Governor signs charter school enabling bill today and endorses November amendment.
From the governor’s office:
Gov. Nathan Deal today signed into law legislation that will provide additional educational opportunities for Georgia students through state charter schools. The bill, HB 797, was signed at Cherokee Charter Academy in Canton.
“By observing high-performing charter schools throughout Georgia, it’s clear these institutions promote competition, innovation and creativity while encouraging strong parental involvement,” said Deal. “We must empower citizens with public school options and true local flexibility if we want to improve student achievement.”
HB 797 creates a state level approval mechanism for charter schools when communities request them. Under current law, charter schools approved by the state are forced to operate on approximately half of the funds of other public schools.
HB 797 sets forth a new funding mechanism for these schools and establishes a State Charter Schools Commission to conduct the review process for charter school petitions and ensure that charter schools are consistent with state educational goals. Moreover, the bill spells out how HR 1162 would be implemented if Georgia voters approve the constitutional amendment in November, an amendment that has the governor’s full support.
“Georgia’s parents want more options, and it is my duty as governor to see that they have them. These schools help students trapped in underperforming schools and aid communities that want to invest in new and imaginative ways of learning for their children.
“Approving this amendment will restore the process for creating state-charted schools that existed before the state Supreme Court struck down the state’s system for granting charters. I am confident Georgia voters will take advantage of the opportunity this fall to support charter schools in our state.”
At the bill signing ceremony, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools presented Deal with the Champion for Charters Award for supporting high-quality public charter schools. Annually, the Champions for Charters awards recognize public officials for leading a major public charter issue or initiative, serving as a highly visible public charter school advocate, and consistently supporting charters as a high-quality public school choice option.
–From Maureen Downey for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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81 comments Add your comment
teacher&mom
May 3rd, 2012
5:34 pm
It seems that one state has decided to go against the current ed reform current:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/a-state-that-just-says-no-to-charters-other-reforms/2012/05/02/gIQAJCXvxT_blog.html
another comment
May 3rd, 2012
5:36 pm
My daughter pulled a fast one on the three minority boys, 2 hispanic and 1 black she was assigned to do a group project with. She was so frustrated when she found that they did very little to nothing on the group project. That she litterally gave herself a migrane staying up until 1:00 AM trying to do the work of 4. She was too sick to go into school the next day. Oh my the teacher actually made them get a new sheet and do the project from schratch while they were in class the day she was absent from class. This is why some of us, want more choice. Why should our children have the burden of being the teacher to other children. Why should we buy the supplies to do the projects. When I saw “E” one of the Hispanic boys has his own pay for membership account at gamestop. We don’t have one of those ( We use the x-husbands non-payfor membership account for the occasional game). But the free lunch kid has an account at the video game store, that you have to pay for. That is why he and the other two boys can’t do the work.
My older child was sick on Monday, she told me that her Math followers, that rely on her to teach them the math that they don’t understand. They told her they didn’t know what to do without her. Why are my children relied on to teach other students in public school. Are these teacher’s going to write college references that say, that they did not know how to reach minority students. However, they had a 17 year old in their class that had a gift and was able to teach Math and reach these students. I doubt it.
I told my daughter I didn’t care what, but we were going to apply for the Gates scholarship. Because she was no longer going to be Caucasion or White and be shut out of all sorts of scholarships.
William Casey
May 3rd, 2012
6:05 pm
I could be wrong, but I don’t see a wave of Charter schools coming out of this. Starting a school from scratch is a daunting task even if “the money follows the student.” For profit organizations will cherry-pick a few spots where they believe that they can get enough easy-to-educate students. Non-profits may run a few experiments. A few neo-seg academies may spring up. I’ll be surprised if this becomes the wave of the future.
3schoolkids
May 3rd, 2012
6:15 pm
Wow, it is really sad that the “choice” message that is coming out amongst the pro choice bloggers is segregation. One can write a very educated sounding post but the bigotry still shows through. So school choice means that the state will pay for your child to receive an education away from the kids with less parental support, because the parents of those kids won’t take the time to make the choice? What happens if you end up getting school choice and your child is still sitting in a classroom with children you don’t want him/her to be around?
Mary Elizabeth
May 3rd, 2012
7:16 pm
“I’ll be surprised if this becomes the wave of the future.”
==================================
Under ordinary circumstances, I might agree with you. However, what I think you are overlooking is that this “school choice” impetus in Georgia is part of a national ideological agenda that is well financed and pushed by anti-government ideologues of substantial wealth and political power.
