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By Bryan Long, director of Better Georgia
Charter schools are often a great choice for students.
But like most Georgians, we believe that decisions on how local education dollars should be spent ought to be made by parents in the communities where those students live and by the school boards they elect.
On Nov. 6, you will be asked to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for an amendment to Georgia’s constitution.
You are not voting for or against charter schools.
Instead, you are voting for or against the creation of a new, costly, and unnecessary state bureaucracy.
Vote ‘No’ to stop the creation of the new government agency.
Over the past decade, our state government has cut more than $1 billion from the state budget in money that is sent to local school boards for K-12 education.
Now, the state government wants to change our constitution to take away your right to elect those who decide how scarce education tax dollars are spent.
In fact, if the bureaucrats get their way, we’ll have a new, state-level, Atlanta-based agency to tell you and your neighbors how to spend your education tax dollars.
You won’t elect these people. You won’t be able to fire these people. You may never see these people set foot in your community. But the members of this unnecessary government agency may stand to profit from their decisions.
Better Georgia believes this is wrong.
And we’re not alone.
Here’s who else wants you to vote ‘No’ on Amendment 1:
- State School Superintendent Dr. John Barge (PDF)
- Georgia League of Women Voters
- Macon Telegraph
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- NAACP
- Atlanta City Council (PDF)
- VoteSmart Georgia
And, that’s not all. Who else wants you to vote ‘No’ on Amendment 1? These school boards, educators and professionals:
- Georgia Parent-Teacher Association
- Georgia Association of Educators
- Georgia School Boards Association
- Georgia School Superintendents Association
- Professional Association of Georgia Educators
- Griffin-Spalding County Schools Superintendent Dr. Curtis Jones
- Forsyth County School Board
- Carroll County School Board
- Richmond County School Board
- Gwinnett County School Board (PDF)
- Carroll County Schools Superintendent Scott Cowart
- Carroll City Schools Superintendent Dr. Kent Edwards
- Atlanta School Board
- DeKalb County School Board (PDF)
- Newton County School Board (PDF)
- Glynn County School Board (PDF)
- Towns County School Board (PDF)
In fact, 69 percent of Georgia voters we asked said they are opposed to granting the state more control over education tax dollars raised by local city and county school boards.
Who wants you to vote ‘Yes’ on Amendment 1?
- Wal-Mart
- Multinational Conglomerate Koch Industries
- 10 big-dollar out-of-state donors
- Gov. Nathan Deal, and legislators Don Balfour and Chip Rogers
More than 92 percent of money contributed to the ‘Yes’ campaign comes from donors outside of Georgia. And that’s just the money they’re telling us about!
It seems that the only people who support Amendment 1 are state government bureaucrats, lawmakers who want a new way to spend your tax dollars and out-of-state corporations who are hovering like vultures, eager to make a profit off Georgia’s children.
That's money that will come straight out of your pocket.
Please join Better Georgia as we fight to keep Georgia’s lawmakers from increasing the size of government bureaucracy while shrinking the budget for local schools.
Sign our pledge to Vote ‘No’ on Amendment 1.
Join us on Facebook: Better Georgia Schools.
We don’t need another government agency to tell us how to educate our children or how to spend our tax dollars.
A ‘No’ vote on Amendment 1 will keep the control over schools in your community with your community leaders.
If you are interested in more articles on charter schools, go to the Athens Patch topics page on charter schools and the amendment.
Kids First
4:53 am on Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The only reason a charter school amendment is on the ballot is because GA has had a charter school law for 11 years and less than 15 school systems out of 180 have approved bricks and mortar charter schools. The long list above not supporting the amendment are afraid of being asked one day why their traditional public school can't do better for less like the charter school (do you know we have a superintendent in GA that makes more than the President of the United States while furloughing his teachers). Yep. Preserving the money for the corrupt systems in place today is high on the list for this group.
Benita Dodd from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation had a fantastic article I encourage you to read. "To be profitable, a company must offer a product that attracts enough consumers then keep them satisfied or lose them. Or it must monopolize the market and keep out any competitors that could build a better widget. That may explain why Georgia’s education monopoly bureaucracy is reluctant to allow competitors to enter the marketplace of ideas."
http://georgiapolicy.org/choice-charters-and-the-children/
Paul Patel
6:36 am on Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Who wants you to vote FOR the amendment that gives the greatest of local control? PARENTS! Until these high paid, lobbyist groups (including the Georgia PTA) start putting children above money, they will go down on a sinking ship. Unfortunately, our children will go down with them, if we don't provide a lifeline out. This lifeline will be charter schools. But right now, there are not enough to go around because the educrats want to maintain their monopoly and their high salaries and sweet pensions. The Charter Amendment allows us to take back our public schools and make them focus again on the most important thing--children, not money.
ASHJAY
8:24 am on Tuesday, October 2, 2012
A YES vote gives the power to parents not government. The list of opponents are all government educator groups, this shows whose hungry for the power. The commission of appointed volunteers will be a 2nd option to the ONE and only sole decider (the local school board) that continues denying our students access to educational options. Vote YES for power to parents and hope for a brighter future for our children.
Rae Harkness
6:02 pm on Tuesday, October 2, 2012
YES!
Maly
11:06 pm on Tuesday, October 2, 2012
New, costly, state bureaucracy? I don't think so. These people are VOLUNTEERS or non paid. They are NOT going to tell you how to spend your local tax education dollars. If you read the amendment it very plainly States charter schools will not get ANY of the local tax dollars. So the schools keep this money and do not have to teach the child. You are screaming about over crowding, well you keep the money and someone else teaches the child. wow! Win on your part. The money used to support charter schools comes from a general fund, not the educational fund. Even if no charters schools wouldn't. Get this money. Charters will bring more education money into the county. Also, you arr always needing more money. How can charters teach kids at just as good or even better for around 3000.00 less per student?