The preamble question is nothing new. Most of the questions on this past summer's ballots were worded in biased language. Is it possible to word these questions in a more generic manner? A ballot question ought not have an "encoded agenda." This slouches ever more to propaganda.

If the ballot question and preamble are biased and inaccurate, can the amendment be challenged and declared illegal if it passes.

Any constitutional lawyers out there who could address this?

@Robert and @Frank - Yes, the preambles could be worded more fairly. What we are doing seems to be a page ripped from the script of California's ballot measures -- confuse the voters as much as you can in order to determine the outcome. Like a lot of folks, I am troubled by this sort of maneuvering and persuasion. I think voters should be given as much reliable information as possible so they can determine for themselves what they believe and will vote for or against.

I have heard rumblings of legal challenges to the preamble but those decisions are mindful of the amount of money that needs to be spent on attorneys rather than educating the public about the referendum. Stay tuned!

I believe the wording of this specific preamble is biased in that it contains a disputable premise ("Provides for improving student achievement and parental involvement ")...who says it's an improvement? That's what we're asking voters to decide! "Does this change represent an improvement? Vote 'yes' if you think so and 'no' if you don't".

That said, I get the sense that neither those who crafted the preamble nor those who object to it have much confidence in the electorate's ability to make an informed decision, and that's disheartening.

In a democracy, for good or ill, you trust the voters, no matter how uneducated or ill-informed you think they might be. But maybe we left this path a long time ago.

@ALL
Everyone should go to GwinnettForum.com for good information on this issue.(Sept.21)

Voting NO

Voting YES

I pay property taxes here in Gwinnett which goes for our public schools here. If this passes, a portion of what I pay in goes to a big pot in the sky that will fund a charter school ANYWHERE in the state. That is not what I want my tax dollars going for.

Voting NO!!! How will they pay for this new "heirarchy" of state charter schools?

"Should Georgia have Casino gambling with funds going to education?" NO!!!

Back to the point of Charter Schools - VOTE YES

How can anyone with a lick of integrity or the tiniest modicum of sense explain that the status quo of DeKalb and Fulton public schools is working just fine?

- Wholesale cheating in Atlanta,
- Organized corruption (RICO) violations in DeKalb,
- Poor outcomes for both systems,
- DeKalb's budgeting fiasco of not accounting for fixed cost expenses.

Just a few examples of a system that is too large for a School Board to manage. Average citizens are elected to manage nearly a billion dollar budget in DeKalb.

The Charter School bill won't resolve that problem, but at least we will have quality for the money spent.

We need change now. VOTE YES

are just a

I vote YES, but I do think that the preamble is distinctly biased and must be reworded to be fair to voters.

We may want and in fact need a change, but this amendment text may not “get you either what you want or what you really need”

Vote NO and put this back in the oven, It’s NOT a "now or never" topic!

Taxpayers need protection built into the text before the YES is granted.
Our STATE leaders haven’t yet begun to clean their OWN fiscal house , so why export that disease further?

Enough about schools now, Let’s all GO FISH! with the tire fee and driver ed fee funds...

Roger has been here all along in one of his dozens of fallacious identities

Roger, I think you're so far off the spectrum of this debate, I don't think that it serves your time to blog about it.

@Ron - Trying to find a point to jump in to this conversation is tricky. I am indeed a communications consultant, though not for the party. I work in communications for the Senate Dem Caucus, among others, as the contact information on the release states. My work history has involved candidates of all persuasions.

To address your point, I have mixed feelings about ballot initiatives. Having worked in Georgia and California, I have seen the best and worst of these initiatives. My personal philosophy is not to tinker with constitutions, preferring instead legislative changes.

TSPLOST , to me, was a kick the can initiative. Ham-stringed by anti-tax pledges, many electeds could not, or would not, vote on fixes to transportation lest they anger the taxing g-ds. Folks opted instead to hand the whole mess to the voters to absolve themselves of the responsibility -- let the voters decide whether or not to tax themselves, was the mentality. This is a shorthand explanation, there was a great deal more involved. Remember that in the match up between Perdue and Barnes, the latter have every intention of using our woeful transportation situation against Perdue in the race. The initiative was, in part, a mechanism to remove transportation from the debate.

