Clairmont Heights Civic Association

From Jay Bookman in the AJC: "According to its backers, the proposed charter-school amendment on the ballot in November is intended to empower parents. As Gov. Nathan Deal put it back in May, “Georgians all across this state embrace the idea that parents should have more options and that parents should be more involved in the process of the education of their children.”  Parental involvement is good. Empowering parents is good. And charter schools have a legitimate, even important role to play in education in Georgia, which is why local school districts already have the power to create them, and why they continue to use that power. However, it’s one thing to embrace charter schools as an educational option. It is something else entirely to claim that creation of a new centralized state charter commission — a commission that is appointed, not elected, that has the capacity to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars, and that is not answerable to voters — somehow moves power closer to the people. It does exactly the opposite...." [Read more]