Charter schools amendment can fix our court-made mess
House Speaker David Ralston has said he “didn’t know if we were living in an era of two-thirds votes anymore.” We’ll soon find out.
Last week, Ralston’s House rejected a constitutional amendment restoring the state’s authority to establish charter schools. The measure needed 120 votes but received 110. (It would also need a two-thirds majority in the Senate and a simple majority in a referendum this fall.)
A day later, the House voted to give the measure another chance, as soon as today. Two chief objections stand in the way of at least 10 lawmakers changing their minds.
The first is that the General Assembly should favor local control. This is a familiar refrain, particularly among Republicans. While seven Democrats voted for the amendment, other Democrats like to throw that phrase back in the GOP’s collective face when it departs from that orthodoxy.
But no control is more local than that exercised by parents and students. And this issue is chiefly about them.
Yes, a school board is more local than the state, as far as which level of government would have the authority to empower parents. But the power at the heart of this matter is not the power to approve a charter school, but the power to run that school.
This amendment would let the state grant that more important power to the parents who would send their children to a proposed charter. School systems want to keep it for themselves.
Nor is this really a fight about locally raised tax dollars. Only state tax dollars are at issue, and the state puts conditions on the granting of education funds all the time. School systems re-learn that lesson almost every year.
Fair warning: They might re-learn it even more harshly if the amendment is blocked and a much-discussed Plan B arises. There are a few versions of it, but this much is clear: The mother of all strings would be attached to the funds of school systems hesitant to approve charters.
The second objection is that the amendment is overly broad and could lead to unintended consequences. Normally, I’m sympathetic to this argument. Even if one trusts these lawmakers not to abuse a new power, there’s no guarantee their successors will be so restrained.
But this time is different, because unintended consequences already lie in wait.
This entire debate is taking place only because, last spring, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down a law allowing the state to approve charter schools. That ruling was so broad, future litigants could drive a fleet of yellow school buses through it.
Defenders of the ruling will say it focused only on the authority to create “special schools.” But the language is much broader than that.
The state Constitution, Chief Justice Carol Hunstein wrote, “grant[s] local boards of education the exclusive right to establish and maintain, i.e., the exclusive control over, general K-12 public education” (italics added).
“The constitutional history of Georgia,” Hunstein added, “could not be more clear that, as to general K-12 public education, local boards of education have the exclusive authority to fulfill one of the ‘primary obligation[s] of the State of Georgia,’ namely, ‘[t]he provision of an adequate public education for the citizens.’ ”
That word “exclusive” appears elsewhere in the ruling. Never mind that it doesn’t appear in the sections of the Constitution the ruling cited.
If this court could insert “exclusive” where it did not exist, what’s to stop a future court from applying “exclusive authority” beyond the creation of schools?
If the amendment is not as narrow as possible, the justices who crafted that overly broad ruling last spring bear part of the blame. (And — jargon alert — because the actual text of the law that the amendment would enable is still being drafted, holdout lawmakers have a chance to satisfy themselves the law would be sufficiently narrow before casting a last vote.)
If we are to live under a rule with uncertain effects, better that the responsibility for it — and for fixing it — lie with legislators elected more locally and more often, and with more public scrutiny, than the court’s justices.
And better that those legislators give their constituents a chance to empower themselves when it comes to public education.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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144 comments Add your comment
hatorade drinkers
February 16th, 2012
1:40 pm
GM made a record profit in 2011. Must have slipped your radar. some people cannot stand a success story.
carlosgvv
February 16th, 2012
1:42 pm
markie mark – 11:41
It seems to me that Angelia Davis and Cynthia McKinney are not liberals. They are anarchists and do not belong in any classroom in America. Unfortunately, those in power are too filled with political correctness to boot them out.
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
1:53 pm
“the problem to me is that the hard core liberals that are really off the edge are now teaching our teachers….”
Seems to me like the same thing can be said on the opposite end of the spectrum about “Professor Newt”….