Being Censored by @Maureen
May 3rd, 2012
7:42 pm
3schoolkids, I think you need to accept the fact that there is a majority of support the the charter school amendment. Your fears are misguided, I’m afraid and you will be in for a major surprise when education reform FINALLY comes to Georgia.
Being Censored by @Maureen
May 3rd, 2012
7:45 pm
3schoolkids, it is pathetic that school districts like APS can’t get students to graduate at $15K per pupil! How do you explain that? Please enlighten us.
Ron F.
May 3rd, 2012
7:55 pm
@William 6:05- I think you’re right that the first ones will be in the wealthier, more mobile areas. I don’t enough about KIPP, but I would expect them to expand some- and the rural areas could use that attention. The only thing about charters that interests me is the notion of specialization. Ironically, that should be occurring anyway and teachers know it and have pushed for the chance. Sadly, we’re as locked down by local bureaucracy as parents feel they are. It’s sad that a lot of what parents want in quality schools could easily be given them; and us lowly teachers are trying. It’s a shame that true local control has been so subverted by BOE members who don’t know a thing. I left Clayton county because of that very problem. I just wish there were a better way than having a commission appointed by the idiots in the state legislature to take the wheel. Something tells me substituting local politics with state level politics just isn’t going to be any better.
Being Censored by @Maureen
May 3rd, 2012
8:02 pm
2 1/2 hours and @Maureen still won’t release my posts. I’m sure the Georgia legislators would love to know that this blog is filtering content to delay posts with contrarian points of view.
Brandy
May 3rd, 2012
8:13 pm
Sad, just sad.
Waiting for Superman
May 3rd, 2012
8:19 pm
Any of the above who are NOT among Ron F’s supporting troupe of fictitious bloggers … please raise your hand!
Being Censored by @Maureen
May 3rd, 2012
8:28 pm
Raising my hand : )
Ron F.
May 3rd, 2012
9:04 pm
I can’t do all that from one computer and my cubicle’s too small for the PC and a laptop. Union wages aren’t that good guys.
3schoolkids
May 3rd, 2012
10:51 pm
@Being Censored by Maureen:
I don’t oppose Charter schools, just the way in which the state legislature has cut and cut and cut and now flouts failures as the reason for the need for Charter schools. If they would choose to restore austerity cuts to the schools, specify where they will get the money for the state special charters and make the state Charter Commission an elected board I would have less of a problem with the referendum. I wonder how quickly the tide is really turning when I’m getting robo calls and invitations to view “making the grade”, and Tuesday’s presentation in Roswell generated a whopping audience of 60.
Tonya C.
May 4th, 2012
7:47 am
3schoolkids:
Bigotry? Surprise! I’m black. My husband is a public school teacher. And am still pro-charter. Why? Up until we moved to Gwinnett, our son had ONLY attended charter schools, both conversion and start up. Just by the way of application and mandated parental hours, the unmotivated were sorted through. There were requirements of not just teachers and administrators, but students and parents.
This can never be required in the current public school system. Bad behavior can’t really be addressed because of threats of parental anger and lawsuits. Charters have the one thing public schools can’t due to the mass population they currently serve: autonomy.
Thinly veiled bigotry? No, I’m giving you the perspective of a converted charter/voucher supporter. I am giving you the reasons people may support this. And while I may not be as brash as others, their is no hidden agenda in my words.
tchr
May 4th, 2012
9:39 am
I fail to see the problem. Every school in Fulton county will be a Charter School if a few years.
http://portal.fultonschools.org/chartersystem/Pages/Default.aspx
The distinction is going to be meaningless within about 5 years. Charters will go the way of Magnets and all the other corruptible fads that swing through education. In the end, it’s still just students and teachers.
Teachers, look at what your students need – I mean really need. Teach that. Standards are broad enough to justify almost any content and the kids respond well when you meet them at their level rather than some prescribed and useless curriculum.
When I walked into my annual evaluation with a set of k-5 standards on my unit plans, my AP was shocked. Yes, I still had grade level (9th and 10th) standards, but the kids needed remediation. So I documented it and put it in the paperwork.
Charter schools won’t change anything. Kids still have needs and teachers still have to meet them.
Warrior Woman
May 4th, 2012
11:40 am
@another comment – The systems you describe are almost identical to the one I experienced growing up in Tennessee. Highly effective, turned out lots of National Merit Scholars, good graduation rate, etc.
Then the state department of education there decided small systems were inefficient and started trying to penalize them with lower funding to force consolidation. Sadly, it appears that’s how bureaucracies reward success.
