Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Poythress said Thursday in Carrollton that the state needs to actively work to improve its public schools, its transportation systems and the means by which it has access to potable water.

Only then, he said at a luncheon of the West Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, will the state economy begin to return to what it was prior to the national economic recession.

Of those three issues, Poythress said the most urgent problem facing the state right now is its public education system.

“This is by far the biggest challenge facing our state, and you know why,” Poythress said. “Obviously the relationship between the economic future of our state and the education of its people is pertinent to everybody.”

Poythress said there are three different models being discussed by those who are running for governor, and only one of those will bear any fruit.

While there are those who propose a voucher system, effectively allowing parents to decide what schools their children attend, he said, such an approach would show a lack of trust in the public school system in the state and would ultimately be a “disaster.”

Another line of thought, he said, is that the state should invest more money in the public school system but maintain the same philosophical approach to education. The problem is that Georgia has long ranked nearly last in the country when it comes to national test scores, and simply throwing more money at the problem isn’t addressing the symptoms, he said.

Instead, Poythress said, the state needs to do two things to remedy the situation surrounding public education: free teachers from overregulation and do more to bring technology in the classroom. Though teaching is a profession, those who enter into it don’t do it for the money, he said. They do it because they want to have a positive impact on the lives of the younger generation, and the state needs to work to allow them to use their training and stop requiring that they teach to certain pre-approved curriculums.

In addition, Poythress said, Georgia has failed to use the money from the state lottery for all of its original purposes. While significant funding has gone to the HOPE Scholarship and the development of pre-kindergarten programs, lottery funds have not gone to develop technology in public schools as was originally planned when the lottery was approved in 1992. The development of technology in the classroom is absolutely necessary to facilitate success in the modern world, and without it Georgia’s students are going to lag behind, he said.

“That is the future of education,” he said. “Education in business and industry is conducted in a technological environment. ... If we don’t recognize that’s the future and if we don’t commit to living in that future of providing our children with those kind of tools, we’re going to once again miss the boat.”

Poythress said that improvements to both transportation and water will be crucial to the future success of the state as well.

Atlanta has become so congested with traffic in recent years, he said, that some businesses have actually decided against moving to the state to avoid the complications that come with that kind of congestion. Additionally, the state is missing out on federal funds because it simply hasn’t addressed the traffic situation, Poythress said. In the years to come, in order to remedy the problem, he said, Georgia needs to establish rail lines that function in the same way that subways do in New York and Chicago, because it has reached the point where it doesn’t make sense for the majority of the population in and around Atlanta to rely almost exclusively on cars as the predominant means of transportation.

Though this area has received a lot of rain since last summer, this portion of the state isn’t that far removed from drought. For that reason, it’s crucial that the next governor be able to openly negotiate with Alabama and Florida so that there’s enough drinking water for continued growth in the future, he said.

Poythress was born and raised in Macon, where his father worked for the city water department and his mother was a school teacher. He served four years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force as a judge advocate officer, and he volunteered for duty in Vietnam, serving one year as defense counsel and Chief of Military Justice at DaNang Air Base in that country. On the state level, Poythress has served as assistant attorney general, deputy state revenue commissioner and secretary of state. 

He is one of four Democrats in the race for the governorship, with the primary to be in July. The general election will be in November.