By: Tyler S. Bugg
It’s no secret Georgia is usually at the bottom of national education rankings, often producing some of the lowest SAT scores and some of the highest dropout rates. As part of a remedy, Georgia has joined a number of other states in funneling proactive support into charter schools, creating the Georgia Charter School Commission to increase the scope of the charter system in the state.
But the state’s perceived progress came to a screeching halt in May 2011 when a Georgia Supreme Court decision found the commission unconstitutional in its authority to approve and fund charter schools over the objections of local school boards with jurisdiction over the zones where the schools would be established.
In response to the decision, HR 1162 has been proposed in the General Assembly. The resolution hopes to add an amendment to the Constitution of Georgia that reasserts the state’s right to approve and fund charter schools, even when local school boards turn down charter applications. Seen as a source of momentum for the “school choice” movement, the resolution had broad, bi-partisan support until just before the vote, when Democrats split on the legislation, resulting in its rejection. Despite changes to the original legislation and a push for a revote on the measure, a resolution that once enjoyed broad support continues to devolve at the hands of partisan politics.
The Republican-controlled House has stood by HR 1162, citing its significance in fundamentally altering the state of education in Georgia for the better. For a while, much of the rest of the House agreed. But just before the original vote on HR 1162, the Georgia Democratic Caucus blasted its opposition to the Republican-sponsored legislation, calling it an overreached meddling beyond the state’s powers. The Caucus, instead, promptly proposed HR 1335, what they call a better alternative to the original bill. They say HR 1162 introduces overly vague language by mandating its authority in creating “special schools.” A charter school can fall under the “special school” label, but so can vocational, alternative, gifted education and adult education schools, as well. The Caucus finds explicitly enumerating “charter schools” in the amendment would better serve the bill’s intent.
What’s troubling about this, though, is that in either version of the resolution, the proposed amendment provides political appointees, officials not responsible to a voting constituency, unrestrained power to overrule local school boards and reroute their tax funds for schools the state designates. In short, it’s education (and taxation) without representation. If the state wants to create charter schools, the state should pay for them.
Amidst all of the partisan subtleties still being debated regarding the resolution, both sides have at least one common position: a constitutional amendment is a good way to “fix” education in Georgia.
Adding the charter school amendment, however, is neither necessary nor in the direct interests of educational quality at all.
The intent behind a charter school amendment is already addressed in Georgia law. Existing state code already stipulates that, upon a local school board’s denial of a charter petition, a state board can approve a state-filed charter petition if it finds that it meets legal requirements and is in the public interest.
Supporters of the amendment also argue that one endorsing charter schools could create proper channels for schools in Georgia to focus on areas like science and math or the arts, or to develop vocational or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. Charter schools with these programs, says the bill’s chief sponsor Rep. Jan Jones, offer renewed opportunity to excel.
Are charter schools especially needed to “excel”? The underlying assumption is that traditional public schools, even with these programs, can’t excel, at least not to the level charter schools can. While charter schools can certainly be a progressive investment, so can public schools. Many of the “opportunities to excel” Jones says can come out of charter schools are already in place in both traditional public schools and charter schools already operating throughout the state. A constitutional amendment is certainly not necessary for offering exceptional science and math or arts curricula, vocational studies, or IB programs. Indeed, they should be the standard.
A strong, and often illogical, affinity to charter schools over traditional public schools rests on claims that charter schools are inherently better quality and better performing schools. Not so. A recently released report by the Georgia Department of Education indicated that 70 percent of charter schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards while 73 percent of traditional public schools met AYP. So why are charter schools so intensely privileged over public schools in the public view?
Only illogical partisanship understands a difference of potential between the two. What’s the use in an “unprecedented” constitutional amendment when the same institutions who derive political power from it fail to utilize that power for advancing stronger curricula, more qualified teachers, better educated students and what could be a model infrastructure for other states’ education initiatives? An amendment does little to “fix” education; rather, it’s a rally of political celebration. It’s another “victory” that, come campaign time, office-hungry party hopefuls can claim as another way they’re improving the state’s well-being. In a policy environment when nothing seems to be getting done, it’s the proverbial crossing through the to-do list. It’s getting votes. It’s party politics.
Paradoxically and despite such staunch partisanship, in which political stances seem crystal clear, the voting public doesn’t know where its representatives stand. Instead, the public is more often berated with where representatives don’t stand, and all in the name of partisan name-calling.
That’s one thing unchanged by what was once heralded as the bipartisan success story of the legislative year. And I doubt it’s going away anytime soon. And neither is educational stagnation. Not until we divorce the two will we find progress past either.
