Most pro charter amendment money coming from outside Georgia. Most against from state educators. Does either worry you?
The AJC has been following the money in the high-powered, high-profile campaign for the charter school amendment, which would give the state the power to overrule local school boards and approve and fund charter schools. Presumably, that would lead to more charter schools in Georgia. Voters will decide the question on Nov. 6.
The AJC reports:
Groups backing the charter schools constitutional amendment have again pulled in far more money than amendment opponents, the most recent campaign filing statements show. Families for Better Public Schools, which supports the amendment, raised $1.28 million during the filing period that ends 15 days before the election. Families’ haul was 70 times more than the $18,164 the main opposition group, Vote Smart! No to State-Controlled Schools, raised during the same period.
A second amendment supporter, Georgia Public School Families for Amendment One, raised $55,000. Despite the group’s name, all of its money came from a single donation made by PublicSchoolOptions.org of Arlington, Va.
Indeed, most of the money that has gone to amendment supporters came from outside Georgia. Families for Better Public Schools’ filing, for example, shows that 71 percent of the money raised during this filing period came from outside sources.
As she did earlier in the campaign, Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton of Arkansas contributed another $350,000. J.C. Huizenga of Grand Rapids, Mich., gave $250,000. Students First of Sacramento, Calif., also gave $250,000.
“Wow, ” said Jane Langley, campaign manager for the Vote Smart opposition group. “This gives new meaning to ‘families.’ Those out-of-state corporations, more than two out of every three contributions, must badly want to change permanently our constitution.”
Many traditional public school officials — superintendents, board members and teachers — have opposed the amendment, arguing that it would lead to the creation of more charter schools that would sap money from traditional public schools. Supporters argue that passing the amendment would protect from legal challenge the state’s ability to authorize charter schools, which are public schools that are granted flexibility as they pursue specific education goals spelled out in their charter.
Traditional education officials and those tied to school systems dotted the Vote Smart contribution list. Jeanne “Sis” Henry, executive director of the Georgia School Boards Association, gave $3,000. Victoria Sweeney, an attorney who represents the Gwinnett County Public School District, donated $1,000.
Families for Better Public Schools collected $250,000 from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and $100,000 from Richard Gaby, chief executive officer of Peter Island Resort and Spa. Real estate developer Tom Cousins gave $20,000.
My AJC colleagues Jay Bookman and Kyle Wingfield each followed the money pouring into the charter school amendment and ended up in a different place.
Bookman wrote:
Reading the list of out-of-state contributors to the campaign to pass Amendment 1, the state charter-schools amendment, you get the sense that an old-fashioned gold rush would begin in Georgia the moment the amendment is approved.
J.C. Huizenga, founder of Michigan-based National Heritage Academies, a for-profit charter school operator, has contributed $25,000; his company contributed a matching $25,000. Charter Schools USA, based in Florida, contributed $50,000 as well. D.A. Davidson, a financial services firm based in Great Falls, Mont., that touts itself as “a recognized leader in charter school financing, ” has so far given $5,000. And K12 Inc., a for-profit provider of online classes and “full-time online public schools, ” has kicked in $100,000.
Those account only for contributions made through Sept. 21; the final campaign-disclosure reports may include additional big-dollar donations from companies eager to enter Georgia’s public-school marketplace. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong about for-profit companies operating in the education sector. However, despite the fervor of those who preach that competition solves all problems, there’s nothing inherently good about it, either. No countries that outperform the United States in education, for example, do so through the for-profit model.
In addition, the overall shoddy performance of for-profit colleges and universities here in the U.S. provides stark evidence that when the profit motive conflicts with academic standards, profit takes precedence…There’s every reason to worry that similar dynamics will play out in k-12 education. Take K12 Inc., the company that has so far contributed $100,000 to opening up the Georgia market. In Florida, where the company operates in 43 school districts, a typical K12 high school teacher may have as many as 275 online students per class, which enhances profitability if not education. Last month, Florida officials launched an investigation into charges that K12 also uses teachers uncertified for the classes they teach and that company officials asked employees to cover up that fact.
Looking at the same list of donors, Wingfield had a far different response:
After its latest report, filed Tuesday, the anti-amendment group Vote SMART! had a donor base comprising 146 people and eight companies that had given a combined $104,263 (along with almost $19,000 in gifts not itemized). Who are they?
Thirty-four of them are current or former superintendents. That group gave more than $16,000. Another 30 are other types of school-system administrators: area superintendents, assistant superintendents, directors of some kind or another. These folks contributed an additional $14,000.
