Even the VDT opposes the charter school amendment.

“Staff Writer” editorialized in the VDT 12 September 2012,

Will charter schools hurt public education?

So the state has consistently run down the public education system
in Georgia over the course of the last decade by drastically cutting
funding from programs, but are now complaining because student test
scores and graduation rates have decreased.

The state solution? Allow for basically anyone who has a building to
apply to run a “charter school” that would siphon money
away from public education. Students would be able to choose where
they would go, the parents or community officials would
“run” the schools, and they would not have to meet the
same standards as the current public schools, but taxpayers would
still be forced to pay for them.

State officials are fond of saying that charter schools aren’t
private schools, but when a school gets to pick and choose who they
let in and who they don’t, that’s the definition of a private
school. Only the elite whose parents want to run the schools will
have a chance, and the poor and disenfranchised will have no choice,
will not be accepted, and will suffer even more because the money
will no longer be there to educate them.

Here’s an idea: Restore all those drastic austerity cuts from
education to pre-Gov. “Sonny” Perdue levels, invest in
the public education system which is already in place and doing
quite well in spite of the state’s best efforts to shut it down, and
restore the true value of a public education to the taxpayers of the
state who are footing the bill and seeing fewer results.

I like that idea. Let’s vote No on the charter school amendment in November
so we can get back to funding public education.

-jsq