The Georgia Family Council is a non-profit research and educational organization dedicated to strengthening families and promoting civil society. Those certainly sound like worthwhile goals, but I must admit, I wonder how an organization could accomplish such lofty goals unless it was a church. In this interview with the organization’s President, Randy Hicks, I try to find out.
I came across the Georgia Family Council a few weeks ago when the organization was mentioned in an interview about the cost of divorce and fragmented families. Dysfunctional families mean more families living in poverty and more families qualifying for government payments, you know, like Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, etc. No doubt this is a problem, but how do you fix it?
Enter the Georgia Family Council. One thing the GFC does is try to get churches within a community to pledge that couples cannot use the church to get married unless they agree to participate in something akin to an educational and counseling course to learn what it means to be married. If they don’t want to take the course, fine, they just can’t get married in the church. Interesting. I guess I am a skeptic. I have never thought that getting people to spend a few hours taking a course would result in some permanent change in their lives. If that is what a church wants to do, it certainly can’t hurt, but I still that, in the long run, this is the appearance of virtue without the heart of virtue.
To my surprise, Randy mentioned that Chattanooga had great success in reducing its divorce rate when it initiated similar efforts several years ago. I did find an article describing Chattanooga’s success. I would love to know the details and how the statistics were compiled.
Counseling seminars and programs are one thing, but the Georgia Family Council also seeks to influence public opinion and shape laws. Now, that really surprised me, but I don’t guess it should have. Everybody is trying to influence public opinion and shape laws, even me. But, how do you strengthen families influencing public opinion and shaping laws, i.e. lobbying? There are lots of ways actually, some good, some bad and some not so good. If you would like to see what the GFC tried to accomplish in the 2008 Georgia Legislative Session, you can read its 2008 Legislative Year in Review.
Randy and I had a pointed discussion about one of the GFC’s 2008 legislative successes: HB 1133. This is how the GFC Legislative Overview describes HB 1133:
HB 1133
Final Status: Signed by the Governor 5/14/08
The approval by the General Assembly of a state income tax credit for individuals and corporations who donate to student scholarship organizations was a big victory for those who believe that parents know how best to educate their children. The idea of education tax credits was introduced in HB 400 during the 2007 Session, but after that bill stalled, Rep. David Casas took the idea and helped to reformulate it into HB 1133. This bill was controversial throughout the process but has been approved by the Governor and becomes law.
Now, what the hell does a tax credit (according to Randy, as much as $7,500 worth) have to do with parents knowing how best to educate their children? I don’t care if you want your child to go to a private school. That is fine with me, but I don’t think I, as a taxpayor, should have to pay you for your child attending private school. If you can’t afford to send them on your own, join the rest of us down at the public school. The more the merrier.
I sure don’t think ABC corporation or Joe Neighbor should get to pay less in taxes because of a donation of money to a private school scholarship fund so your kid can get a scholarship to go to private school.
The people who pay taxes have to make up the difference. So, a few get a tax credit that very few people can afford to take advantage of, and the great majority have to pay more to make up for the decrease in tax revenue.
Sorry Randy, but I have given this a lot of thought since the interview and this is BS. It is a deception. Randy even argues that this will be good for the public schools because they will have the same amount of money and less students. Randy, if you think public schools get more money when they have less children, you are sadly mistaken, but I suspect you know this is total BS.
GFC also supported those ridiculous proposals in the 2008 legislature to do away with the property tax.
Folks, let me tell you the goal of this legislative agenda: to spread the idea that payng taxes is bad and starving the educational budget is good. Tax credits, particularly like this one, are nothing but a means of letting a small group of people decide whether or not they want to pay taxes.
In most situations like this I would think that GFC was misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing. This is not unintentional. Under the guise of promoting family GFC is out to cut taxes at the expense of education.
Now, for all of you who think the educational system is broken, you are right to some extent. But if the goal is to make it better, it is going to take two things: leadership and money. We are not going to make education better for our children by putting in our pocket the money needed for education.
