Education

As the husband of a school teacher and father of three children who graduated from Georgia public schools, I've seen the critical role education and educators have in a child’s life.

Too often, the federal government takes an ineffective, top-down approach to education. Common Core, for example, was initially established as a voluntary, state-led effort to institute a set of educational standards for grades K-12. Unfortunately, the federal government under the Obama Administration further eroded states’ control over education by tying federal grant funding to whether or not a state adopted Common Core.

Decisions about education should not rest in the hands of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. So, in 2015, I supported the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to move education in the right direction by removing many of the federal government’s rigid, one-size-fits-all educational requirements. Importantly, ESSA specifically stated that the federal government could not use funds to coerce or incentivize states to adopt Common Core. ESSA returned educational authority to states by allowing school districts to develop their own accountability formulas and implement tailored plans for underperforming schools.

As we work to restore local control of education, I support efforts that put more decisions back into the hands of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials instead of federal bureaucrats.