The Georgia legislature passes a crucial school choice bill and works to give parents more rights to their children’s education.

Georgia currently ranks #26 when it comes Pre-K to 12th grade education. However, state lawmakers are working to improve education for students in the state through school choice and giving parents better access to their children’s education. 

The legislature recently passed Senate Bill 233 the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, which will provide education savings accounts for students at the lowest 25 percent of performing schools in the state. The House of Representatives passed the bill with an amendment to increase funding from $6000 to $6500, then the Senate had to vote for the changes. 

Patty Marie Stinson was the only Democrat who voted for the bill. In 2023, one Democrat, Mesha Mainor, voted for the bill, but she has since become a Republican. 

It initially passed the Senate in 2023 before it failed in the House, and it was voted to be reconsidered in 2024, according to the legislature’s website. 

In 2023, 16 House Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the bill, which effectively killed it. However, in 2024, seven Republicans and one Democrat changed their stance and voted in favor of the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act. 

The school choice legislation was originally introduced back in 2022, but it did not get voted on in the legislature.

The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Brian Kemp, who said “there are no more next years” when it comes to passing school choice in Georgia. 

In addition to school choice, the legislature also read parental rights legislation, SB 88 Parents and Children Protection Act last month, and it passed the Senate Education and Youth Committee in a 6-3 party line vote, according to the Georgia Recorder. 

Schools would not be allowed to implement curriculum related to “issues of gender identity, queer theory, gender ideology or gender transition.” The legislation would also prohibit schools from accepting any changes to a student’s record based on a change in a child’s gender identity without consent from the child’s parents.

Parents have shown increasing concern that schools are focusing on indoctrinating students instead of teaching them. 

However, some conservatives have shown concern over the legislation as it also attempts to regulate what private schools teach.

Will Butcher, who is the Will Skillman Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation argued that parents and voters “should be wary of state lawmakers looking to enact additional regulations” to private schools. 

“It is also true, though, that this issue of teaching young children especially the idea that someone can ‘choose their gender’ is of great concern,” he continued.

Even the Georgia conservative Christian organization Frontline Policy opposed the bill.

“The problem with SB 88 is it will in fact gut fundamental parental rights protections that Georgia has already put into law that we worked on in 2022,” Taylor Hawkins, the organization’s director of advocacy said. 

He said it also “provides more requirements for private schools than it does for public schools. So it’s a situation where we support the intent of the bill, but the effect on parental rights and the effect on private schools is something that Frontline cannot align with.”

With the mid-ranged education ranking for Georgia, the state will continue to introduce measures to improve learning for all students and ensure parents know what their children are learning in schools.