Callahan: 'Double-speak' on charter schools
‘Double-speak’ on charter schools
A couple of passages in a Wednesday Banner-Herald column by Tony Roberts, CEO of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, headlined “No private charter schools in Georgia,” need a closer look.
Last summer, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the authorization of charter schools by a state charter school commission. Also ruled unconstitutional was the funneling of local taxpayer education dollars to charters that had not been approved locally. Currently, legislation under consideration in the Georgia General Assembly — House Resolution 1162 — would put on the ballot statewide a constitutional amendment which, if approved by voters, would permit the state to both authorize and fund charter schools that had not received local approval. Many groups and individuals are opposing this move as a trampling of local school board control of local tax dollars and a siphoning of funds from already strapped local schools.
You would expect Roberts would put the best gloss on his case, but he goes well beyond, writing that “(f)or some reason, they (opponents of HR 1162) do not want loca