If you want to see the two Georgias, look at map of where charter school amendment passed and failed

The one thing that is bad about blogs is that anyone can say anything, whether it is the truth or not. The only saving grace is that they are usually corrected when they make inaccurate statements.

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For some solid info on the funding aspect, check the Georgia Public Policy Foundation blog’s recent post on a GA Tech mathematical study that concluded that public charters do not harm traditional public schools:

http://www.georgiapolicy.org/do-charter-schools-hurt-students-in-traditional-schools/

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All this “babble” … All this “babble” folks … done deal … now the devil is in detail … they have to “write the bill” now.

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d at 11:37 am said it best. Voting against the amendment was NOT a vote against charter schools, it was a vote against state control of local schools. Unfortunately, many people I know voted for the amendment because they thought, based on the ballot language, they were voting for charter schools. This amendment is taxation without representation.

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Jerry Eads hit the nail on the head. Charter schools WILL encourage segregation on socioeconomic lines, and they WILL reduce the amount public schools have to spend on the education of the poor students who won’t make it to charter schools. What I haven’t seen mentioned is the fact that it is not a simple one for one swap, with each child and their state allotted funds moving to a charter school, and everything is wonderfully even. When that child and their state funds move to a charter school, that leaves the public school with fewer students, fewer funds from the state, but the same physical plant to pay the overhead on. Moving a child and their state funds to a charter school does not mean that all the expenses faced by public schools will move in the same proportion. Some expenses are fixed, and have to be paid regardless of the number of students. How do you think those expenses will be paid? Either through increased taxes, or a reduction in the amount that is actually spent on the education of the child. In other words, kids who don’t fit in with the charter school clique will receive less attention from fewer teachers in less viable facilities. At the same time, you can watch the financial statements on the companies running the charter schools as their bottom line takes care of their owners or shareholders, with little regard for the welfare of the kids.

I’ll be very surprised if there is an improvement in student progress in the charter schools, while it will be absolutely no surprise when the performance of the public schools gets even worse. This can be attributed directly to the fact that we gave up on public schools, determining that our children’s future wasn’t worth the fight it would have taken to hold federal, state, and local administrators responsible for poor performance. I know many teachers, and their biggest complaint is that, due to the inflated bureaucracy imposed on public schools, they don’t have time to “teach”. All they have time to do is prepare their kids to take standardized tests, and do the attendant paperwork. Then, once the test is over, it’s time to start preparing for the next standardized test. We don’t teach our children to think, we teach them to memorize answers to tests.

Regardless, the amendment passed. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong, but I doubt it very seriously. As one of the other posts mentioned, watch your tax bill and the amount allocated to education over the next few years. In the meantime, if your school system is forced to support a state mandated charter school, I would suggest you try to get your kids enrolled there, because public schools will suffer even more because of it.

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@ Mountain Man, (I will type slow for you)
As the STATE funds these schools, LESS money will go to traditional public schools from the state, therefore, LOCAL BOE’S will be forced to cut services, or RAISE LOCAL taxes. Up is up, if I write the check to the state or county, more tax is MORE TAX.

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Jerry Eads,
charters tend to segregate by income (richer kids go to charters)
* richer kids go to charters – I think all the parents in South DeKalb sending their kids to the various Ivy Prep schools would disagree. Any community is welcome to petition for a charter.
* charters tend to segregate by income – How do they do that? State chartered schools have attendance zones and blind lotteries to get in.

charters on average do worse for kids than traditional public schools – So what? Parents don’t have to send their children to state chartered schools. They only go there if they decide the alternatives are not as good.

tax money that would otherwise go to local districts – If you look at the History of Education Spending in Georgia you’ll see that local school districts have been receiving more and more money every year for the last 16 years. I don’t think more money is the solution.

I would like to fix traditional schools as well. What’s the plan?

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Eddie Hall
LESS money will go to traditional public schools from the state – Correct, but the traditional public school will have more money per child.

So, that’s the million dollar predicate as noted by Dr Reis
Districts that can reduce costs by more than the loss of revenue will actually gain financially when a child transfers to a charter.

I believe too many things are labeled “fixed costs” within local school districts. This will be the challenge.

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Pride and Joy
Why didn’t the charter amendment pass in rural areas? What do you think about this theory:

Rural areas have generally less money and the Superintendents are the potentates of their county. The Superintendents, administrators, et al were driving the opposition to this amendment. Those types have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

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Interesting data on the funding. The Board has long been promoting the ‘fact’ that the numbers had flipped. Thanks to Nancy Jester (a board member) for clarifying.

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To Dekalb Inside and Out — the crooked supers and administrators and the scared sheep in educrat land sure did try to scare the bejesus out of rural voters. I agree wtih you.
But history tells me differently.
Everything starts in California. Look at gay marriage, trends in education and so on. It starts there and moves across teh country and ends up in the South usually years later.
Homeschooling used to be something odd. Now it is downright mainstream in the rural South.
Teaching strategies and tactics and theories are developed in the North east or in CA and are adopted later by the rest of trhe country.
I’m in a predicting mood.
I predict rural counties in Georgia will have charter schools later, when it becomes familiar.
Andd if I’m wrong., that’s OK too.
What I just love about today is that it is all over.
We don’t have to listen to the gloom and doom predictions from anyone anymore.
We simply just wait and see.

