MARIETTA - Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) intends to introduce legislation this week to provide scholarships for foster care children and children of parents in active military service.

Rogers said the legislation follows Sen. Eric Johnson's (R-Savannah) 2007 bill, the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship legislation, which allows parents of special needs children to use scholarships to educate children in a public or private school.

"If it works for the special needs child, it will work for every child in Georgia if given the opportunity to do so," he said.

Rogers expects to receive pushback and to be called "every name in the book," but he said he's used to that.

"They're going to say, 'I'm going to destroy this system or that system' and that's just really nonsense because at the end of the day education is either about kids or it's not about kids. I'm here to tell you education is about kids and more choice is better than less choice," he said.

The highest-ranking member of Cobb's Legislative Delegation, Rogers made his comments during a talk to the Walker School's Young Republicans Club on Thursday.

He said the one issue that bothers him more than any other he's dealt with in the General Assembly is resistance to change from the education industry.

"They will fight you at every level even over the simplest things, and at some point we've got to break down that wall and we've got to say 'no,'" Rogers said.

Georgia and the United States as a whole, he said, have been behind the education curve for years.

The late Ronald Reagan once called for the abolishment of the U.S. Department of Education.

"I have no dreams of ever becoming president of the United States, but if I were president of United States I would follow through with Mr. Reagan's initial efforts," he said.

"Education should never be run out of Washington D.C. They can't even run 'Cash for Clunkers.' How can you expect them to run a local school system? It has been a dismal failure. There is no evidence to suggest that Washington D.C. programs, legislation or anything to do with education has had a positive impact on our nation, but more importantly on our kids," he said.

Local control is a favorite philosophy for many.

"My friends that are in the education industry often talk about local control. Of course, my view and their view is a little different. My view is the parents: that's as local as you get. Their view is the local school board," he said.

The way to change education in Georgia and the U.S. is to put the people in charge who care most about the students, and that's their parents, he said.

On average, Rogers said Georgia spends $8,500 to $9,000 per student per year on education.

"Why do we not just allow the parent to determine where that child and where that money goes to school?" he asked.

"When we allow parents to choose where the education resources of this country go - to follow their child - we will have a dramatically different education system, an education system that caters to the child's needs, because at the end of the day education is about students, it's about children, not about adults, not about buying buses, not about constructing schools, it's not even about teachers per say, it is about students and how do we ensure that the investment we as a society are putting into those students is going to yield us the greatest result," he said.

He acknowledged the impossibility of immediately offering every child in Georgia school choice, although for those like him who believe in choice, that is the ultimate goal.

But, "you have to take steps, baby steps. We like to think they're big steps, but take steps to get there," he said.

Although State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox, like Rogers, is a Republican, Rogers is endorsing one of her challengers, retired Cobb educator and former state Rep. Roger Hines of Acworth, in this year's election.

Rogers described Hines, also a Republican, as a friend of the family with unquestionable character and a life devoted to education.

"The reason that I said, you know, Roger, you are my guy even over a Republican incumbent is because I think that we need significant change in the way we view education in Georgia, and Roger understands that that relationship of the parent, the student and the teacher is the bond of how education gets achieved," he said.

Rogers said his endorsement of Hines is not meant to be a repudiation of Cox.

"I certainly don't agree with everything she's done, but education's too important for us as elected officials to get tied up in partisan politics or party politics. I'm simply not going to support the Republican incumbent even and just because they're Republican. I'm going to support the person I think is best for education and in this case I have no doubt it's Roger Hines," he said.