3schoolkids
May 4th, 2012
12:09 pm
@Tonya C.: I hear you and I do understand your position. I have been “through the trenches” with my own children in both public and charter. You don’t have a hidden agenda, you clearly spell it out when you say:
“This can never be required in the current public school system. Bad behavior can’t really be addressed because of threats of parental anger and lawsuits. Charters have the one thing public schools can’t due to the mass population they currently serve: autonomy.”
My point is that there are already instances of parental anger and lawsuits in charter schools, just not as many because they are not currently as populated as non-charter public schools. As charters expand so will the lawsuits and parental anger. There are examples of success and failure in both non-charter public schools and public schools across this state. Autonomy? I don’t think so, not if the state “special” charters that pop up out of the passage of the referendum are answering to an appointed committee of officials who are supposed to be completely removed from monetary influence in the charter community yet are supposed to identify funding sources and help direct charters to that money.
Ron F.
May 4th, 2012
1:14 pm
While Fulton Science Academy seems very popular with students and parents….with the state, not so much. Read this article and you’ll see one problem charters may face- governance. While we think that would never happen with a governing board at the local school level, this may prove otherwise and better be a wake-up call that even charters can make mistakes.
http://roswell.patch.com/articles/state-recommends-denying-fsa-charter-6112f98a
Tonya C.
May 4th, 2012
1:16 pm
Here is the thing:
I don’t think this is THE right answer. But the lack of momvement of local BOEs to be innovative or open to aloowing it with their supervision has landed us here. I will say in FL my son went to a GREAT charter school with a waiting list a few miles long. It was a city-run school in a good suburb of Ft. Lauderdale.. What we experienced in GA wasn’t as great but still pretty good. The autonomy wasn’t as strong as the independent charter though and the parental participation not as high.
I think this is a stopgap to be quite honest. The desired result is vouchers and “free market” education. This is just a pit stop on that road.Unfortunately the masses are too self-absorbed or idealogical to see it. I think public schools in good communities do great things. But good communities are harder and harder to find and sustain so ideas like this spring forth, for better or worse.
I just know we have two school-aged children. One is a great MS in a strong community that values education. The other in a so called ‘Distinguished’ ES with a large Title I population & minority population. The differences are vast and stark. While the MS focuses on excellence and reaching new heights, the ES focuses on remediation. The MS has a stong PTA and various booster clubs; every school function has a packed parking lot whether open house, a b-ball game, or a band concert. The ES can’t get more than 25% of the families of the school to sign up for PTA, added events are scarce, and they struggle to get parents to understand the importance of parent-teacher conferences—in friggin elementary school.
Guess which neighborhood we’re trying to move into now? This is no longer a racial issue, as many middle to upper-income blacks and latinos want the better edcuational opportunities for their children too. I don’t know all the answers, but what we are doing now amounts to economic and racial segregation anyway as those with the means and the will move where they can get the most bang for their educational buck.
TOM
May 4th, 2012
6:59 pm
PRO-CON CHARTER.. Some can’t see the trees for the forest. Ask yourself has the past, 1,5,10, 20 Years where is GA in National Ranking on education? I can tell you always at the bottom of the list as a whole. The way I see it is that the local situation has not improved the overall education. To improve you need to look what systems works best in other high preforming states and countries. Come on folks, India, China, Korea are now kicking our un-educated butts. Here in this State we have high preforming charters that are targets by local and state because of politics. We should be embracing them and copying what works. Each of you negative charter remarks make me sick, your local political bull is what is hurting our students, this state and country. You are all so greedy for money and power you lost sight of what is important. Maybe it is too many cooks/crooks in the kitchen taken the bread from our children and tax payers. It’s time to remove some of the control with local out of control school boards. Do you know tax payers waste so much on these local boards, just go to a few meetings across the state, they all sit around and tackle the exact same issues like policy. For Pete sake do we really need 100’s of board working on the same issues like smoking rules in school or absentees? Should these not be unified on a central basis? Each local system would save millions not paying them to duplicate the same issues. All those saving could then be redirected to high pay for teachers, better school buildings, computers etc.. I personally find it amazing the Charters do more with less with tax dollars. The charters are given X amount of dollars per student yet they pay ALL OVER HEAD. Where local public schools get the same + SPLOST + this + that and do not on average perform well as well. So the local school boards don’t like the Charters because they show them up. Charter producing on average higher level education for fewer dollars. I for one would rather spend my tax dollars on the Charter system more bang for the buck. Teachers are paid about the same and have by law exact same benefits. Now they may not all be “Certified” as some argue, but really what does this mean? If the non-Certified teachers are in a school out preforming Certified then I suggest we look at the certification process because some teachers should not be certified and are dragging down those that are certified. Don’t get me wrong I believe in a certificate system but only if the certification process is of real quality and caliber. I love teachers I just think too much top heavy bull and politics are holding back the good teachers (certified or not) while embracing under preforming teachers. Now education is more than just school, what about the parents? All too often the parents don’t care about their kids’ education, they don’t care if the skip or have poor grades. I have seen Charters that mandate parents in to participation with the school, while public schools just ask with largely little results. I see public schools holding “parent” general meetings during the parent normal work hours (because of some rule) making it almost impossible for parents to participate. However I see charters scheduling these meeting late evening and weekends just for he parents sake. Ok we have a lot to work to do her in GA but staying status quo will never help with the education wreck we have. I am for charters until the local or state DOE unifies and works toward the common goal of kids education comes 1st and can prove it.