The Charter Schools initiative is different and appears to be fueled more by out of state interests. Few people are against charter schools. My own son (now a UGA grad) attended a charter for two years. (More follows).

@Ron - He also attended the APS system, retained HOPE for the full four years and now successfully manages his own company. He speaks five languages, so the public school system -- and charter -- served him well.

Charter schools, to my understanding, are truly about a parental, educator and community collaboration -- not only for education but the financial support necessary to sustain them. The financial piece is the tricky one and typically causes the failure of most. Raiding the state's public coffers for those funds does not seem appropriate to me. How we educate our children is a choice, but that doesn't mean we should make others responsible for that choice. The government pays for a public education -- what we do beyond that as individuals we must absorb. Since the state per pupil money follows the child, that portion continues to be paid for.

As a taxpayer, I am unwilling to absorb the costs of the multi-million dollar mgmt contracts or real estate purchases by those companies (which privately benefit using taxpayer money). There is a ton of information about this very situation in the Miami-Dade area. The same brothers who worked over that system are the ones behind the Gwinnett County lawsuit.

Thanks Liz,

Your concern about real estate contracts that inure to the benefit of private companies is identical to the status quo, if you examine closely. Currently if a School District buys land, they pay the owner - same as a Charter School.

Currently Charter schools have an unfair obstacle concerning real estate purchases or leases as their funding is not guaranteed, unlike a public school.

I appreciate your correct identification of your affiliations, btw.

At the risk of sounding picky or argumentative, this statement sticks in my craw, "...The government pays for a public education --..." We both know that the government is only an intermediary between who gets paid for what, with our tax dollars.

I agree with your explanation of why Georgians were tasked with a ballot initiative referendum this last cycle. The 'no-tax' crowd has to understand that reduced spending and increased revenues are the only way to resolve national debt expeditiously.

I would like to see increased revenues come in the form of reductions in tax credits as opposed to rate or tax increases, regardless of bracket. We have so many credits, State and Federal, that are the result of advocacy, donations, and make little sense in terms of sound tax policy.

Enjoy the day!

@Ron - I hear you and don't think we are that far apart. You don't sound argumentative (no worries). Most statements are shortened for blog posts, but to your point about gov paying, I do recognize those are our tax dollars. My point really was those same dollars follow the child at the current funding level, whether public or charter.

The real estate discussion is probably deeper than we can deal with on a blog. I think the primary differential between public schools and charter land deals is that with the public schools, the taxpayers retain "ownership" of the property. The charter mgmt companies (not the schools themselves) are benefiting from the non-profit rate, while retaining the ownership and at a sizable profit not shared. Not sure I like that scheme.

Hope your day is a good one, too!

Oh, and P.S., don't get me started on tax reform! [grin]. Our entire state system needs to be overhauled. Maybe that will be the next blog!

Some interesting Charter reading. Academica is the crew behind Gwinnett (second article link):

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/19/2541051/florida-charter-schools-big-money.html#storylink=misearch

and

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/13/2545377/academica-florida-richest-charter.html#storylink=misearch

Liz,
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't there adversely worded charter amendment language on the most recent Democrat ballot and didn't it get something like 44% approval? Would you consider that wording acceptable?

@Thomas - not that I am aware of. There were four Dem ballot questions (as there were GOP questions). The charter school language used on the July referendum was the description of the ballot legislation (not the now misleading language in use for the November question to voters) and mirrored earlier polling questions to voters.

The wording of the preamble is obviously drafted by someone who wants it to pass. Why not say: "Provides for the destruction of our public school system and the enrichment of private corporations which set up charter schools"

The state Senate pulled this nonsense a couple of years ago with an amendment to allow employers to legally bar their employees from working in the same field if they choose to change jobs.

That amendment's language was ludicrously skewed in favor of passage (if I remember correctly, it began "shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to make Georgia more economically competitive") and it passed the Senate unanimously, and in the resulting referendum by a wide margin.

Read the following blog, validate the source and the only choice a reasonable individual could make on this amendment would be to vote NO!

http://dianeravitch.net/category/charter-schools/

That the Koch brothers and Ann Walton have been trying to dismantle public schools is old news. Charter schools is how they've been attempting to do that. Google their names and any organization that supports charter schools and you'll get plenty of hits.

