Atlanta school board urges 'no' vote Nov. 6 of state constitutional amendment on charter schools

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The Atlanta Board of Education announced Tuesday that it had approved Mondaya resolution opposing the proposed constitutional amendment on charter schoolsthat goes before voters on the November ballot. The school board urged votersto reject the amendment on Nov. 6.

Instead the school board urged that thegovernor and state legislators commit their support to adequately fund aquality K-12 public education for students in Atlanta Public Schools and acrossthe State of Georgia.
The resolution also called forthe governor and legislators “to acknowledge the traditional andlocally-approved charter schools that have offered quality choice andoutstanding performance; to support the system currently in place for appealingand funding locally-denied charter schools and to focus on improving andsupporting what works rather than creating a wasteful redundancy at thetaxpayers’ expense.”

The resolution as approved by the school boardstates “the Atlanta Board of Education believes thatquality public education for every child helps to develop social skills,encourages collaboration between people from diverse cultural and economicbackgrounds and lays the foundation for success in college and life…and thatpublic education is the cornerstone of a democratic society and …publicinterest is best served when local elected officials represent the will oftheir constituency.”

The resolution goes on to state the school board “believesthat one size does not fit all and that it is the responsibility of the localdistrict and locally elected board to provide quality choices for students andbelieves that these quality choices may be traditional or charter schools.”

The board pointed out it has adopted a policy insupport of authorizing high quality charter schools and “after extensive localreview and deliberation, approved more start-up charter schools than any otherdistrict in the state.” 

The board resolution points out “the state ofGeorgia’s economic condition has resulted in a significant decline in statefunding for public schools that serve the educational needs of over 90 percentof Georgia’s children and the creation of additional, state-approved charterschools, rather than locally approved charters, will cause a significantfurther reduction in state funding for all public schools in Georgia,traditional and charter.

“Further erosion of the state’s financial supportfor public education serves to deepen existing inequalities and diminishes theopportunities for every child to receive a quality education, which is his orher right as a citizen,” the resolution states.

In a separate news release Tuesday, theGeorgia Federation of Teachers announced it supported the Georgia ParentTeacher Association’s opposition to the amendment.