ATLANTA – Legislation is under consideration that could alter Georgia’s public education in profound ways, from vouchers to commercial operators to state takeover of local schools.
Democrats opposed to all three back an alternative plan for coordinated social services tied to schools. But they, in alliance with traditional school organizations, may face more challenges this legislatives session than they can address.
Since Republicans came to power a dozen years ago, they have worked toward competition and choice with an inherent skepticism toward bureaucracy. That’s led them in the past to push through charter schools, tuition scholarships and vouchers limited to handicapped students. Those were just the preliminaries for the scale of change they’re close to voting on this year.
Most visible is Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposed constitutional amendment, Senate Resolution 287, to allow state takeover of 20 schools per year. Power would be transferred from the elected local school board to an appointee of the governor serving as a “superintendent” over a statewide “district” of 100 schools. With that authority comes the prerogative to replace faculty and campus administrators in the schools of the so-called Opportunity School District.
“I think it will give us a chance to focus on the ones that really need the help,” Deal said Tuesday. It will rely on “people who understand and have the ability to deal with very difficult school situations and to bring them under the umbrella of a district that is focused just on that.”
Sen. Harold Jones, D-Augusta, has the most concern of any member of the General Assembly, at least after Deal’s office released a list of 140 schools that are candidates for takeover.
“It’s real personal to me. As far as a senator, I’ve probably got the most in the state,” he said. “I’ve got all 21” of the Richmond County schools listed. “It’s not anything that I’m just going into lightly.”
Prince, who taught high school one semester after retiring from the Army and has taught college regularly since, worries that overseeing 100 of the most difficult schools all over the state is too big of a job to centralize in Atlanta.
“My concern is that’s going to be a bureaucratic nightmare for one person to then try to run all these different schools in these different areas,” he said. “They’ve got different things that they may have a problem with. I don’t care who’s doing it, that’s going to be very difficult.”
Senate Democrats unveiled their plan Tuesday, Senate Bill 124, which would be a $10 million pilot program to issue grants that schools would compete for to fund social workers, parent training, after-school programs, evening meals or other social services. Instead of trying to fix the adults like Deal aims to do, the Democrats are focusing on the students.
“This bill is all about removing the impediments that children find themselves in,” said the primary sponsor, Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta.
Democrats modeled their plan on Kentucky and Tennessee, where they say the results of have been laudable. Deal is basing his on Louisiana’s approach to recovering from Hurricane Katrina.
The Democrats describe their proposal as an alternative to Deal’s, but the governor says there may be no reason not to do both. He’s assigning that question to a commission of his appointees that will work this summer primarily on revising the state’s funding formula, which could also be another fundamental shift in education.
This winter, the legislature is weighing two other, major GOP initiatives in addition to Deal’s, namely vouchers and commercial charter schools.
Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, introduced the voucher legislation, which he calls education savings accounts. Until now, Republicans have shied away from a straight-up fight over providing vouchers, or coupons, worth taxpayer funding that parents can use to pay for part of private-school tuition, tutors, counseling or other educational purposes.
Under Hamilton’s bill, House Bill 243, the money they don’t spend can be banked for use in college.
Education groups and Democrats instinctively oppose vouchers as removal of money from public schools. Hamilton says the state appropriates the money for the student, and if the student transfers to a private school, the money should go with him or her. The education expense would leave, too, so public schools shouldn’t be any worse off, he argues.
As a safeguard, his bill caps participation to about 8,500 students the first year and 17,000 the second, a fraction of the 1.7 million students in public schools now.
“So any concern of a mass exodus, we don’t see that happening,” he said. “We put the cap in there to give people more comfort.”
The bill had three-dozen cosponsors when introduced Feb. 4, and the number has been growing. Hamilton expresses certainty it will pass.
“I’ve been working on this for three years, talking with groups. I’m not a bomb thrower. I don’t introduce bills just to make a statement,” he said.
The third initiative before the legislature that could amount to a significant development is a bill from Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, that has received little attention in the news, unlike Hamilton’s and Deal’s. HB 271 would allow private companies that make a financial pledge to start a taxpayer-funded charter school.
It would also allow them to give preference to the children of employees.
He told a House subcommittee Thursday that a major employer might want a charter school on company land to be convenient to parents or to focus on particular job skills. Veteran charter-school attorney Glenn Delk said a company considering a plant in rural South Georgia is eager for the option because its executives find the existing schools unattractive enough to consider locating their plant elsewhere.
But the scenario that teacher organizations often say they fear the most is one Setzler said would be the most likely. That is for the Arizona-headquartered BASIS Schools to start a charter school in Georgia like the 18 it already operates in other states.
“They have said they would like to come but will not consider it without this legislation,” Setzler said.
Other corporations that operate charter schools have also expressed interest in setting up shop here.
The subcommittee voted unanimously in favor of the bill.
The Georgia Association of Educators lists blocking these types of initiatives among its legislative priorities.
“We will work to … prevent all voucher initiatives and privatization of public school services by ensuring that all education funding is restricted to public school programs and services.”
These proposals come at the same time that school groups are fighting provisions in the transportation-funding legislation that reduces local districts’ use of tax collected on the sale of gasoline, a multi-million-dollar hit to many school systems.
This year, the battle may be taking place on too many fronts for the education groups to succeed.
Follow Walter Jones on Twitter @MorrisNews and Facebook or contact him at walter.jones@morris.com.