I am uncertain how I really feel about charter schools in general - I have heard a lot of pros and cons for them. However, my understanding of this referendum (based on additional research I have done - not the extremely biased preamble) leads me to believe that by voting yes, we are restricting our local governments and giving more power/money to the state regarding the creation of charter schools. Given the massive differences in the needs of students in our extremely large state, I am voting No.

Nathan Deal supports it.. need I say more..

He also approved spending 4.5 million of taxpayer money on a well at Lake Lanier Islands to service the needs of the developer of the mess there. The same developer that is directly connected to $30k+ in campaign contributions to Deal during his run for Wastenator.

Thanks for the links on private gain, Liz and others. Thats where the energy is--only explanation for the voracity of the supporters--now actually trying to find ways to destroy one of their own: Super Barge the populist.

Its actually too bad there is even a route to charters at all--let alone expanding the state mandate to an UNELECTED (moneyed unaccountable) COMMISSION.

I am really confused by the supporters of this charter school initiative. I really want someone to explain a few things to me. If we put a charter school next to every public school, so that parents have choice does that mean that tax payers will be paying to heat and cool two building? If that is the case will we have to raise taxes at some point? Also does this mean we will have an expantion of goverment? Is it a more sensible solution to advocate that all public school should become charter schools and use the existing buildings that we have? Is it more sensible to vote in local board member that have parents values of the kids education comes first by any means neccesary. Please at a time where we have a shortage of money and great public debt how is this practical?

Please all - attend the Legislative panel on Thursday Oct 4, 6-8 at Smyrna City Hall. Get DIRECTLY informed from legislators and uninvested folks who have bird dogged this referendum. Along with fellow citizens ask your questions to the people who are responsible for leading your interests in a forum where they will be challenged to tell you the truth. Great discussion here yes. But better to address your concerns directly. Stand up and be counted not just here, but where they will hear! Blessings on you all!

The charter school amendment isn't about choice or concern for your childrens' educations. It's an ALEC bill written by ALEC politicians in Georgia. Until you're aware of that you don't know what you're voting on.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a cooperative effort of corporations and politicians writing laws. One of their biggest goals this election is getting states to pass laws allowing more charter schools. Their goal is to weaken or dismantle public schools.

Leo Smith and others in Georgia will tell you it's about choice but it isn't. If they were to tell you the truth they would tell you it was a bill written from a template provided by ALEC. Republican Reps. Jan Jones, Brooks Coleman, and Edward Lindsey sponsored both bills (HB 797 & HR 1162). All three are members of ALEC.

http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/05/09/how-alec-is-quietly-influencing-education-refor/184156

Leo Smith - Elizabeth Hopper doesn't need to quote any legislators. Taxpayer money is how the charter schools will be financially supported. It doesn't matter what anyone says because taxes will pay for them.

When asked 69% of Georgia voters said they are opposed to granting the state more control over education tax dollars raised by local city and county school boards.

More than 92% of money contributed to the ‘Yes’ campaign comes from donors outside of Georgia. That's just the money we know about.

Amendment 1 is supported by state government bureaucrats, lawmakers who want a new way to spend your tax dollars, and out-of-state corporations who want to make a profit off of your school children.

And that profit will come out of your pocket.

Leo Smith you need to be caring a lot about ALEC. Its model bills have a direct effect on "educational freedom, civil rights and community empowerment." Just last year 200 bills were passed because of it. Legislators influenced by this organization not religious gibberish wrote this charter amendment and taxes will pay for these schools not manna from heaven.

@all
Always follow the money. Who is really pushing charter schools?
Here’s who else wants you to vote ‘No’ on Amendment 1:
• State School Superintendent Dr. John Barge (PDF)
• Georgia League of Women Voters
• Macon Telegraph
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• NAACP
• Atlanta City Council (PDF)
• VoteSmart Georgia
• Georgia Parent-Teacher Association
• Georgia Association of Educators
• Georgia School Boards Association
• Georgia School Superintendents Association
• Professional Association of Georgia Educators
• Griffin-Spalding County Schools Superintendent Dr. Curtis Jones
• Forsyth County School Board
• Carroll County School Board
• Richmond County School Board
• Gwinnett County School Board (PDF)
• Carroll County Schools Superintendent Scott Cowart
• Carroll City Schools Superintendent Dr. Kent Edwards
• Atlanta School Board
• DeKalb County School Board (PDF)
• Newton County School Board (PDF)
• Glynn County School Board (PDF)
• Towns County School Board (PDF)
In fact, 69 percent of Georgia voters we asked said they are opposed to granting the state more control over education tax dollars raised by local city and county school boards.
Who wants you to vote ‘Yes’ on Amendment 1?
• Wal-Mart
• Multinational Conglomerate Koch Industries
• 10 big-dollar out-of-state donors
• Gov. Nathan Deal, Don Balfour, Chip Rogers