Eleven members of various school boards around Georgia gave almost $4,000. Ten principals shelled out $2,576. In all, almost 60 percent of the Vote SMART! donors and more than a third of its donations came from people who run our traditional public schools. That’s one bit of turf. Then there are the professional organizations: the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, Georgia School Boards Association and Georgia School Superintendents Association. Fifteen employees of these groups donated more than $15,000.
Now let’s look at companies that do business with school systems… In fact, 35 people or firms who do business with traditional public schools, from attorneys and consultants to architects and contractors, have given more than $32,000 to the anti-amendment campaign. Now, am I missing any job description in the education field? Hmmm, let’s see …
From what we can see, though, almost 90 percent of the donors and $4 of every $5 donated come from the people running our schools and the firms they do business with. It’s a campaign of the educational establishment, by the educational establishment, for the educational establishment.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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226 comments Add your comment
bootney farnsworth
October 29th, 2012
2:01 pm
“In voting no, you are also saying quite clearly that you don’t trust your own local people – parents, teachers, and community members – to understand the needs of the community and the children and to effectively govern at the school level”
to a small degree, yes. these are the same people who made the choices – when they could be bothered to to act at all- which put the morons who created this mess in place.
but at least for me, I’m voting no since I flatly don’t trust the legislators who put this deal in place.
bootney farnsworth
October 29th, 2012
2:04 pm
@ ChartersStarter, Too,
give it a rest,,,,naw, I don’t think so. it falls under the same umbrella as learning to speak english if you want to succeed in our society.
besides, with that as in so many other things, you’re dead wrong.
speaking of giving things a rest, are you on somebody;s payroll and being paid by the post?
Ray
October 29th, 2012
2:15 pm
Charter Starter:
Kyle Wingfield in his piece talks about $104,000+ raised by the anti-amendment side in a previous reporting period. Maybe the anti-amendment side should have done a better job of fund raising, but that doeas not negate the stunning proportion of out-of-state money raised on the pro-amendment side — out-of-state money that is clearly driven by ideological interests and financial self-interests (i.e., private charter school companies looking to rake in Georgia taxpayer dollars). That is just nauseating and repulsive. Then on top of that you add the deceptively worded ballot language, and this whole charter amendment stinks. If this charter amendment is so great, why is it being mostly funded by a handful of wealthy out-of-state interests, and why is the ballot language so deceiving?
Mary Elizabeth
October 29th, 2012
2:40 pm
In the Atlanta Forward forum of today, moderated by Maureen Downey, State Sen. Fran Millar, a member of ALEC, writes the following question for the public to consider:
“. . .for-profit companies can make money by running these schools. Why do we care if this means we increase academic performance.”
——————————————————————–
I believe that my below remarks, lifted from my more extensive reponse on Jay Bookman’s first thread of today, attempts to explain to the public why we should not allow our public schools to be transformed into money-making vehicles for profiteers, especially since the Stanford University Study has demonstrated that only 20% of charter schools fare better than traditional public schools and that 37% fare worse.
——————————————————-
“Georgia, especially Atlanta, has historically valued money-making more than it values education, unlike North Carolina and Virginia.
One of the positive effects of education is that it instills in each educated person an internal strength, or strong personal autonomy, which refuses to identify exclusively with any group – outside of one’s self. If Georgia were to place more priority upon education, instead of an out-of-balance priority upon the making of money, I believe that that change would be instrumental in diffusing the one-party conservative power in Georgia (whether it is called Democratic or Republican) because education of the populace, as Jefferson well understood, will create a more progressively thinking populace which will listen to their own internal/ personal values, rather than identifying exclusively with the values of those outside of oneself who wield power – and who may actually use the ignorant and unaware for their own mercenary purposes.
This is one reason that Amendment 1 must be defeated. It is not healthy for Georgia’s public schools to be transformed into charter schools which will not only resegregate the populace – by class now, not race – but will also cause education to become a money-making enterprise for the personal gain of profiteers. Money-making should not be the purpose of education. Education’s purpose is to enlighten and to build skills, not to make money. An emphasis upon improving traditional public education, not motivated by profit, as well as an embracing of a more diverse demographic will build a more progressive Georgia which will refuse to sustain a system of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots,’ carried over from Georgia’s Antebellum past. Those changes will diffuse a one-party political party of power/wealth which controls the masses in Georgia.”
————————————————————————–
Vote NO in NOvember to Amendment 1.
DeKalb Inside Out
October 29th, 2012
2:58 pm
Ray – “Lots of out-of-state money”
Who cares as long as the state chartered schools are providing a better education?