Dusty
February 16th, 2012
1:56 pm
hmmmm I believe that markie mark meant to say that Cynthia TUCKER is teaching journalism at UGA. Not Cynthia Mckinney. A bit of difference there!
Dusty
February 16th, 2012
2:03 pm
Inside Out, 1:53
“Professor Newt”, as you called Gingrich, has a PhD in history and that is what he taught. He is also an experienced legislator. His credentials as a professor are quite in order.
@@
February 16th, 2012
2:03 pm
Cynthia TUCKER is teaching journalism at UGA. Not Cynthia Mckinney. A bit of difference there!
Has McKinney ever held a real job outside the field of exploitation?
markie mark
February 16th, 2012
2:03 pm
carlosgvv, you may be right, and I would tend to buy those statements…..but the number of people on ajc blogs that passionately defended CT shows how much thought processes have changed. Both sides are so concerned with being “right” that they seem less concerned with our children than they are with “winning” the argument. I could care less how we educate our children as long as it is effective. Can we step back and say APS tried “xyz” for 30 years and it didnt work? Give another option 5 years and see if it changes. Go find ACTUAL TEACHERS that retired back in the day and ask them what changed from their early days to when they retired…..
I think we will find its a combination of methods, ability to RULE the classroom and stop interruptions, and parents being genuinely concerned about their kids behavior. I also think that not having stay at home mothers, who had the time to be involved in their kids day to day education, is also having a large effect on todays schools…
markie mark
February 16th, 2012
2:04 pm
@@ – thanks for catching that….sorry for the error…..I meant Tucker….
markie mark
February 16th, 2012
2:06 pm
you too, Dusty…just saw yours…
Kyle Wingfield
February 16th, 2012
2:09 pm
JF: “Most affluent” is wrong. About half of charter school students qualify for free or reduced lunch. That’s a little lower percentage than state-wide, but it’s not a huge gap.
“Smartest” — I have no data available to me to prove or disprove that. Of course, the same is true for you…
@@
February 16th, 2012
2:11 pm
Go find ACTUAL TEACHERS that retired back in the day and ask them what changed from their early days to when they retired…..
One thing that’s definitely changed is the encouragement of competition. At some point, liberal academics decided that competition was destructive to a child’s self esteem. Regardless, most kids embrace it. It’s a natural instinct within children. We have to let them know that academics is “a field” on which they should also play to win.
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
2:27 pm
Dusty @ 2:03
Angela Davis : Brandeis University, B.A., (1965)
University of California, San Diego, M.A.
My point was not to question his qualifications but to point out the extremeness of his positions….he is as far to the right as Prof. Davis is to the left….
Do what??????
February 16th, 2012
2:28 pm
“Clayton County DID lose their accreditation.”
Good job, Democrats.
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
2:29 pm
Excuse me…That should be DR. Professor Davis
Do what??????
February 16th, 2012
2:29 pm
“Has McKinney ever held a real job outside the field of exploitation?”
Nope.
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
2:33 pm
Georgia ranks 45th based on SAT scores
(source: http://gaeducation.blogspot.com/2008/08/2008-sat-results-released-georgia-ranks.html)
Good Job Republicans…
Jefferson
February 16th, 2012
2:45 pm
Charter schools are not dead, the court ruled correctly. Color between the lines.
@@
February 16th, 2012
2:47 pm
“the problem to me is that the hard core liberals that are really off the edge are now teaching our teachers….”
Seems to me like the same thing can be said on the opposite end of the spectrum about “Professor Newt”….
According to many conservatives, Newt’s too progressive to qualify as a conservative. Probably why he entered academia.
Gets confusing from where I sit in the AJC’s school of hard knocks.
Jerry Eads
February 16th, 2012
2:49 pm
Kyle, I’d be tempted to respect your positions if you’d stay even remotely true to your supposedly conservative philosophy. How on green or even scorched earth can you even pretend to support state usurping of local control, including the seizure of local funds? We know most gold dome republicans can’t even SPELL the term “conservative” much less define it and CERTAINLY much less understand and practice it, but YOU? You should have a higher calling than the blind patsy dog lapping at legislative feet. Shame on you. This isn’t “local control” by parents. We’re supposed to be living in a democracy. How about if we make at least a half-hearted attempt to practice it.
