{"id":504,"date":"2012-09-11T11:12:11","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T15:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/charter-school-bait-and-switch.html"},"modified":"2012-09-11T11:12:11","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T15:12:11","slug":"charter-school-bait-and-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/charter-school-bait-and-switch.html","title":{"rendered":"Charter school bait and switch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nProponents of the state-forced charter school constitutional amendment
\n
\n\"Mr.<\/a>
\non the November ballot have a
\n
\nwebsite<\/a>
\nthat is full of bait and switch.
\nMost of it is about what they claim are the benefits of charter schools.
\nBut that’s not what the referendum is about.
\nLocal school boards can already authorize charter schools,
\nand many of them have.
\nThe referendum would change the Georgia Constitution to authorize
\nan appointed state board to force charter schools on local elected school
\nboards that don’t want them,
\n
\ngranting more money per student than in public schools<\/a>,
\nwith
\n
\nthe difference to be made up from local property and sales taxes.<\/a>
\nThe most substantive thing I have found on the proponents’ website
\nsays that last is not so, but unconvincingly.\n<\/p>\n

\nTony Roberts, President of Georgia Charter Schools Association wrote
\nto All Charter School Leaders and Board Members
\n7 August 2012,
\n
\nResponse to Letter from Herb Garrett of Georgia Superintendents Association<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\"Tony<\/a>
\nOne final, but important point, local school superintendents and
\nboard members were adamantly against any local dollars going to
\ncharter schools that were denied by a local school board. The final
\nversion of HB 797 was negotiated to ensure that was the case \u2014
\nthe language is written right there into the law. So, to recap, they
\ninsist on no local money going to state-approved charters, and then
\nget upset about the state money going to charters.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nCuriously, he doesn’t cite that purported language.
\nThe closest thing I can find in
\n
\nHB 797<\/a>
\nis
\n
\na paragraph I already quoted:<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n2A(5) No deduction shall be made to any state funding which a local school
\nsystem is otherwise authorized to receive pursuant to this chapter
\nas a direct result or consequence of the enrollment in a state
\ncharter school of a specific student or students who reside in the
\ngeographical area of the local school system.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nLocal sales taxes are not state funding.
\nSo your ESPLOST dollars that you voted on to go to local public education
\ncan be diverted to support a charter school dictated by a state-appointed
\nboard and run by a private company.\n<\/p>\n

\nNow maybe I missed the magic wording that Tony Roberts
\ncouldn’t be bothered to quote from the bill.
\nIf so, somebody enlighten me.\n<\/p>\n

\nUntil then, I say this referendum is bait and switch:
\nthe bait is saying it’s about charter schools.
\nThe switch is it’s really about taking local sales taxes
\nthat were approved by local voters for local public education
\nand funnelling them through an appointed state committee
\nto private schools that the constitutional amendment would dub “public”.
\nIf you want your local tax dollars you approved for local public
\neducation to go to local public education, vote No on the
\ncharter school referendum in November.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Proponents of the state-forced charter school constitutional amendment on the November ballot have a website that is full of bait and switch. Most of it is about what they claim are the benefits of charter schools. But that’s not what the referendum is about. Local school boards can already authorize charter schools, and many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,40,15,49,1700,8,2,20],"tags":[1231,1485,8717,8705,8721,1230,8838,8701,8699,1448,8702,8710,12,7,383,1233,6],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-education","category-elections","category-esplost","category-georgia","category-government","category-law","tag-amy-carter","tag-charter-school","tag-community","tag-education","tag-elections","tag-ellis-black","tag-esplost","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-jay-shaw","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-taxes","tag-tim-golden","tag-valdosta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","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=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}