As I pointed out to Randy, if GFC wants to strengthen families it ought to be out there fighting for higher wages for working parents so that maybe they don’t have to work two or three jobs. That certainly seems more likely to keep families together than giving people tax breaks for giving money to private schools.
After the interview, someone from GFC sent me a “study” that “proves” that tax credits for private school scholarhips save school districts money. So that Randy can’t say I didn’t pass this piece of crap along as well, here it is. I haven’t taken the time to read this, but I have a pretty good nose for BS, so in order to head off any accusation that I don’t want to know the facts, let me make this offer to Randy, the GFC and the people that did the study: Let’s do an interview and discuss your statistics. I think they are based on fuzzy math. However, before the interview you have to provide me with all the research data and a list of contributors to GFC with the amount given.
Just let me know when you are ready.
Dear Mr. Smith,
Having read your blog entry of June 19, 2008 titled The Georgia Family Council and Tax Policy in Georgia, I feel compelled to respond.
The first thing that I must address is your decision to question (really, besmirch) the motives of Georgia Family Council in its support of HB 1133 – without the courtesy of reading the report we provided to you or, by your own admission, doing little in the way of research on the issue. While I am tempted to break my own rule, I will presume good will on your part and assume that your criticism is not merely ad hominem.
Contrary to your criticism, Georgia Family Council is truly interested in advancing efforts (whether legislative or otherwise) that strengthen families in Georgia. An important part of this work is supporting legislation that will allow children to obtain the best education they can – and especially those children who are in failing schools and whose parents do not now have the means to choose anything else. That is our motive.
And, if you had researched our organization, listened to speeches our organization president has given, or taken the time to read the content on our website (www.georgiafamily.org), I believe you would see that our motive is consistent and in plain view. You could also take a look at our Center for an Educated Georgia website (www.educatedgeorgia.org) to actually find out what motivates us to be involved in education.
At its heart, the real thrust of your argument seems to be this: If a family is unable to afford the cost of private education, they should be forced to, in your words, “join the rest of us down at the public school.”
The problem with your reasoning is that not all public schools offer the same quality of education. Some, in fact, do not offer adequate education for all their students.
While many of our public schools in Georgia are wonderful – and many families have the ability to move to those districts with good public schools - there are many families who are locked into sending their children to poorly performing public schools because they cannot afford private education AND they cannot afford to move to a district with better public schools.
For these families and their children, your argument offers nothing in the way of hope. Instead, it says to these children, in essence, “the fact that you’re in a terrible school and have no other options is your tough luck.”
In contrast, HB 1133 offers hope to these children and their families. It says that any family can apply for a scholarship to send their child to a better school. Instead of relegating children to play the hand that life has dealt them, HB 1133 provides them with options.
Is HB 1133 a panacea? No. Georgia Family Council has never claimed that it is. Is it a step in the right direction? We clearly believe that it is.
And do we believe it is too much to ask for our state to commit less than one quarter of one percent of its annual budget to offer some hope to these students? No, we think it’s a very modest and reasonable thing to do.
Like you, we believe that failing public schools should be reformed. However, unlike you, we do not believe this debate should be most concerned with reforming a “system.” We believe, instead, that this debate must be about children and how best to insure that they receive a good education today.
We do not believe that children currently in failing schools should have to remain there for years as the subjects in an experiment to reform a system. Those students need options NOW – to do anything less is to deprive them of a bright future (and the higher wages and the more stable families that we would all like to see).
As one mom said, “It’s too important to me to sacrifice their education. I get one shot at it. If I don’t pay very close attention to how my boys get educated then I’ve lost an opportunity to make them the best they can be in this world.”
Sincerely,
Eric Cochling, JD, MPA
VP of Public Policy
Georgia Family Council
Eric, I certainly understand your need to respond to my post. How about an interview?