MAY
February 16th, 2012
2:56 pm
@Jerry Eads “…..and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands.” But that said, why not let democracy reign and pass HR1162 so the people of Georgia can vote on it?
fun times
February 16th, 2012
3:01 pm
I always enjoy the conversations that center around this type topic. It’s an interesting perspective that comes out of local funding for charters versus not. A formula is provided in law that says this is what it takes to provide a basic education. $1.144 billion is then cut from that formula. Then people and legislators jump in saying traditional schools are not cutting it, we will create our own and fund it with “new”, non-local money. $1.144 billion – worse if you include the cuts to categorical grants. Not hidden – on this site: http://app3.doe.k12.ga.us/ows-bin/owa/qbe_reports.public_menu?p_fy=2000
Click 2012, Then select State Allotment.
And yes – EVERY school system is like Clayton’s Board of Ed. And EVERY school system cheats (Atlanta looks to have done this so everyone has). I need to make some time to get out to the school today to let them know they are cheating. Its important that they know. Generalizing is 90% of the legislature’s problem.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 16th, 2012
3:05 pm
GM: Record profits, and didn’t pay any income tax.
So greedy.
Pay your fair share, Democrats.
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
3:10 pm
) ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. [Note: Our post last April reported that ExxonMobil was owed $46 million by the IRS.]
2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.
3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.
4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.
5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.
6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.
7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.
9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.
10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
Pay your fair share Republicans!!!
Do what??????
February 16th, 2012
3:13 pm
“Good Job Republicans…”
Yep, Nathan Deal is responsible for every kid who takes the SAT. Not that parent, the governor.
And people wonder why the general public is so stupid. People like Inside Out are the ones who dumb down the system.
Do what??????
February 16th, 2012
3:14 pm
“Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion”
Um, Jeffery Imelt is an Obama advisor.
“Pay your fair share Republicans!!!”
Um….several of those companies gave Obama a lot of money in 2008.
Try again, simpleton.
@@
February 16th, 2012
3:19 pm
fun times:
And yes – EVERY school system is like Clayton’s Board of Ed. And EVERY school system cheats (Atlanta looks to have done this so everyone has).
I can only speak to Clayton County’s dilemma as “all politics are local.” It was the AJC that informed me about the APS cheating scandal. Rumor has it the AJC is a liberal rag…fishwrapper…something to that effect.
Their editorial staff does seem to lean heavily towards the left side of the boat.
Dusty
February 16th, 2012
3:31 pm
INSIDE OUT
You really need to sharpen up on your Republican insults. Take comparing Gingrich to Angela Davis as extremes.
Dr. Angela Davis is a communist. She was once a candidate for Vice Prez of the Communist Party USA . She has also been in the Back Panther Movement. And you want to compare her to Gingrich?
Gingrich, who has been Speaker of the House in US Congress and had no affiliations with extremist groups?
I hate it when liberals go overboard. You just jumped ship without a thought.
@@
February 16th, 2012
3:35 pm
I hate it when liberals go overboard. You just jumped ship without a thought.
No doubt he/she jumped off the left side of that boat.
About that charter schools report | Kyle Wingfield
February 16th, 2012
3:37 pm
[...] as I was writing my column for Thursday’s AJC print edition, the state Department of Education released its annual [...]
@@
February 16th, 2012
3:38 pm
I hate to think where Clayton County’s schools would be had Gov. Perdue not stepped in. The lengthy recall process of BoE members was going nowhere. Definitely caused a split within our black community. Some wanted ‘em gone, others thought they were doing an excellent job.
Kyle Wingfield
February 16th, 2012
3:41 pm
Folks: Being back in the office and using a regular computer, rather than my iPad at the Capitol this morning, I’ve gone back through the charter schools report and written a new post about it (see here). There are one or two small discrepancies between it and what I wrote in a comment earlier today. Rather than trying to explain them here, I’ll just ask that anyone with questions read the new post.