@all
Always follow the money. Who is really pushing charter schools?
Here’s who else wants you to vote ‘No’ on Amendment 1:
• State School Superintendent Dr. John Barge (PDF)
• Georgia League of Women Voters
• Macon Telegraph
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• NAACP
• Atlanta City Council (PDF)
• VoteSmart Georgia
• Georgia Parent-Teacher Association
• Georgia Association of Educators
• Georgia School Boards Association
• Georgia School Superintendents Association
• Professional Association of Georgia Educators
• Griffin-Spalding County Schools Superintendent Dr. Curtis Jones
• Forsyth County School Board
• Carroll County School Board
• Richmond County School Board
• Gwinnett County School Board (PDF)
• Carroll County Schools Superintendent Scott Cowart
• Carroll City Schools Superintendent Dr. Kent Edwards
• Atlanta School Board
• DeKalb County School Board (PDF)
• Newton County School Board (PDF)
• Glynn County School Board (PDF)
• Towns County School Board (PDF)
In fact, 69 percent of Georgia voters we asked said they are opposed to granting the state more control over education tax dollars raised by local city and county school boards.
Who wants you to vote ‘Yes’ on Amendment 1?
• Wal-Mart
• Multinational Conglomerate Koch Industries
• 10 big-dollar out-of-state donors
• Gov. Nathan Deal, Don Balfour, Chip Rogers

Leo Smith - no conspiracy exists and none was implied. How ALEC functions is a fact. But not everyone agrees with its actions. The problem has been the secrecy surrounding it. Now that it has been exposed and causing controversy companies are starting to leave the organization. http://pinterest.com/thinkprogress/companies-that-have-stopped-supporting-alec/
I don't know George Wilson but I believe I know where he got his information. I'll leave that up to him to reveal his source. It's amazing what you can learn when you do the research. Now that's what education is for. Not enriching corporations.

Leo Smith you are not looking out for the school children of Georgia. I believe you have something to gain from this and have become a propogandist for the ALEC written and supported Amendment 1. The # 1 argument supporters of the Amendment are told to use is that this is in the best interest of the children. Your agruments against public schools also apply to charter schools. I can also provide statistics to back that up. So your arguments hold no weight.

One of the objectives of radical Republicans is to do away with public education and replace it with charter and private schools. That is why that over the last five years five billion dollars has been cut from the Georgia public education budget by Republicans. In other words to save the village, we first have to destroy it, to use an old expression from the Vietnam War era. This philosophy of choice was developed by conservative Milton Friedman from the University of Chicago. After Nixon had the elected government of Chile destroyed and replaced by a dictatorship, Friedman and a group went down and put this philosophy for schools in practice and it has been a disaster. Think about it, the purveyors of limited government are espousing another bureaucracy to dole out approval of charter schools and taking local control away. The most radical Conservative Policy has been to give corporate tax breaks for undermining public education
In both New Hampshire and North Carolina, there are efforts underway to cut or eliminate the state tax bills of corporations who give money to scholarship funds for private schools. A similar law passed in Georgia in 2008 by Republican radicals has funneled $350 million from public schools to private schools this year alone and at least some of the money has been used to “to attract star football players, expand the payrolls of the nonprofit scholarship groups and spread the theology of creationism". Georgia cannot continue to go backwards. No!

@David
This amendment is not constructive change.Georgia schools have always been underfunded especially in the rural areas.