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The teachers depressed about the passage of this amendment need to stop whining and see this as an opportunity for entrepreneurship.

Teachers have been complaining on this blog for years that they are micromanaged and cannot run their classrooms the way they see fit. Now successful teachers and administrators have the opportunity to band together, innovate and develop charter petitions for their own schools.

You don’t have to languish in Gwinnett as an assistant principal for 15 years or wait on some biased program to be tapped for administrative leadership training. You don’t have to know the right people that can get you in the pipeline to be principal.

Use your education to create your own destiny and influence the lives of children by offering them a high quality education. Network with grant writers and accountants to join your governing board.
Georgia has a strong need for more career academies and themed charter schools. Other states that out-perform us on the SAT and on graduation rates have charter schools that offer international languages, an arts focus and more.

Dry your tears and get busy brainstorming. If you lose your 9-5 as a teacher leader at a traditional local school, with the right team behind you, and an exceptional charter application, you could eventually become the charter school superintendent of a new charter school.

Most of the start-up charter schools Georgia has today were launched by teachers, administrators and parents with specialized expertise. The journey from charter idea to charter approval may be intimidating, but there are networks in place to help people through the process.

So start networking with some of those parents you love to complain about and create new positions for Georgia public school teachers.

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http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/2012/11/02/114-mike-luckovich-cartoon-gift-horse/

AJC’s beloved “Cartoon Boy” pretty much covers it. Of course, it easily escapes the thinking of those who say: “We know that the status quo is not working, and we are willing to take a chance on something new.” (Erica Long, 12:05 pm)

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Ed, Mike doesn’t have a kid in a failing public school.

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jra asks “Some expenses are fixed, and have to be paid regardless of the number of students. How do you think those expenses will be paid?”
Fixed costs are easy, jra. We do it all the time already by consolidating schools or closing schools or levelling kids in a classroom so they each have a similar number.
The NUMBER ONE expense of a school system is the employees and their health care plans and benefitts.
If a traditional public school loses kids, they can do what they ALREADY do — and “level.” That means they move teachers around to different schools. A public school near me did not have as many students attend as was projected — so they removed a teacher from that school and sent her to another school where the attendance was higher than projected.
Your boogeyman scare tactics are silly.
And if the public school system loses so many children that less teachers and staff are needed, those teachers need to be laid off. That’s how it works in the real world. I’ve been downsized, right-sized, reorganized — fired — whatever the buzz word is for the moment, it’s happened to me and it will happen again because I am a business woman and i work in the real world. It’s harsh out here but I know I have real skills and a real education and I will find another job.
Good teachers have nothing to worry about. We still have the same number of children in Georgia and charter schools need teachers too; however, bad teachers should be concerned. When lay offs are needed, bad teachers will be the first to go and charter schools won’t hire them.

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Can’t wait to see that Islamic/Muslim charter school file for status. Yep, and there is nothing anyone will be able to do about it. If its not approved it will be amazing how fast the court paper work will be filed. Public money will be used to push an agenda; I just can’t wait until its an agenda no one likes….

LMAO

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Someday we can all be sorry when all the public schools have been destroyed by the syphoning off of money by the corporate-owned charter schools…perhaps we’ll even get to the point where we’re like Haiti or Zambia where if you can’t pay, you don’t attend. As long as the corporate leaches can get their grasp on taxpayer provided money they’ll have a great time promoting more charter schools. Hedge Fund managers point to charter schools as a good investment…that should be a red flag to everyone, when the masters of Greed approve of an investment for the benefit of the 1%. The public schools that are failing are failing because they’ve purposely been defunded…they have never been funded properly. Now the plan is to defund them even more and drive the parents to the charters…very clever for the Wealthiest Americans, the 1% richest among us and their handpicked public servants who are all we’re allowed to vote for. We are shooting ourselves in the foot!

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@Erica Long, APS is the perfect example of what you are saying, and exactly why the charter school amendment passed. Because the majority of the school board and the upper administration is African-American, they pay lip service to be doing right by the African-American community. In fact, APS has had many terrible schools for decades and does little about it because the families that attend them do not have the resources to fight the school system.

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It is unbelievable what has happened to public education. The old addage was “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. In the 1940s- 70s, public schools were GREAT. Why? Number One was that they had involved, strict-discipline parents. Second, schools EXPELLED behavior problem kids because that did RIGHT by all the families that wanted a decent education and whose kids were respectful and hard-working. . Third, ethical professionals all the way up to the school boards ran the schools and demanded that students EARN diplomas. Education was viewed as the ticket to a better life and success in America, and schools and teachers were RESPECTED. In the last 40 years, a weird idiocracy has occurred that has resulted in what can only be termed a desperate search for ANYTHING that could be better, including the ludicrous election of charters. Charters cannot and will never be private schools, and as long as the politics that control public schools hold sway, neither traditional nor charters will work.

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I know lots of pro-charter people in south GA who were campaigning against the amendment. They aren’t against charter schools; they are against state officials, who they feel know little to nothing about their local communities, having the power to overrule local decisions. Maybe they feel like they know and trust their local leaders more than metro people do — they see them at the grocery store, their kids are in scouts together. They may feel like their voices really are heard at the local level in their small communities. Geography matters too. Metro Atlanta people having decisions made by the state may not feel that power as been far removed from their communities. I could see people in Brunswick being less comfortable with decisions being made for them by unknown people a 5-hour drive away.

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