To Concerned
May 4th, 2012
10:27 pm
YOu ask why parents don’t reclaim their school.
It’s an easy answer.
They don’t have to power to change the school and even if they did, change doesn’t come overnight.
Kids need a good school NOW.
We parents will not sacrifice our children’s education and future because teachers want to stay employed.
Tony
May 5th, 2012
8:37 am
Children in public schools will suffer the consequences of this action. Georgia has not even been able to fund its public schools appropriately for about 10 years now. The state has ignored its constitutional duty to do so and now they have created a competing funding mechanism for charter schools waiting on voter approval in the fall.
So-called “ed reform” is nothing more than big business in disguise waiting to gobble up the education funding for themselves rather than for the children in our communities. I hope our communities are able to decipher the ballot in November and realize that approval will grant the state to continue to underfund our schools by redirecting resources away from the local public schools.
Tony
May 5th, 2012
8:43 am
@TOM- you are sadly misinformed. China and India have not been able to get their act together to educate children in any meaningful and consistent way. They are not “kicking our butt” as you say. They do not participate in any of the international comparisons except for a few highly selective locations.
Georgia ranked 13th in the nation last year for student achievements in AP courses. Please google it and find the facts. This is a huge and outstanding accomplishment for our state and its public schools.
Please name the high performing Charter schools in our state. If you look up the actual numbers that go with the charter schools in our state and all the other states you will find that they do not perform any better than the public schools.
Beverly Fraud
May 5th, 2012
9:02 am
“Do you want to dismantle traditional public education for corporate private-sector control of education in Georgia or not?”
@Mary Elizabeth:
-$37 million (and counting) for legal fees in DeKalb
-$40,000 to track down the source of a rumor in Clayton?
-$Untold millions (and counting) because a school board allowed a disgraced lame duck to renew contracts of those who turned a blind eye to cheating?
Yes we want that dismantled!
Unfortunately God has not graced us with the PREFERRED option (a benevolent asteroid, in a moment of Christ-like consciousness, sacrifices itself and descends up the education monolith) thus we grasp at anything, even something FRAUGHT WITH PERIL to break up said monolith.
Even IF we can’t trust it, OR those behind it, as far as we could throw that proverbial asteroid.
Mary Elizabeth
May 5th, 2012
11:46 am
More about ALEC and its attempt to dismantle public education from the NEA:
“If you’re an educator, a parent, a student or anyone who cares about public education, you should know that ALEC, the radical conservative lobbying group, is eyeing your throat. The American Legislative Exchange Council has been drawing drams of lifeblood from the public school system for decades, but now that it has disbanded its controversial Public Safety and Elections Task Force (read ‘More Guns and Fewer Democratic Voters Committee’) it is expected to redouble its efforts to decrease local control of schools by parents and elected school boards, privatize public school jobs, funnel public dollars to private entities, and limit or destroy the collective bargaining rights educators rely on to advocate for students.
So, here are some lessons learned from Buffy and all the other vampire slayers that might help us prepare for battle.
1. The first step in ridding your community of vampires is to reveal their identities. That’s key to defanging ALEC, too.
Working in near secrecy since the 1970s, today ALEC gives nearly 300 powerful corporations access to roughly 2,000 state legislators, who are compensated to attend meetings. At task force meetings, lawmakers and corporate lobbyists sit side-by-side and vote on model legislation that the lawmakers then introduce and push back home. (The next ALEC education task force meeting takes place in Charlotte, N.C., later this month—stay tuned to EdVotes to find out more.) When they’re successful, the end result is laws that put the interests of corporations before those of schools and families.