Ray
October 29th, 2012
3:15 pm
Dekalb Inside Out; Call me cynical, but the motivation for an out-of-state interest writing check for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars is not to “provide a better education for the children of Georgia”, but rather because they think they can make significant money in Georgia if the amendment passes. So I’m not buying any altruistic motives here.
And as far as providing a better education goes, it is now pretty well documented that the private, for profit driven companies are pretty much scamming the public when it comes to higher education — the Univ. of Phoenix, et al. crowd. And without public dollars those private, for-profit education companies would not exist. So no, I don’t think we should open the door to the same kind of thing at k-12, and I don’t think most people would if they understood what was going on.
Just A Teacher
October 29th, 2012
3:23 pm
There is no proof that charter schools outperform traditional public schools. Instead of trying to circumvent the will of the people by putting a misleading proposition on the ballot, the governor and his cronies need to focus on fulfilling their obligation to ALL of the student population in Georgia. The Georgia constitution requires that the state provide an adequate education to each of its citizens. This is not being done! A decade of massive cuts to educational funding and now trying to siphon off funding for an ill conceived plan to privatize public education has to make one wonder what type of government this state actually has. If this amendment does pass, it should be challenged immediately in the courts, especially since it is guaranteed on the ballot to improve academic performance. In other words, if the worst charter school does not outperform the best public school or if one student performs better in a public school than in a charter school, the whole thing should be thrown out. I graduated from a public school system and 2 public universities, and I know many people who went to private schools and are not nearly educated as I am.
In order to vote for this amendment, you must first believe that all public schools are somehow failing to educate children. I can assure you this is not the case.
DeKalb Inside Out
October 29th, 2012
3:32 pm
Ray,
I hear you. Call me cynical, but the motivation for the Superintendents and administrators writing checks to oppose this amendment is not to “provide a better education for the children of Georgia”, but rather because they think they can continue to make significant money in Georgia if the amendment fails. So I’m not buying any altruistic motives either!
If a state chartered school isn’t providing a better education than the traditional school down the street, then nobody will go to it and it will fail and close. Each state chartered school is independent so our exposure to flaming burnouts as referenced in Maureen’s last post is divided and spread out. Each state chartered school only gets 62% of the money a traditional school gets so the amount of money with which to flame out is limited.
sneak peak into education
October 29th, 2012
3:49 pm
@Charter Starter-you said “In voting no, you are also saying quite clearly that you don’t trust your own local people – parents, teachers, and community members – to understand the needs of the community and the children and to effectively govern at the school level”. Just because you say this doesn’t make it so and it quite vain of you to say that you know what I think because of my actions. I voted no for a number of reasons but my no vote has nothing to do with charter schools. I believe the process we currently have in place is adequate and I voted NO (VERY PROUDLY) because I don’t believe in adding another layer of government and don’t believe that our governor has good intentions when it comes to public education. So there, you are wrong to presume so much about me. I get the feeling that the proponents for amendment 1 in this blog thought that the public would just be so willing to blindly go along with this amendment that there would be little or no opposition to it. That is far from the truth and it seems when bloggers put their genuine concerns on this blog, some of the opponents reply in a snarky and very condescending manner, some even resort to name calling. I applaud those who are willing to look into this and see the amendment for what it truly is; it;s the work of the right-wing policy writing group ALEC, whose education chair person just happens to be Jan Jones, to start the process of privatizing public education and put it in the hands of the profiteers. It is also disingenuous to suggest that there is more local control to be gained by giving up your right to vote for at the local level and put major decisions into the hands of a non-elected board. It is also disingenuous to suggest that it will not impact the local school budgets when the legislature has not said where the money will come from if this amendment passes. VOTE NO in NOvember. I did and it was AWESOME.
DeKalb Inside Out
October 29th, 2012
4:11 pm
Just A Teacher
Outperforming traditional schools – It doesn’t matter if state chartered school outperforms a traditional public school or not. Parents know what is best for their children. Given a choice, parents will choose the best school for their children. If a state chartered school isn’t better than the alternatives then it will fail and close.
Adequate Funding – The Georgia Constitution does not define what adequate funding is. Perhaps adequate funding is 50% of QBE while 100% of QBE is phenomenal funding.
School districts are getting their money. School districts are breaking records for the amount of money they are spending per student and yet performance is at an all time low. I don’t see how more money from the state is going to change that.
Chartered schools are public schools and not private schools.
There is no guarantee on the ballot that state chartered schools will improve academic performance … where did you get that there’s a guarantee somewhere?
The worst charter school needs to perform better than the best traditional school??? Are you saying that the Ivy Prep state chartered schools in South DeKalb are worthless unless the students perform better than the students at Cherokee High?
