting experiment, wouldn’t it?

For more information on SSOs, and in particular, GOAL – Georgia’s leading SSO - visit http://www.goalscholarship.org/