How public education saves democracy

Welcome to my new column, “Fine Print.”

My ambition is simple: to take national discussions about democracy and the rise of authoritarianism and translate them into Georgia realities. As someone who has been privileged to represent Georgia on local, national and international stages, I feel compelled to go beyond the headlines and help us understand what’s actually at stake.

Let’s lay the ground rules: I believe in America’s democracy, and according to all the signs, we are in the middle of an autocratic regime — an erosion of democracy that is affecting all of us: urban, suburban and rural parts. There are 10 steps to autocracy and authoritarianism, but there are also 10 steps to freedom and power. One of the most pernicious is when democracy fails to deliver under Step 4 — when the government is gutted.

I was reminded of this step on a trip to Montezuma a few months ago. At a town hall meeting, a visibly frustrated resident bemoaned the lack of good job opportunities finding their way to Macon County. He rightly and vigorously outlined the host of consequences that come with stagnant growth. Young people move away. Housing stock deteriorates. Hope dwindles but never disappears entirely.

That spark of possibility brought out nearly 100 residents to the conversation hosted by a group of Democratic state legislators on their statewide listening tour. I joined them as a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives and a constant cheerleader for investment south of the Gnat Line. He didn’t need me to explain why things felt stuck. He and his neighbors live it every day — and so do the local leaders working to change it. 

The gathered crowd soon agreed that education was at the center of the issue. Georgia uses a failed public education finance system that relies on property taxes, which inherently harms rural communities. Unlike cities and suburbs, the bulk of the land in rural Georgia is exempt from contributing. On their own, some of the policies might seem reasonable, but the consequences are dire. 

Over the past two decades, state leaders have steadily chipped away at Georgia’s investment in education, even as the costs — and the burdens on rural school systems — have grown. Transportation, technology and teacher retention all get harder to fund, not easier. But then the Republican megabill passed Congress and DOGE came to town, slashing 50% of the U.S. Department of Education, freezing education funding, gutting food security for children and making it harder to serve rural kids.

The education department has never been about indoctrination. When President Jimmy Carter created it in 1979, his goal was to make education a national priority, especially for communities too often overlooked. He recognized that “rural” often meant higher poverty, fewer teachers and greater barriers for students with learning differences, language challenges or limited opportunities. That shouldn’t be the case, but it still is.

The math doesn’t lie. The federal budget plan cuts $12 billion from education. That’s less than what schools receive today. And if Georgia’s leaders have spent the last 20 years failing to equitably deploy the resources it has, why would anyone believe it will do more with even less?

President Trump and his regime have consistently taken steps to decimate education funding in Macon County and in dozens of other Georgia school districts. Here’s why: it breaks the promise of public education — through federal cuts or state-sponsored vouchers that divert millions of public dollars to private schools. Public education is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and authoritarianism is much easier when the people no longer believe that there’s no point.

We also have to connect the dots to the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the food assistance program that guarantees meals for kids at school and helps out at home. In rural Georgia, these aren’t bloated programs full of waste — they’re lifelines. They help keep children in class because they can see a doctor through PeachCare for Kids. 

We already know how few health care professionals currently cover rural Georgia: 63 of our counties have no pediatricians. Cut Medicaid — which includes PeachCare for Kids — and that number will certainly rise, further weakening our health care system. (I’ll save the full breakdown of our refusal to expand Medicaid for another column.)

Then there’s SNAP — one of the few successful tools we have to respond to Georgia’s unacceptably high rates of child hunger. One of every five kids sitting in a classroom is likely facing inconsistent access to enough food. It is a moral failure, and it’s a barrier to learning, growing and thriving — another way to weaken trust in government and to undermine who is prepared to demand more. 

If we want Georgia’s children to succeed — no matter their zip code — we have to invest in the foundations that make learning possible. That means compelling Georgia legislators to finally update how we fund our schools. It means holding our congressional leaders responsible for protecting programs like Medicaid and SNAP that keep kids healthy and fed rather than voting to slash benefits and blaming the families for being poor. It requires us to demand that the government do its job for all of us. Democracy demands public education, and so must we.

Stacey Abrams is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and host of the podcast “Assembly Required.” She previously served as minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives.