National Board Certified

Attention, National Board Certified teachers in Georgia who got hosed by the state in the last legislative session: I think I have found the guy in the white hat that plans to ride to the rescue. And he is a good one to have on the horse.

His name is Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Cobb County). This is not a back-bencher we are talking about here. He is the chairman of the House Rules Committee and a powerful member of the political inner circle in our state who is going to be around long after Gov. Sonny Perdue is drowning worms on Lake Woebegone.

Ehrhart contacted me after reading my column expressing dismay with the governor, members of the Legislature and state Department of Education bureaucrats who saw nothing wrong with reneging on their pledge to pay certified teachers the yearly bonus they had been promised if they went to the time, effort and expense to become nationally-certified. That group, incidentally, includes my son-in-law, Dr. Ted Wansley, a science teacher at Whitewater High School in Fayette County.

Restoring the funding for certified teachers is a “major priority next session,” Ehrhart told me. “I intend to see it fully authorized in the next supplemental budget.” He says he is working with the chair of the education committee, Rep. Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth) on statutory language which will “set in stone going forward” the stipend for those teachers who have gained national board certification. That it wasn’t, he says, is “offensive” to him. Ehrhart likens the responsibility the state has to these teachers as being akin to retirement obligations.

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