"REAL CHOICE would be to have a combination of charters and regular public schools in the district, and all of them FULLY funded."

This is a great idea, 4Ed. Too bad the current Board worked so hard last spring to undermine the current charter school, its parents, and their children, According to what I'm reading, the new charter did well on its first CRCT in the complete absence of ANY funding from CCSD. No busing, etc. Just dedicated parents who are making it work, rather than letting some Board dictate to them what their children learn.

I think the APS Cheating scandal is clear evidence of what can happen when a local Board is in charge...

4Education -
You are correct, but they aren't listening. I am 100% for charter schools and 100% behind the BOE on their decision to deny THIS PARTICULAR application. Trying to say that those who support the BOE are against all charter schools is the argument that they have decided upon and the one they think they win. The problem is they are wrong.

One of the comments that was not included in this snippet was from Beach and sums it up pretty well. I'll paraphrase but in essence he suggested that if the Charter was for profit that would have to bear some of the risk. The application provided to the Cherokee BOE was weak in this regard as the main reason it was refused. It was a decisions of good financial stewardship, not a decision of pro / anti charter.

Redistricting the School Board accomplishes exactly what you seek: Letting the people decide. Why should (ex.) 3 people from (ex.) Towne Lake dictate ed.options for folks in (ex.) Free Home? The redistricting gives the citizens a more direct line to the Board..and this is exactly what the Board fears: An End to their Cronyism.
The old Board structure is akin to having 80 of our 100 US Senators come from Texas. that charter school was voted down by a single vote because some of the Board is afraid of competition and wants to protect its 500M$$$ pie. From the looks of its test scores, the charter school passed in spite of CCSD's efforts to close it and succeeded without a dime of CCSD money nor CCSD trans. But the Board will continue to fight against ALL Charters - just you watch.
From a Patch CRCT testing article, 4 elem. schools failed CRCT testing even after CCSD spent a half-billion-$$$ in 2011. That was prior to the existence of the charter school. What's the excuse for those 4 failures?
I'm glad those parents in those failed CCSD schools had a choice and it looks like many took the first opportunity to get the heck out! Ask yourself: If CCSD is so awesome, why do so many parents want to go to this charter school?
Again - note that i did say I liked your idea! I think pub and charter can co-exist. The current board & Beach disagrees with you.

Speaking of Democrats, isn't one of your people running for school board a big Planned Parenthood advocate? I don't know anyone running for school board, much less well enough to have peeked over their shoulder at who they voted for in 2008!

I do know I won't be voting for Ms. Planned Parenthood In Schools though. That sort of liberalism has no place in Cherokee County. But that's to be expected from some Ohio transplant. What's next - teacher unions?

Chip doesn't need to find more $$ for education. A half billion $$ is enough. We need to make it work rather than these infinite spending increases your side of the aisle favors. Look around - we're in a recession and the taxpayer is tapped out! Stop asking for more and make the half-billion we have now WORK!

More spending, more taxes. That's the goal of Beach and his infernal "I was against it before I voted for it" TSPLOST. The guy will likely pocket millions from his GADOT position if this horrible tax increase passes. last I checked, GA roads still stink, so he's not very good at that job either.

If it walks and talks like a Big gov't Spending duck, it's a liberal tax & spender, no matter how much you protest.

I am not this Knowles person you believe but please continue your delusion. My calculator shows that a half Billion $$$ is more than enough to run CCSD.

From the debate video, Marlow wasn't even asked the Abortion question. I wonder why Cromer was? Why was that question directed at Cromer only? Video doesn't lie - see for yourself.

There IS nothing wrong with profit. Do you disagree with Sen. Rogers on that? And why are infinite spending and tax increases a good idea? Have you looked at Greece lately? That's where we're headed with this ideology. You seem to welcome that with open arms.

@Steely...Republicans label Democrats as tax and spenders. However, if you ever researched a thing, you'd realize that Republicans are equally bad or even worse when it comes to tax and spend. In fact, Republicans love to spend but hate to tax. As such, we find ourselves with a large deficit and huge debt.

It's a fact that taxes are at the lowest effective level in 30 years, and yet, Republicans want to cut taxes even more. It's a fact that the wealthy pay an effective tax rate at or below that of working stiffs, and yet, Republicans want to eliminate capital gains & dividend taxes which would allow many of the richest to pay $0 in income taxes. Republicans are actually wanting the richest Americans to be free-loaders just like the poor...How ironic!

Your "calculator shows that a half billion" (actually $2/5 bilion) is more than enough for running a 38,500 student school system. If you know the solution to cost reduction, please present to us a completed budget and identify the specific items that can be reduced. Keep in mind that the budget must keep the equivalent level of service to the students. I'm sure your budget will be helpful for all of us "wasteful big spenders" and the status quo school board.

4Ed, you seem obsessed with the CCA budget. Have you called them or visited and asked for the info? And why does it matter to you since that school isn't funded a dime by CCSD? Contrary to what P has said, that school didn't take a dime away from CCSD in 2011-12 and won't next year either. You can't blame the charter school for the failings of the board to stretch a half Billion $$$ farther than they have.

Pay me $400,000/year, buy me a brand-new SUV, give me a 3-restaurant-meals/day per diem and my own personal chauffeur and I'll fix your budget.

good nite.

Wow, I missed a party last night! Steely, I just wanted to throw this in: Marlow did not say she'd look everywhere but the teachers. I attended the debate and remember the question posed to the candidates. Ms. Cromer mentioned that furloughs were the best option (versus layoffs) as they can change from year to year. Ms. Marlow stated that teachers need to be in the classrooms. I agree. However, there was NO mention of 'looking everywhere but the teachers for $$.' There is a simple solution to keeping teachers in the classroom year-round: salary cuts across the board. I believe this was the original question, and neither candidate confirmed - nor denied - that salary cuts are an option. However, Ms. Cromer was clear that the preferred, and better alternative, were furloughs. Ms. Marlow did not. Which leads me to believe... salary cuts could certainly be 'the new black' if certain BOE candidates are elected.

Steely, you keep using different numbers and I've pointed you to the correct numbers many times. But here it is again: http://portal.cherokee.k12.ga.us/departments/pr/OGP/BUDGET%20AND%20FINANCIAL%20DOCUMENTS/Executive%20Summary%20-%20Tentative%20Budget%202012-13.pdf (See page 12).

When posting a comment and making your case, it is better to go to the source document whenever possible instead of relying upon an article written by someone else. That way you'll have a better understanding of what the facts are. In this case, the article stated that the budget is $518.74 million. While that is technically correct in that CCSD expects to have that much in total funds to manage during the year, the budgeted expenses are only $422.9 million. FWIW, the school system is required by law to keep reserves and that is why they can't and aren't spending the full $518 million.

Further, when you look at just the General Fund, the cut from 2011-2012 to 2012-2013 school years is 4.2% ($303.1 m vs $290.4 m) and we're expecting even more students in 2012-2013 compared to the prior year. The increase in students actually makes the cut greater.