And then there was HOPE. -- Higher Ed., Ga. School Districts & Technical & Adult Ed. welcome Pre-K & computers aboard state's sinking funding ship.

Yesterday's post was entitled "Higher education is Georgia's most important growth industry. -- Are its growth days numbered under Gov. Perdue?"

Despite the post being primarily about higher education, it also reminded us that Governor Perdue forced 73 school districts to increase local taxes by whacking the state's commitment to funding public school grades K-12, and (in addition to the proposed cuts of more than $410 million to our colleges and universities) has proposed cuts of $44 million to technical and adult education.

A 10-14-04 Athens Observer article tells us how HOPE pressure is squeezing local school-tech funding (mainly computers in classrooms) and the pre-kindergarten program.

Excerpts:

[T]here's one place that's already lost its lottery funding - your local school's computer lab.

[S]chool districts aren't getting lottery money for classroom technology for the third year in a row this school year.

The Pre-K and HOPE programs have been growing, and technology was the first to go, said Mike Hall, deputy superintendent for information technology at the state education department.

While districts did receive billions of dollars across the state for a decade, enabling them to install computer systems and buy needed software, losing all of those funds has left them holding the bag when it comes to replacing the computers and keeping both hardware and software updated, administrators and technology workers said.