@all
Here is the direction and consequence of education in Georgia if the amendment passes.
One has to only look at Chile to see what the extreme Republican right wing in Georgia and other parts of the nation have in store for public education in Georgia.
If public education was virtually abolished under Pinochet in the ’80s, his right wing successors have done nothing to bring it back. This educational program was set up in Chile with the encouragement of Milton Friedman and the Nixon administration.
Just 40 percent of Chilean children receive a free secondary-school education, in underfinanced public schools; the rest attend partly subsidized charter or private schools. To finance their university educations, most students take out bank loans, which saddle them and their families with years of debt. Sound familiar.
Entrepreneurs have speculated and grown wealthy off the dreams and expectations of thousands of young people and Chilean families.
Instead of families financing between 80 and 100 percent of education as some Republicans seem to want why not the state — through taxes on large corporations, a reduction in financing for the military at the national level and a true progressive income tax in Georgia?

@All
Here is what is happening in Chile:
At the heart of student riots are dueling visions of Chilean education that emerged during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
The country’s schools previously had been free to all students, but the regime pushed a free market-based approach and cleared the way for more private universities, as well as an eventual voucher system that directs billions of dollars in public funds to privately run high schools.
As the student protesters have pointed out, the vouchers fail to cover an estimated 20 percent of school costs, and many families must pitch in to fill the gap.
Student leaders have denounced the system as a cornerstone of social inequality in a country with one of the widest income gaps in Latin America, and they are demanding a return to the old system of free public universities.
That would mean raising taxes on the rich to subsidize widespread free education, the students say.
Perhaps the biggest losers in the battle are the public high schools, routinely of poor quality because their government funding does not begin to meet their needs, the protesters say.Remeber these ideas came from Milton Friedman and other conservatives.

@All
I used Chile as an example of what happens when these ideas on charter and private schools are actually put into practice. That should be self evident; instead all I get is your typical ad hominum attacks .Truly pathetic. Try looking at Finland and to see how they have built the best educational system in the world.

David and Chris. Smart people don't think other people are stupid.
Leo, David, and Chris. George Wilson made a good point. It's your loss for not being able to discern that.

For all their support and cultural cachet, the majority of the 5,000 or so charter schools nationwide appear to be no better, and in many cases worse, than local public schools when measured by achievement on standardized tests, according to experts citing years of research. In 2009 one of the most comprehensive studies, by researchers from Stanford University, found that less than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local school; almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were “significantly worse.” Although “charter schools have become a rallying cry for education reformers,” the report, by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, warned, “this study reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well” as students in traditional schools. The Republicans have cut state funding to education since they achieved power at the capitol. Why?

Understand that all of the "pro's" and "cons" of charter advantages/disadvantages and profit-making being the driver in this thread PERTAIN TO THE PROPOSED CONST AMENDMENT to expand the current charter system here. We have them already--both privately run and in-system charter schools (like DeKalb's Chamblee and P'tree Middle). Since we have them already and they are expanding slowly, but surely, the question on the table is do we want to "speed the process" and expand the system without control locally--and do we want them funded with both state and local funds?

The answer is no and no on the unregulated, undefined and unelected proliferation of a system that we already have in moderation and accountability. The fact is, even if this vote doesn't pass, local school boards will get the message to be a bit more liberal with their approvals--and the legislature and governor's office will find ways to pressure them to do so.

@all
I have a problem with a few of the premises being assumed in this thread (as well the larger educational ideologies they belong to).
The first is that schools are getting considerably worse. When we talk about "failing schools" in the US, we are really talking about schools in demographic areas of low socio-economic status. There's an excellent site that uses Google maps to show relative test scores in cities across America. Unsurprisingly, educational quality fits poverty rates like a glove. The site is http://schoolperformancemaps.com/

@all
Ms Diane Ravitch: author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System"
Google her bio. she was in the Bush adm.
"Charter schools have been oversold as panaceas. On average, charter schools do not have better results than regular public schools. On national tests, charter students have never outperformed those in regular public schools. But the media loves a story about a school that produces miraculous transformations. Their favorite is the story about a school that opens in a blighted neighborhood, enrolls poor and minority students who were doomed to fail, and then sends all of them to college. There may be some such charter schools, but they are not typical of the charter movement. And some of these "miracle" schools achieve better results by taking a smaller proportion of the hardest to educate students: those who have limited-English proficiency, those with disabilities, and immigrant children. Some of the highest-performing charters have a high attrition rate; those who leave are usually the lowest-performing or most difficult students, whose exit helps to sustain the "miracle".