I spent yesterday morning visiting with Dr. Matthew Schure, President of the Philadephia College of Osteopathic Medicine, at the school’s 2 year old campus in Gwinnett County.  Although new to Georgia, the 108 year old medical school is older than Emory, Mercer or Morehouse.

Georgia ranks 40th in the number of doctors per capita, and particularly in rural areas, is confronted with serious doctor shortages.  PMOC is playing an important role in facing this challenge.  Its new campus in Suwanee, by design, draws over half of its students from Georgia and almost 90% from the southeast.  It will graduate its first class in 2009.

However, most doctors settle not where they graduate medical school but where they complete their post-graduate residency programs.  That means that we must expand residency training opportunities in Georgia.

One of the major challenges is that federal regulations discourage the expansion of existing residency programs.  Therefore, hospitals which wish to begin residency programs must start with a as large of a program as they can envision (the so-called “big bang”).  They must be willing to accept two or three years of large, unreimbursed expenses before the federal funds that pay for most residency programs begin to flow.

I have developed some ideas of my own on how to deal with this problem.  You will hear more from me as I work through the details. 

After the meeting, I joined President Schure and his top administrative staff in serving a Holiday dinner to the faculty and students of the College.

No Comments »

When I was my daughter’s age, there were just five TV channels and no such thing as PCs, Tivo, DVD or even VCR.  Many of my favorite programs were black-and-white and cartoons were shown only on Saturday morning.  

Today, from the youngest of ages, we stimulate our children with a seemingly endless stream of multimedia presentations.  As a result, they get smarter faster.  They also get bored more easily, and that makes the job of the classroom teacher even tougher.

This afternoon I was privileged to attend a training program for Gwinnett County administrators and teachers conducted by Creating Pride.  The program is called ArtsNOW but is not so much about teaching art as it is using art to teach other subjects. 

I observed two of the four workshops.  One, led by an instructor from the Savannah College of Art and Design, dealt with the use self-portrait to teach, among other things, mathematical proportions.  The other, taught by a theater professor from Emory University, sought a classroom application for the ancients art of story telling and play acting. 

I spoke briefly at the opening session.  I talked about how art had been used by the very first humans not just for pleasure but to record knowledge, chronicle triumphs and calamaities and express hopes and dreams.  Cultures have disappeared and languages have been forgotten, but we can look at prehistoric cave etchings and ancient monuments and know what our ancestors were trying to say.

Bolstered by my experience today, I am convinced that art has a practical application in helping our teachers teach and children learn.

No Comments »

The sales tax holiday, annually reauthorized by the General Assembly and signed into law by the Governor, exempts back-to-school shopping from the sales tax.  The 2007 sales tax holiday begins tomorrow (actually tonight, Thursday at 12:01 a.m.) and ends Sunday at midnight.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution today published this helpful list describing the items eligible for the sales tax exemption.  The Georgia Department of Revenue has more detailed information at its website.

No Comments »

Earlier this year, Governor Perdue signed into law Senate Bill 10, the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Act, authored by Senator Eric Johnson.  As I have written before, Senate Bill 10 creates a system of school choice, including vouchers or scholarships to attend private school, for children with disabilities.  I supported the bill.

Over one hundred private schools have been approved by the Georgia Department of Education to participate in the scholarship program.  It is the strongest start of any of the five states that have approved similar plans.  I agree with Senator Johnson, who wrote in a commentary published at Talk Gwinnett:

Now the burden shifts to parents to exercise appropriate due diligence and wisdom in exercising this historic option given to them. As conservatives, we have advocated “choice” and the benefits of competition in education. It is now up to “consumers” to shop and decide what is the best environment for their special needs children. We gave them the options, but they must make the final decision. I am confident that they will rise to the unique responsibility that we have given them.

The Georgia Department of Education website has additional information about the program, including procedures for applying.

The version of the bill that passed the General Assembly limited the scholarships to children who are enrolled in public schools with an active Individualized Education Plan (IEP).  This requirement effectively precludes those children who were already enrolled in private schools from receiving benefits under the scholarship program, and it has been the source of some controversy.

