Controversial commission wins national award

By D. Aileen Dodd

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia’s newest charter schools authorizer has received a national award for growing campuses focused on excellence.

The Georgia Charter Schools Commission was recently named a winner of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers Fund for Authorizing Excellence Awards. The commission is one of three government bodies to receive the award, which comes with a $35,000 grant funded by the Walton Family Foundation. The Milwaukee Common Council and the Indianapolis Mayor’s office also won the honor.

The commission was established by legislators in 2008 and given the power to authorize new charter schools. The agency also can get its charters funded like any other public school in the state.

The commission approved its first two charter schools Ivy Preparatory Academy, an all-girls school in Norcross and the Charter Conservatory for Liberal Arts and Technology in Statesboro over the summer. Both campuses had been previously rejected by their local school boards. The schools  received a matching share of local funds for students carved from the state allocations of the public school districts they left behind. The re-allocation prompted two lawsuits to be filed against the commission and other state officials by impacted districts.