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Georgia Charter Amendment Heats Up

“Charter amendment could see first vote Thursday; lobbying intensifies”
by Nancy Badertscher
Atlanta Journal Constitution
January 31, 2012

The lobbying intensified Tuesday over a proposed constitutional amendment that could re-establish the state’s power to approve and fund charter schools over the objections of local school systems.

If approved, the amendment, which local school boards and superintendents vehemently oppose, would override a state Supreme Court ruling from last May. The ruling declared unconstitutional the State Charter School Commission and sent a handful of commission-approved charter schools scrambling to find money to stay open.

The amendment, House Resolution 1162, was introduced last week to coincide with National School Choice Week and could be brought before the House Education Committee as early as Thursday for a vote. It requires legislative and voter approval to become law, and it includes a provision that spells out that public education is a joint local and state effort.

House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, R-Milton, the amendment’s chief sponsor, and supporters have said the ruling has broader implications for the state’s role in public school funding and policy making, something others deny.

On Tuesday, House Majority Whip Ed Lindsey, R-Atlanta, a co-sponsor, released a copy of a letter he requested from deputy legislative counsel Betsy Howerton, assessing the potential impact of the Supreme Court ruling on other state education funding and programs.

Also Tuesday, officials with the Georgia Charter Schools Association released recent survey results, showing 62 percent of voters would support the proposed constitutional amendment.

In her letter, Howerton said the Supreme Court decision “clearly does not expressly or directly address the validity” of Title 20, the main state law on education funding. She went on to say the majority opinion of the court “introduces an uncertainty” into the state’s role in public education, though she adds that it’s doubtful the court intended its decision to be that far-reaching.

“Until further clarification by the Georgia Supreme Court or by constitutional amendment, this question may subsist in uncertainty,” Howerton said.

Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, said Tuesday afternoon that the court’s ruling dealt only with one issue — the authority of the state to “create a competing and duplicative set of schools not under the control and management of local boards of education.”

“We don’t read anything that disagrees with that,” Garrett said of Howerton’s letter.

Angela Palm, lobbyist for the Georgia School Boards Association, said proponents of the constitutional amendment “are looking for supporting evidence” with the letter.

“I don’t think that makes any stronger case for the constitutional amendment,” Palm said.

Lindsey said late Tuesday that parents who want to start a charter school, as well as school systems, “want to know the road map, what’s legal.”

“The worst thing you want to do in education is to have uncertainty,” he said.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, through a spokeswoman, declined comment.

In a motion filed with the Supreme Court, the attorney general’s office has previously argued that the ruling “calls into question the billions of state dollars spent every year on education and the significant role the state has in policy and supervision over systems and teachers.”