Ahhhhhhhh …. C’mon …. Earth to “Just A Teacher”, we want you back
In order to vote for this amendment, you must first believe that some public schools are somehow failing to educate children. I can assure you that is an understatement.
crankee-yankee
October 29th, 2012
6:09 pm
@CharterStarter
I have to admit. I am impressed, you have hit on all of the pro amendment talking points. Have you been checking them off as you ramble on?
I checked out the links you posted but have come up with a somewhat different take on what you are spouting.
You claim 33 systems are failing (Priority Schools). I look at the list and see the majority of the systems with one school on the list. If you were truly aware as to why a school could end up on the list you would want to look deeper. A system with only one school on the list I would not count unless it was on there for multiple years. Given that, there are only 9 systems with two or more schools on the Priority list and even a few of them could be discounted because of the size of the system vs. the number of schools and the type of school (traditional vs alternative). But I’ll stay with the number nine, just for you. This is out of how many systems in the state? I know the number but you can look it up for yourself, I’m not here to feed you your research. nine systems out of the total number in the state with 2 or more schools is not masses of failing systems.
When you cherry pick numbers without looking at the details, you discredit yourself.
Fail
CY 2.0
October 29th, 2012
7:30 pm
As an English teacher, I feel the need to point out that the appropriate way to differentiate your thoughts, feelings, comments, etc. from those of another is to put the other persons thoughts, feelings, comments, etc. in quotation marks. That has been the standard for longer than any of us have been alive.
Additionally, to add my two-cents worth to this conversation, there are two points I would like to make.
1. Spending is going to and should increase at a faster and higher rate than student growth. Things are simply more expensive now. Let’s just take technology for example here: there is more technology in the classroom today than there was 10 (or even 5) years ago. It would be much cheaper to get rid of all those computers are the like, and I will be the first to admit that there is a good deal of wasteful spending when it comes to technology, but any classroom that does not utilize technology is not truly preparing students. I cannot imagine many jobs that will not require students to have at least a basic understanding of technology.
2. Several people have made contradictory comments about voting, sometimes in the same post. The truth is that one solitary vote doesn’t necessarily amount to much most of the time. The power is not in one vote. The power lies in many people voting. If everyone says their vote doesn’t matter and uses that as an excuse not to vote, then they are fulfilling their own prophesy. Instead, if an entire community refuses to accept anything less than the very best and unites to make sure their elected officials are truly working for progress, then huge change can be made. So, regardless of which way you are going to vote, go out and do it. Imagine if we had more than 70% of eligible voters actually voting. Only then will we have elected officials who actually represent their communities.
CY 2.0
October 29th, 2012
9:46 pm
Before someone else points out my error – persons in the first paragraph should be person’s.
ChartersStarter, Too
October 29th, 2012
10:34 pm
@ Retiree – State charters are in danger for a couple of reasons: the state’s authority to approve is open for legal challenge. On Oct. 23, Sally Fitzgerald, head of policy for PTA, stated at a community forum that there WILL be a lawsuit. If this happens a couple of things could occur: 1) the state’s authority could be struck down 2) they could strike down the funding supplement for the charters which would take them back to about $3500 per pupil (state average is $8999 per pupil). At this level, the state schools would not be sustainable.
This amendment protects the state’s authority to approve and oversee schools on appeal, as well as statewide schools (like virtual schools).
Lady GaGa
October 29th, 2012
10:36 pm
@Janet – What I’ve noticed is the opposite of what you propose. The students with parent involvement & those who are good students are the ones applying for and getting into the charter school we have here locally. In their home schools, there may have been too many distractions (poor behavior, unmotivated students, students that are behind & drag the instruction down). In the charter school environment, all of these students excel because of the environment i.e. they all WANT to be there, all are more motivated.
Please understand, I think ALL students deserve a great education but environment matters. Sad to say but some parents don’t push and support their kids in the right way..that’s what hurts these schools. Its very little wrong with teachers -few bad apples surely- its mainly kids with sorry parents. In my opinion, charters help with this problem. Not pretty, but true.
ChartersStarter, Too
October 29th, 2012
10:58 pm
@ Crankee-Yankee – First of all, these are ONLY the Title I schools. Please go (if you’d like to take the time) and find out how many of those districts only have 1-3 schools in the district. Almost half of our districts in this state serve less than 3000 students. You asked me for detail, and that is a good place to start – you can just as well go look up the AYP report and the number of years schools were in NI status. We have a 67% graduation rate. We are somewhere in the bottom 3-5 states in the nation. If you want to die on this mountain saying how great our public school system is with that kind of data – that’s fine. We have some successful, well run districts, too, but they are dwarfed by the many who aren’t and don’t.
