The DPG affirms that education is an essential foundation for economic security, personal liberation, and a stable Democracy. All persons should have equitable educational opportunities and access to affordable, high-quality, public education. 

Our educators and educational support staff hold a critical position in society. They should be supported, protected, and respected by receiving adequate pay and benefits (based on educational credentials and experience), increased funding for students with all forms of special needs (including mental and psychological needs), optimal student/teacher ratios, fair evaluation, and dismissal procedures.  

As Georgia Democrats, we support policies that create mentally, emotionally, and physically safe environments for learning, including

General Education 

• Strong, fully funded public schools, and financial accountability for all public school programs. Advance state-wide standards of testing and discipline for all schools receiving public funds.  

• Safe and nurturing learning environments for all ages through the creation and implementation of state-wide anti-bullying standards. School buildings and facilities should be up-to-date, safe environments for all students and staff. 

• Establishing LGBTQ+ resource centers on all campuses.

• Accessible and affordable technology, i.e., notebooks, computers, and internet access. Students should be able to access programs and information they need both at school and where they live.

• Expanding and funding universal Pre-Kindergarten programs, increasing access to nutritious meals, transportation, and extracurricular opportunities for every student.  
• Creating accountability and transparency requirements for all current voucher programs. Georgia Democrats oppose expanding any existing voucher programs.
• Enforcing the separation of church and state by opposing the implicit or explicit endorsement of religion through the public education system. Students of all faiths and those who practice no faith should feel safe and included in Georgia schools.
• Creating a statewide database to provide transparent tracking and reporting of data to identify racial disparities in disciplinary actions within the public education system.

Curriculum

• The DPG believes that our educators are experts in their given fields. 

• Encouraging the involvement of parents, caretakers, students, and teachers on advisory panels.
• The DPG supports librarians, educators and media specialists in protecting intellectual freedom and offering materials for the needs and interests of ALL in their community. Parents maintain the right to manage access by their own children to these materials. That right  does NOT extend to determining what other people’s children may access in terms of age-relevant materials for both informational and recreational reading, listening, and viewing.
• Promoting the accurate teaching of history, including southern and racial history. Georgia Democrats believe that all subjects, when accessible to all and taught accurately (by educators, not legislators), are critical to our development as a nation.
• Advocate for the teaching of the history of and ongoing struggles with our Civil, Women’s, and LBGTQ+ rights movements here in Georgia and across the country.

Post-Secondary Education

• Expanding the HOPE scholarship and grant programs to include trade/technical schools and to meet the needs of all students by using a needs-based approach.

• Allowing undocumented Georgia residents who came to the United States as children, who are DACA recipients (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), to pay in-state tuition and attend public colleges, universities, and trade/technical schools in the state they grew up in.  

• Increasing funding for HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and other minority-serving institutions of higher education across the state of Georgia.

• Protecting the academic freedom of students and faculty to learn, research, and pursue knowledge free from political, religious, or governmental interference.

Excerpt taken from the Democratic Party of Georgia Platform, adopted May of 2024.
–Muscogee Democratic Committee