‘We don’t go to the polls to elect corporations and CEOs,’ said Arizona middle school teacher Erin Kirchoff. ‘It’s our job as citizens not only to vote, but to hold the people we put into office accountable.’
Hear educator Erin Kirchoff tell how ALEC undermined public schools in Arizona. (Link below)
Take Kirchoff’s advice: Find out whether your elected officials have ALEC ties, and if you don’t like what you see, remind them who they represent—you, not corporations. Then spread the word; the more you help colleagues, parents and other voters understand how ALEC operates in the shadows, the less successful the group will be at haunting the halls of our legislatures. (Share this article on your social networks, please!)
2. The best way to stun a vampire is to drag him into the bright light of day. We must do the same with bad education policy.
The Center for Media and Democracy, Common Cause and other groups have made great strides in revealing how ALEC operates. On ALECexposed.org, you’ll find a slew of model legislation that until now was accessible only to ALEC members, including a whole section on education policy. Here are a few examples:
The Virtual Public Schools Act demands that online schools receive the same resources as brick-and-mortar public schools, although they provide only a fraction of the services that traditional schools do. The for-profit companies running these virtual schools could also subsidize students’ home Internet access, creating an incentive for poorer families to opt into such a program. Who is best served by such legislation? Students or the online education companies that helped write this bill?
The Parental Choice Scholarship Tax Credit Accountability Act. Behind the long name is a simple mission: to find every possible way to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize for-profit schools through vouchers disguised as ’scholarships.’ This bill specifies that a separate agency should be created to regulate those scholarships if the state’s Department of Education is ‘hostile’ to subsidizing private schools.”
http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/2012/05/03/alec-puts-its-fangs-to-education/
—————————————————————————
Beverly Fraud
May 5th, 2012
12:15 pm
@Mary Elizabeth I truly get where you are coming from and your rightness of questioning the motives of the ALEC crowd.
But given the public schools track record here (i.e. Clayton, Fulton, DeKalb, APS, aka “The Four Horsemen of the Incompetence”) the doesn’t the public schools’ cry about the for profit crowd have about as much credibility as the Fidel Castro railing against “the greedy capitalists”?
Mary Elizabeth
May 5th, 2012
12:38 pm
@ Beverly Fraud, 12:15 pm
Beverly,
I hear you loud and clear. I, too, want the best schools possible for the children in the counties you mention. I suspect, as usually happens, some individual schools are much better than others in those counties, so that all schools should not be lumped together as being of poor quality. And, don’t you think that would be true with charter schools, also – that some would be much better than others?
We cannot simply look at next year, but what we would be doing to education in Georgia indefinitely if ALEC is allowed to use its influence to change education to one in which corporations rule not only in the market place, but in education. Education should not be about the market place. Think in terms of decades not years. Think in terms of the next generations of children and what we will be doing to them if corporations take over their education. Teachers will be commodies for the corporate profit with less pay and fewer benefits. Children will be pawns for profit.
On C-Span 2’s “BookNotes” last weekend, I saw the author Michael Sandel talk about his book in an interview. His book is called “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.” Sandel is a professor at Harvard, I believe. He was interviewed by Nicole Gelinas, of the Manhattan Institute. He does not think that education should be part of the market place – as a value judgment. Is the market supposed to control every single part of our human existence – and I would add our humanity? That is the essential question Professor Sandel poses in his book.
Can’t parents work more fervently with local Boards of Education to improve the schools in the counties you mention that are not doing as well as desired? Perhaps, the local Boards will be more amenable to suggestions for improvement from parents, now that the possibility of an alternate and parellel educational system is possible through the state Charter amendment. Remember, there will always be public schools of some nature, even with charter schools growing. My heart will go out to those public school children who will be segregated from the rest and left in schools that have fewer resources and that are not diverse economically.
Rick James
May 6th, 2012
11:00 am
If public schools did their jobs there would be no debate or need for charter schools.My son is in a charter because the local public school is under performing.If I did not have this option I would just send him to a private school.
Ivan Cohen
May 6th, 2012
4:48 pm
Well if this ain’t a kick in the head. Here he is Governor Nathan Deal, whose parents were career educators, signing a charter school bill. So this is how you honor your mother and father. Governor, how could you? You got your educational start in the public school system. The blind and the sighted alike can see through the goobledeegook you used when signing HB 797. This is a dark day in this state’s history.
Civil Rights
May 7th, 2012
4:29 pm
These charters better be reporting the correct ratio blacks vs whites…that is what the regular public schools have to do.