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.

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.

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