GAE Fall 2024 KNOW Digital Magazine

GAE RETIRED (September 2022 through August 2023: only $37.50 for twelve months) Click on either logo for a lifetime membership enrollment form or go to tinyurl.com/GAE-Retired. Questions? Contact GAE-Retired President Toni Smith: President.GAE.Retired@gmail.com or 678.837.1105 either slowly or quickly, the Department of Education will be gone.

PROJECT 2025: WHAT NEXT?

Fighting these groups will not be easy. Project 2025 calls for the end of unions. Thus, NEA and its affiliates (including GAE) would no longer have our union to fight for its members. If we do not have unions, what voice will we have? Project 2025 states that “parents’ rights” are non-negotiable and that “States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, principals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.”The dissolution of unions is a real possibility. Retirees, you know if Project 2025 comes after public schools, our state retirements and Social Security are next. In the best-case scenario, pro-public- school advocates will have held onto our democratic ideals, and we can strengthen what we have worked so hard to achieve over the years. We will have maintained our allies to keep public schools PUBLIC! We must work to dismantle the Project 2025 agenda. If public schools do not exist as we know them, what kind of education will the marginalized students receive? All NEA members must be hypervigilant about the challenges that Project 2025 brings to public education. As we gear up for the next Georgia General Assembly, no matter which candidates won, we will still have our challenges and will have to work with all legislators, including and especially those who are not friends of public education. GAE members, including GAE-Retired, are you up to this challenge? Now is the time for action again. I am “all in.” Are you?

Some of the “architects” of Project 2025 would love to return to pre-Brown v. Board of Education America before we had safeguards in place to protect minority children. Project 2025 calls for “deleting” a list of terms starting with “sexual orientation and gender identity” as well as “diversity, equity and inclusion,” “reproductive rights,” and a host of similar terms that resulted from the 1954 Supreme Court case. With the implementation of Project 2025, how many jobs in public education will be lost? What is scary is the bastion of money that will be unleashed for those who hate public schools. Currently, the Department of Education has a budget of $68 billion. This money will be used to further the pro-charter, school choice, and the narrow agenda of voucher pundits. Eliminating the Department of Education and the current public education system would harm the poor who cannot afford private schools or some charter schools or who qualify for “vouchers.” Does the data show charter schools have improved learning? According to NEA, at best, they only do as well as traditional public schools. If marginalized students are “undesirable,” the charter schools will kick them out and keep the state funds that follow students. Wouldn’t the money be better spent on improving what already is in place? In the worst-case scenario, pro-public-school advocates will have to do even more to fight privatizers. entire spousal benefit. This loss can be devastating to retirees who hold jobs in categories that do not provide pensions that allows these people to live independently. In the most recent Congressional session, a repeal is close to becoming a reality; however, the presidential election proved to be too great a distraction to get any substantial federal legislation passed late in the session. The bills for repeal, H.R 82 with 329 cosponsors and S. 597 with 62 cosponsors, has bipartisan support with H.R. 82 very close to going to the floor for a vote. The new Congressional session, beginning in January, will be another chance to make things happen. What can we do? Now is the time to contact your members of Congress in Washington, D.C., to demand the repeal of these onerous regulations. Write, call, attend town hall meetings, invite your Congressional representatives to coffee; in short, do whatever you can do to make them listen and, more importantly, understand. This issue impacts everyone because it affects our local economy by reducing the spending power of our members. While not all Georgia educators are impacted, we must remember that we are the voice for those members who are affected. What affects one affects us all. GPO-WEP must be repealed, and this new administration and Congress give us a chance to make that happen. We can do this.

By Patrick Crabtree, President, GAE-Retired By the time this article appears in the Know Magazine, Election Day 2024 will have happened. Did the voting public make the “right “decision for public education or even for democracy? Some will say “yes,” and some will say “no,” but whoever has won, we — GAE, GAE- Retired, and the NEA family — will have to work with these “winners.” This election was not necessarily about partisanship but rather our constitutional rights, one of which is the right for students to have a free PUBLIC education. Will public education continue to exist as we know it? Over the years, we public school advocates have fought vouchers, privatization, charters, and full and adequate funding for the nation’s public schools. This fight has been a long, hard battle. Depending on who has “won,” our work now is easier or exorbitantly difficult. However, what happens if Project 2025, a political initiative published by the American conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, becomes a reality? This 900+ page document calls for the elimination of the Department of Education on the federal level. The NEA and state affiliates fought long and hard to get this department and were successful under President Jimmy Carter. As Project 2025 becomes a reality WE CAN DO THIS By Toni Smith, GAE-Retired Vice President With the start of the 119th Congress and a new administration in place, the time for us to redouble our efforts to bring about the repeal of the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision (GPO-WEP)--two pieces of federal legislation that severely impact public sector employees including educators–is NOW! Currently, 2.7 million Americans in 15 states, including Georgia, are affected by GPO-WEP. These regulations penalize those who serve the public–such as educators, firefighters, postal workers, and peace officers–by reducing the amount of earned Social Security benefits paid. Benefits are reduced in GPO-WEP states to these public servants who have their 40 credits, having paid into Social Security in previous jobs. WEP assumes that these public employees have not earned Social Security benefits by not taking into account that these workers hold second jobs, that educators work summers that require them to pay Social Security taxes, and that other work prior to their terminal career required that they pay Social Security taxes. GPO reduces spousal or survivor benefits when a family member who paid into Social Security dies. Over 70 percent of those affected by GPO lose their

You are invited to attend a PRE-RETIREMENT SEMINAR Questions about RETIREMENT?

Saturdays 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. via Zoom January 25, 2025 ● March 22, 2025

open to GAE members and non-members who are within five years of retirement

Seminar sessions include Teacher Retirement System (TRS of Georgia) • GAE and NEA Member Benefits Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) Planning for retirement • Enjoying retirement Joining GAE-Retired Please register for the January 25 Pre-Retirement Seminar at www.mobilize.us/gae/event/738331/ .