Frankly, I would have like to have seen the program include all children with special needs, even those who had already been removed by their parents to private schools.  But this bill was vigorously opposed by the public education lobby, and even the limited version passed the House by only one vote.  A more ambitious program would have almost certainly failed altogether. 

There will be opportunities to address this inequity in the future, especially if the program is as successful as the initial reports suggest. 

No Comments »

I have been asked to deliver my first commencement address.

Tonight I will share my wisdom with the 5th grade class of Berkeley Lake Elementary School in Duluth.  The theme of the promotion excercise is “The Future Looks Bright for the Berkeley Lake Bears.”

I do not remember the theme of the Chestnut Elementary School promotion excercises I attended as a 7th grader almost 30 years ago, but our mascot was the Cougar and we sang our very own rendition of “Come Sail Away” from the album Grand Illusion by Styx.

1 Comment »

Today was the fourteenth day of the 2007 Legislative Session.  We passed the one-third mark of our forty day session when the Lieutenant Governor called the State Senate to order this morning.

There were four bills and one resolution on the calendar today.  The first two bills were approved unanimously without much debate.  Senate Bill 44 dealt with the training of firefighters and Senate Bill 45 created the Chronic Kidney Disease Task Force within the Department of Human Resources. 

Senate Resolution 68 naming the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Long County Maintenance Headquarters after William H. ”Sonny Boy” Skipper, a longtime Department of Transportation maintenance foreman, inexplicably drew a dissenting vote from Senator Vincent Fort, who was likely confused.

The next two bills on the calendar, Senate Bill 39 and Senate Bill 68, were introduced on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle.  Senate Bill 39, the Charter Systems Act, is the centerpiece of the Lieutenant Governor’s education platform.  It encourages innovation through the creation of charter schools.  In return for meeting high performance standards, charter schools are allowed greater flexibility through certain exemptions from state regulations.  The Lieutenant Governor’s bill, presented by Senate Education Chairman Dan Weber, would allow entire school systems, not just schools, to obtain charters.

Senator Fort protested both bills, inexplicably implying they were somehow racist.  They both passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities that included virtually all of the African American members of the Senate except Senator Fort.

Pursuant to Senate Resolution 124, the Senate will reconvene next Thursday, February 8 for the fifteenth legislative day.  We are also set to meet on Friday, Saturday and Monday, taking us through day eighteen.

You can watch our proceedings live as always at the General Assembly website.

No Comments »

There were no bills on the calendar today, and the session was brief.

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee met this afternoon, right after lunch.  We favorably reported a committee substitute to Senate Bill 17 regarding the prescribing authority of optometrists.  The committee substitute, offered by Senator Don Thomas, limited this authority to four named oral medications.  Optometrists are not currently allowed to prescribe any orally taken medication.  The ophthalmologists are fighting the bill, but my sense is that the “four drug” compromise will likely pass.

A motion to favorably report Senate Bill 51 failed by one vote after extended debate.  The bill, requested by the Department of Human Resources, would have subjected the owners of personal care homes to criminal background checks and provided for the denial of licenses if a criminal history was found.   I voted for the bill, although I can understand why many of the committee members were hesitant to move forward.  The sponsor of the bill and the staff of the Department contradicted each other over what certain provisions meant.

This afternoon I participated in a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Senate Resolution 21, the Taxpayer Protection Act, sponsored by Senator Chip Rogers.  I am a cosponsor of this constitutional amendment, and I expect it to be favorably reported within the next week.  Senator Rogers and I have discussed merging certain provisions of Senate Resolution 5, the Taxpayers Dividend Act, into this resolution. 

The Senate Rules Committee voted to place four bills , including the Lieutenant Governor’s two education bills, on the calendar for tomorrow.  I expect the Democrats to fight Senate Bill 39, the Charter Systems Act.  You can watch us tomorrow begining at 9:00 a.m. on the General Assembly website. 

No Comments »

The debate on Senate Bill 10, the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Act, dominated the twelfth day of the 2007 Legislative Session.  We debated the bill for nearly three hours and considered six amendments before approving it by a vote of 31 to 23.

The Democrats locked down against the bill, apparently out of the political calculation that they must oppose anything bearing even the remotest resemblance to school vouchers, no matter how otherwise worthy the proposal.

When Senator Chip Rogers took the well in support of the bill, he was asked a rambling list of the oddest questions, including his position on the Flat Tax.  Of course, what else could the Democrats talk about when even The Atlanta Journal Constitution supported Senate Bill 10.

The extended session threw my schedule off for the day.  I missed an afternoon telephone conference of the Governor’s Commission for Newborn Umbilical Cord Blood Research and Medical Treatment.  This commission was appointed last year by Governor Perdue to advance nondestructive stem cell research.

I plan to introduce legislation in the next couple days to encourage cord blood collection.  The bill, tentatively entitled ”Saving the Cure,” will again be dedicated to Keone Penn, a young Gwinnett County man cured of sickle cell anemia by an umbilical stem cell treatment.

Unlike embryonic stem cells which are currently derived by destroying human embryos, umbilical stem cells are not ethically controversial.  They are collected from donated umbilical cord blood and do not involve harm to the newborn baby or destruction of human life at any stage of development.  They are unlike embryonic stem cells in another way.  Embryonic stem cells, which are difficult to manipulate in the laboratory and tend to mutate into cancers, have yet to be shown to cure anything.

In other health care news, I attended part of the hearing on the Senate Bill 28, the controversial “consumer driven” health care bill sponsored by Senator Judson Hill.  This bill is pending before the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee.

Late this afternoon, the Rules Committee voted to favorably report Senate Bill 76.  This bill completes the restoration of the traditional powers of the Lieutenant Governor.  That process began with the adoption of new Senate Rules on the first day of session.  Senate Bill 76 finishes the job by transferring to the Lieutenant Governor all statutory powers of the Senate Committee on Assignments. 

We go into session tomorrow, Day Thirteen, at 10:00 a.m.

No Comments »

Today is the tenth day of the 2007 Legislative Session.  The Senate Republican Caucus will meet today at noon, and the Senate itself will go into session at 1:00 p.m. 

We have one bill on the calendar, Senate Bill 8.  I discussed this legislation in my entry about the first meeting of the Senate Finance Committee.  Senate Bill 8 levels the playing field between local government and property taxpayer with respect to interest owed the overpayment or underpayment of taxes.  I expect it to pass without much controversy.

Senate Bill 10, the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Act, will be available in the Senate Rules Committee this afternoon.  This bill narrowly passed out of the Senate Education Committee last week, and I expect that it will come to floor this week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.

You can watch our proceedings live as always at the General Assembly website.

2 Comments »

Senators Eric Johnson and Chip Rogers are the lead sponsors of Senate Bill 10, the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Act.  This bill would create a scholarship program for the parents of children with certain disabilities.  These scholarships could be used to help pay the cost of a private school tuition.

Proponents of this bill say that private schools are sometimes better equipped to address the educational needs of disabled children than public schools.  Opponents say that state funds should never go to private schools, and that if this program were successful, it might arouse public support for even broader school choice programs.

Senate Bill 10 authorizes scholarships in the amount that state government would have otherwise contributed to the public school education of the child.  It does not affect funds raised locally, so local school systems might actually benefit from the scholarships, freeing up local funds which would have otherwise been spent on the disabled child.

I am supportive of this bill.  What do you think?  Should the state help the parents of disabled children with scholarships for private school education? 

[UPDATE] This bill has passed the Senate and now awaits action by the House.  I voted for the bill.

[UPDATE] This bill has been signed by the Governor and is now law.  It passed the House of Representatives by one vote, with Speaker Glenn Richardson casting the tie breaker.  For more information about the scholarship, visit the Georgia Department of Education website.

28 Comments »