Charter School Resolution Passes

Score No. 1 for charter schools.

By a vote of 123-48, the state House of Representatives today approved legislation that would allow Georgians to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to restore the state's power to approve charter schools, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The measure, which failed on Feb. 8, now must go before the Senate for a vote.

Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers said that the resolution will be sent to the Senate Education Committee first. He was asked if he thought the resolution had the necessary support in the Senate.

"We certainly hope so," he told Alpharetta-Milton Patch editor Bob Pepalis. "This is a referendum and the voters should have the opportunity to voice their opinion on this very important matter."

House Democrats proposed changes to the legislation, known as House Resolution 1162. Their version, House Resolution 1335, was intended to create an alternate authorizer for charter schools without damaging Georgia’s public school system, said Sophie Loghman, the communications director for the Georgia House Democratic Caucus.

Today's vote was the result of compromise on both sides of the aisles.

“The House Democratic Caucus fought to protect local control, and the new concessions are a step in the right direction,” Caucus Chairman Brian Thomas said. “We negotiated to improve a fatally flawed bill that stripped funds from local schools and given a blank slate to political appointees creating new schools. Our Caucus sought to protect local funds and local control, and we are pleased that this negotiation was prevailed.”

In May, a Supreme Court of Georgia ruling essentially dissolved the Georgia Charter School Commission. The May 16 decision, which overturned a Fulton County court’s ruling, found that the Georgia Constitution gives local school boards exclusive control of education and that the one exception specified in the Constitution, “special schools,” applies only to schools addressing special needs, such as schools for the blind or the deaf.

Schools such as Cherokee Charter Academy were left in the lurch, but eventually secured the approval and the funding they needed to open.

Stay tuned to Canton-Sixes Patch for details.