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
3:45 pm
No I did not jump ship….. My point was and still remains that Dr. Davis is an estremist on the left and Newt is an extremist on the right. Now I know that you will jump thru hoops to defend youur position that Newt is not extreme, but I will as stongly defend that he is. I have never advocated for one side or the other as I happen to be an issues voter and not a party hack like some. The initial point was about who was teaching teachers…. Next time don’t be so quick to defend your party…
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
3:45 pm
extremist not estremist…
Dusty
February 16th, 2012
3:50 pm
@@, 3:19
I have to smile when you mention the AJC editorial staff “leaning toward the left side of the boat”.
That reminds me of the day when I was reading the new top editor’s comments that AJC was going to be a truly balanced newspaper from now on. .
Shortly after that came the announcement that Maureen Dowd would soon be commenting on the editorial pages.
Maureen Dowd???? She scrapes the “bottom of the barrel” and throws the muck at Republicans in almost every thing she writes, no matter where the truth lies.
Just keeping “balance’ at the AJC.. Oh yes…
Dusty
February 16th, 2012
3:57 pm
INSIDE OUT
You are an estremist & an extremist if you can’t tell the difference between a communist and a Republican.
‘Tis said that ignorance is bliss. Be happy!
Bernie
February 16th, 2012
3:58 pm
Speaker Ralston is another Honor Roll graduate of the Karen Handel Public Policy school of thought.
Charter schools is the path to SCHOOL VOUCHERS.
Kyle Wingfield
February 16th, 2012
4:06 pm
Dusty: Actually, I get a chuckle out of Dowd every now and then; she’s not afraid to go after the Clintons or even Obama once in a while. And she does run alongside George Will…
Inside Out
February 16th, 2012
4:08 pm
Again Dusty…Step away from the party Koolaid!!!! Political affilation is a right in this country. I happen to not agree with Dr. Davis, But I have gone to war on Two occasions for the right for everyone in this country to have express a political postion. Unlike you, I will not put condemn those that have views different than mine. Her views are radical.. Just Like the views of Rep Santorum on womens contraceptives and other health issues. But I have fought and would fight again for his right to have then. Thats what this county is about…or did Sean and Rush not tell you that???
Dusty
February 16th, 2012
4:36 pm
Kyle, 4:06
George Will is too refined to compete with Dowd. She does make a rare effort to show her one track mind as a dual lane conduit. But too many red lights of remembrance void that line of thought. .
yuzeyurbrane
February 16th, 2012
4:49 pm
Kyle, why not just say you want a voucher system and have an honest debate?
Dusty
February 16th, 2012
4:53 pm
INSIDE OUT
Thank you for your military service.
I am sad that you do not recognize the difference between communism and differences in American politics. Communism wants to overthrow our democratic ideals. Politics only wants to change party policies, not overthrow the government. Davis is a communist. Gingrich is a politician. Viva la difference!
Sean or Rush? I don’t listen to radio and haven’t seen them on TV. Must be your favorites because they are not mine.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 16th, 2012
8:06 pm
Exxon paid no income taxes? Wrong, liar.
——-
And for all you commenters outraged that Exxon isn’t paying taxes in the U.S., don’t worry, it is. Our article only focused on income taxes, but it’s worth noting that the 10-k also records $7.7 billion in other taxes in the U.S. (like sales taxes) and more than $50 billion of other taxes and duties paid (I mean recorded) overseas.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2010/04/07/exxon-says-it-does-pay-u-s-income-taxes/
———–
And that’s the first of your bogus talking points that I checked. You’re obviously not to be trusted.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 16th, 2012
8:09 pm
Bernie Sanders got caught lying about Exxon too:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-filibuster-exxon-mobil/
Question Man
February 19th, 2012
9:30 pm
If the word “exclusive” does not appear in the Georgia Constitution, to what is Justice Hunstein referring? She didn’t just pull the concept out of thin air, did she?