As Republicans gloat over their passage of school vouchers — a scheme redirecting public dollars away from public education — the DPG has issued a report card grading the 2024 Legislative Session to highlight their failing marks on education and other issues.

Rather than investing in Georgia’s public school students, faculty, and teachers, Republicans directed tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to privately-owned organizations and corporations — despite the fact that the measure contains next to zero accountability measures for the private schools receiving public funds.

Republicans’ defunding of public schools is deeply out of step with public opinion: a recent AJC poll found that nearly two-thirds of Georgia voters oppose using public taxpayer dollars to pay for private schools. Where similar voucher schemes have failed in previous years, this year’s legislation passed as a result of intense lobbying from Governor Brian Kemp.

School vouchers, or “education savings accounts” as they have been rebranded in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” are a central component in the 45-page conservative policy manifesto to “improve education” that Trump has pledged to enact if elected. Other priorities include dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, eliminating funding for special education, phasing out the federal funding that supports low-income students (Title I), and scaling back enforcement of civil rights laws in schools. Despite data from the K-12 Violence Project showing an all-time high of 348 school shootings in 2023 (with another 88 already in 2024), nowhere in the Project 2025 chapter on improving education is the phrase “improving school safety.”

For defunding public schools to pass a private school vouchers scam and passing one of the cornerstones of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” a year early, Gov. Brian Kemp and his legislative enablers earned an F for education.