For the second time, state officials have removed from its website a list of low-performing Georgia schools where students are eligible to apply for a new voucher program, citing a need to review the calculations they used to select the schools.
The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement had until Dec. 1 to release a list of public schools that performed in the lowest 25% on state measures. Students who are zoned to attend those schools are newly eligible to apply for “promise scholarships” ― $6,500 of public school funding that they could use on private school tuition, tutoring or other education expenses.
After the list was initially released during the last week of November, the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement “quickly became aware of outliers in the scores that impacted the calculations for the Promise Act list of schools,” Laine Reichert, the department’s director of educator leadership and research, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an email.
The revised list was published Tuesday. Both lists included 513 schools, with slight variations in the number of schools in some counties. Four districts — those in Bryan, Fannin and Lee counties and the Bremen city schools — were removed from the list entirely.
On Friday, the list was removed again from student achievement office’s website.
“We are running two additional layers of validation on the calculations,” Reichert told the AJC on Monday. “Two additional researchers are running independent validations, and … as soon as we have that, then we will publish the list.”
Reichert said she couldn’t comment on what prompted the review, deferring to the researchers. She didn’t say when the verification would be completed or when the list would be reposted. She said the list may or may not be changed, describing the step as “extra-judicious.”
“Because this is so important to schools and school districts, (the student achievement office researchers) just needed that additional layer of verification,” she said.
Applications for the scholarship are set to open in early 2025, after program administrators learn how much money in the state budget will be allocated for the program. Families earning less than 400% of the federal poverty level, or about $120,000 for a family of four, will be first in line.
This is the state’s third voucher program.
Data specialist Jennifer Peebles contributed to this report.