I love Georgia, and I believe in the teachers we have in this state to get us where we need to go – if the central offices would LET them and would apply resources where they NEED to go. Charters are doing just that and showing districts it CAN be done.
ChartersStarter, Too
October 29th, 2012
11:06 pm
@ CY 2.0 –
I will endeavor to use quotation marks instead of capitalization if that would please the crowd.
1. I am not in disagreement with you about the cost of things (i.e., technology) – IF that is where the spending was going. It’s not. Spending in general administration is increasing. I just want money to go into instruction – I’d be DELIGHTED to seeing more of it going to technology rather than another Associate Superintendent.
2. I agree.
ChartersStarter, Too
October 29th, 2012
11:27 pm
Correction – DELIGHTED to see more of it…
Ronin
October 30th, 2012
7:19 am
@Charter Starter, your comment: ” On Oct. 23, Sally Fitzgerald, head of policy for PTA, stated at a community forum that there WILL be a lawsuit.”
I wouldn’t doubt it. Even if the amendment passes, it won’t be long before the next action begins.
Funding should follow the child in the form of a voucher.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns and Elections – Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections for October 30, 2012 – Georgia Pundit
October 30th, 2012
7:32 am
[...] drinking deeply from the well of “Other People’s Money” would be the pro-Charter School Amendment groups. Groups backing the charter schools constitutional amendment have again pulled in far more money [...]
ChartersStarter, Too
October 30th, 2012
9:20 am
It is scary the level of blind faith some folks put into school boards and groups like PTA. Scary. Throughout history, blind faith has always led to destruction of some kind or another. Our public school system has been on a steady decline in terms of fiscal accountability and achievement for years. And yet, we still have some in the public who, rather than looking at what’s happening to our tax dollars and economy and looking at what’s happening to our children and the rising poverty rate and dependence on social programs in our state, cling to idealistic things things like “local control.”
I really, really hope that people will question the validity of the opposition’s argument and consider why they are fighting so hard (and in my view, so dirty) to prevent this amendment from passing.
ChartersStarter, Too
October 30th, 2012
9:24 am
And just to be clear, when I say “idealistic,” that is because the local control people THINK they have with district boards isn’t control at all.
If we want TRUE local control, then ensuring parents have a voice in where their children attends schools must happen. Parents and the community a school serves must have a direct and profound impact on decision making. That’s local control.
Local control is NOT voting for one person on a board every 4 years. One person on a board, particularly if they don’t go along with the status quo, can easily be marginalized, in which case, your vote and your voice doesn’t matter one bit.
Fed Up Parent
October 30th, 2012
9:46 am
“. . .for-profit companies can make money by running these schools. Why do we care if this means we increase academic performance.” ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!!!
What a joke! Read the amendment folks…….Here’s what it says…..”such state charter schools shall not include private, sectarian, religious, or FOR PROFIT schools or private educational institutions”.
Private Citizen
November 1st, 2012
1:41 pm
Let us not forget or underestimate the amount of testing, ritual, agenda, jargon and just sheer dictate and control etc. that the current government schools require. It would be one thing if there were five problems or incomprehensible protocols from the current government school system, but it is more like twenty. And they keep changing things, out with the old, in with the new, absolute attention and obedience required. It makes your head spin. Recently saw an hour long interview video with John Taylor Gatto and within the interview, he arrived at the term “incoherence,” that the current government system seems to have an agenda of “incoherence.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8 The video takes a while to get to content; it is not well edited, but once in gets going, it’s good. -might want to scan / skip the first 10-15 minutes.
Private Citizen
November 1st, 2012
3:32 pm
cued up: education as “incoherence” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8#t=66m17s
Keith
November 2nd, 2012
12:03 pm
I live in Gwinnett where the gestapo superintendent listens no NO ONE except politicians and land developers. Where an elementary school is built in the shadow of a major landfill. Where nicely balanced school districts are split into rich schools and a poor schools. Where the poor schools are ruled by ‘virtual’ dropouts; those that are allowed to attend so they can meet the requirements for a drivers license but have otherwise given up on graduating and instead constantly clown and disrupt each day, making it impossible for others to succeed. Where my children see drug activity on an almost daily basis but somehow the administration sees and does nothing. Do I believe it is the right thing for the Georgia school system? I’m torn. I hear the compelling arguments about funding and control by an unelected committee. But if it forces superintendents to climb down from their dictator thrones and actually start listening to parents in order to COMPETE and survive, it is not a bad thing! Choice is good for the customer and the customers are the children.