The reference to the "slow pace" of the 2012 Georgia General Assembly that was mentioned yesterday must be reconsidered; that "pace" picked up considerably on this seventh day of the session.

While the Senate still kept to its truncated schedule, the House of Representatives actually approved two bills of interest to the education community.  Receiving the overwhelming approval of that chamber were:

• HB 713, which extends many of the deadline dates included in last year's HB 186 and also adds a requirement for career education in the early grades; and,
• HB 683, which permits responses to initial garnishment information made to companies and governmental agencies to be "answered" initially without the use of an attorney.

Both of these bills now go to the Senate for their consideration.

The big news of the day came at an afternoon meeting of the Education Finance Study Commission whose members, after a presentation by the deputy director of the House Budget Office, Christine Murdock, approved major changes to the method by which equalization grants are calculated.  The newly-approved process, which will be introduced as legislation in the very near future, includes the following:

• The "valuation level" against which all equalization-eligible systems will be measured will no longer be the 75th percentile system, but will now be a number that represents the "state average" of wealth-per-child.  That average will be computed after the top and bottom five percent of systems in the wealth-per-child rankings are eliminated, allegedly for the purpose of eliminating "outliers" from the calculation and making the formula more stable and predictable from year to year.
• A new method of distributing the equalization grant funds in years when the grant is not fully funded was proposed and approved, said method resulting in those systems ranking lowest in wealth-per-child receiving a larger percentage of reduced funds than those higher on the wealth-per-child ladder.
• The overall cost to the state for the grant (under the new method) will be approximately $500 million (for FY13) as opposed to the $800 million cost based on the old formula.

As stated earlier, these recommendations will be folded into legislation that will be introduced and "fast-tracked" through the General Assembly so as to have their provisions be effective in the FY13 fiscal year.

Also of high interest to educators was the introduction on this day of HR 1162 (not yet summarized by GSSA), the much-anticipated proposed constitutional amendment seeking to address the concerns of some over the Spring, 2011, decision by the Georgia Supreme Court to declare the Georgia Charter Schools Commission unconstitutional.  This resolution, whose chief sponsor is House Speaker Pro-tem Jan Jones (and, who authored the original bill that created the Charter Schools Commission), seeks to make it constitutional to have a state-level entity approve schools in local districts and to allow that entity to funnel local money to such a school or schools.  The ballot question proposed in the bill is among the more "creative" examples of ways to use the English language so as to (1) solicit a "yes" response from voters, and (2) ensure that those aforementioned votes aren't really sure what they just voted on!  Stay tuned for what is certain to be a spirited debate over this not-uncontroversial issue.

Day eight of the 2012 session is set for Wednesday, January 25.