{"id":490,"date":"2012-09-17T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/support-for-charter-school-referendum-falling.html"},"modified":"2012-09-17T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T13:00:00","slug":"support-for-charter-school-referendum-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/support-for-charter-school-referendum-falling.html","title":{"rendered":"Support for charter school referendum falling?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nA recent poll shows markedly lower support\n<a title=\"Georgia Charter School Polls\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/7993960278\/sizes\/m\/\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" class=\"at-xid-6a0120a58214e4970b017744c719e1970d\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/6a0120a58214e4970b017744c719e1970d-pi.jpg\"  alt=\"Georgia Charter School Polls\"  \/><\/a>\nfor the November charter school\nreferendum than polls in March and July, which were already down from January.\nAt this rate, the charter school referendum can lose as badly in November\nas T-SPLOST did in July.\nMaybe people are catching on that diverting local taxes to control by\na state appointed body is a bad idea,\nespecially this time when the money would end up going to private profit.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nGeorgia Family Council wrote, presumably in January,\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.georgiafamily.org\/resources\/gfc-bulletin\/142-poll-shows-support-for-charter-school-changes\">\nPoll Shows Support for Charter School Changes<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nOn January 24, the Georgia Charter School Association and My School,\nMy Choice Georgia held a news conference on Capitol Hill to release\nthe results of a new study regarding public school choice&#8230;.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe new numbers showed that 52 percent of voters are dissatisfied\nwith the public system as it currently stands. A whopping 72 percent\nfeel that a group other than local school boards should be able to\nauthorize charter schools, the basis for HB 881. Moreover, Georgia\nvoters tend to support a &#8220;money follows the child&#8221; approach to\ncharter school funding.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nSo there&#8217;s a baseline for January for what <em>proponents<\/em>\nof charter schools claimed: 72% support for something very like\nthe charter school referendum that ended up on the November ballot.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nOr not.\nThat writeup includes a link to\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.georgiaschoolchoice.com\/release_080124.htm\">\ngeorgiaschoolchoice.com<\/a>,\nbut that domain is no longer registered.\nThis is probably it over on\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gacharters.org\/press-releases\/survey-shows-georgia-voters-support-charter-schools-amendment\/\">\nthe snazzy new gacharters.org website.<\/a>\nThe gacharters.org writeup doesn&#8217;t mention 72%, and does say:\n<\/p>\n\n<!--more-->\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nAmong voters polled, 62% support the proposed Constitutional\nAmendment and would vote \u201cyes\u201d if the election were held\ntoday, with another 17% undecided. This support is consistent across\nboth political parties, with Republicans voting yes at 66%,\nDemocrats at 58%, and independent voters at 62%.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nSo maybe the January baseline is 62% for, 21% against, and 17% undecided.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAccording to the\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/09\/no-other-state-has-had-a-positive-outcome-for-a-charter-positive-ballot-initiative-former-t-splost-proponents-now-pushing-c.html\">\nGeorgia Charter Schools Association (GCSA)<\/a>\n(and thanks to Jim Galloway and the AJC):\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\nPolls conducted in March and again in July 2012:\n<ul>\n<li>58% would vote &#8220;yes&#8221;\n<\/li>\n<li>23% would vote &#8220;no&#8221;\n<\/li>\n<li>19% are undecided\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nThere was no shift in the polling numbers between\nMarch and July.\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nGCSA provides no links or other citations for those March or July polls,\nand I don&#8217;t see them anywhere on GCSA&#8217;s website.\nI did find an article by Walter C. Jones in jacksonville.com 18 June 2012,\n<a href=\"http:\/\/jacksonville.com\/news\/georgia\/2012-06-18\/story\/poll-shows-majority-likely-georgia-voters-favor-charter-school\">\nPoll shows majority of likely Georgia voters favor charter school amendment:\nAn opponent calls the ballot language &#8220;confusingly misleading.&#8221;<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nAge was a clearer line. Voters whose children were closer to school\nage were more supportive. Those younger than 55 supported it 62\npercent while 54 percent of those older than 55 supported it.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nThat&#8217;s a clue to who we most need to convince to vote No:\nyounger voters.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nEven by March or July,\napparently shift had already happened, since 58% is a lot less than 72%\nor even 62%.\nAnd shift continues to happen.\nAccording to\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/09\/charter-school-preamble-biased-like-t-splost.html\">\nPaul Crawley for 11Alive.com 12 September 2012,<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nMeanwhile, a recent poll by Republican Todd Rehm of GaPundit.com\nshowed 48% support the amendment, while 26% oppose it.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\n11Alive didn&#8217;t provide a link, but I found\n<a href=\"http:\/\/gapundit.com\/2012\/09\/10\/results-of-statewide-poll-on-charter-school-amendment\/\">\nTodd Rehm&#8217;s PR for the results from poll,<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nThe question, which uses the same language that will appear on the\nballot, shows that 48.3% of likely General Election voters, defined\nas those who voted in the 2008 or 2010 General Elections, currently\nfavor the measure&#8230;.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nWhile nearly a majority favor the measure, those who did not\nindicate they would vote for it are evenly split, with 26.2% saying\nthey will vote against it, and 25.5% undecided.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nRehm&#8217;s PR spins his results as positive for the referendum.\nBut Crawley concludes:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nThat could mean as many as one in four Georgia voters still haven&#8217;t\nmade up their minds.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\n<table style=\"float:right;\"  style=\"font-size: 80%\">\n<caption>\nGeorgia Charter School Referendum Polls\n<\/caption>\n<tr><th><\/th><th>Yes<\/th><th>No<\/th><th>Undecided<\/th><\/tr>\n<tr><th>January<\/th><td>62%<\/td><td>21%<\/td><td>17%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><th>March<\/th><td>58%<\/td><td>23%<\/td><td>19%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><th>July<\/th><td>58%<\/td><td>23%<\/td><td>19%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><th>September<\/th><td>48.3%<\/td><td>26.2%<\/td><td>25.5%<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/table>\nLooks to me like a lot of previously Yes voters have moved to Undecided\nand a lot of those have moved to No.\nAlready, Rehm&#8217;s &#8220;nearly a majority&#8221; is less than the large majorities proponents claimed only a few months ago.\nIf we can keep that motion going,\nconverting more Undecideds to No voters, by November\nmost voters will vote No on the charter school referendum.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent poll shows markedly lower support for the November charter school referendum than polls in March and July, which were already down from January. At this rate, the charter school referendum can lose as badly in November as T-SPLOST did in July. Maybe people are catching on that diverting local taxes to control by [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40,15,49,1700,8,2,20,1177],"tags":[1500,1011,8717,8705,8721,8838,1476,8701,1496,1470,8699,1261,8702,8710,12,7,1498,1497,1499,1489,8822,1501,6],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-education","category-elections","category-esplost","category-georgia","category-government","category-law","category-t-splost","tag-11alive-com","tag-ajc","tag-community","tag-education","tag-elections","tag-esplost","tag-gcsa","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-charter-school-association","tag-georgia-family-council","tag-government","tag-jim-galloway","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-my-choice-georgia","tag-my-school","tag-paul-crawley","tag-polls","tag-t-splost","tag-todd-rehm","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-7U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}