House rejects amendment on charter schools

By Nancy Badertscher and Christopher Quinn

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

After intense lobbying and lively floor debate, state House members on Wednesday narrowly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would restore the state's power to approve charter schools.

The amendment's sponsors immediately announced plans to ask the House on Thursday to reconsider the 110-62 vote, which was 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required.

"We are not done by any stretch," said Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, R-Milton, the amendment's chief sponsor.

Charter and school choice supporters have been pushing for a constitutional amendment since last May, when the state Supreme Court, in a 4-3 opinion, declared that the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, created by lawmakers in 2008, did not have the authority to create or fund charter schools over the objections of local school boards.

School superintendents and school boards have argued that it is taxation without representation for money to be diverted from local school systems to support charter schools that weren't locally approved.

Lawmakers said they've been deluged from both sides with emails, phone calls and in-person appeals. The politicking among House members also has been fierce.

House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, in urging her colleagues to defeat or at least move slowly on the proposed amendment, said, "If we want to do what's right, we should not have arms twisted, hearts broken and names called."

Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, said the amendment has evoked the most intensive lobbying on an education issue that he's seen in his 12 years at the Capitol.

“I’m surprised they brought it up if the votes weren’t assured,” Garrett said. “The politicking will continue in front of and behind the scenes.”

Rae Anne Harkness, a DeKalb County parent of two charter school students, had sent lawmakers copies of an online petition with signatures from 1,000 amendment supporters. She was watching Wednesday's House debate on the Internet.

"I was devastated," Harkness said. "When I saw the vote count, it felt like my heart dropped and hit the floor."

In a lengthy floor debate, amendment supporters argued that the state has long had a role in education and needs the amendment to create charter schools.

"This simply reasserts that the state has the authority to do what it's been doing for 10 years," Jones said, urging passage of the amendment. "Georgia would have another tool to give students learning opportunities which cannot always be offered within attendance lines."

Lawmakers who oppose the amendment said it flies in the face of lawmakers' frequent claim that they believe in local control in education. Some also argued against doing anything that would take money from local school systems that are already dealing with several years of cuts in state funding.

"We talk about funding charter schools. When are we going to fund our traditional schools?" asked Rep. Roger Bruce, D-Atlanta. "When will we make that commitment?"

Jones told legislators the amendment would not take money from local systems, but opponents argued the amendment would open the door for future lawmakers to do that.

Jones and House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, another of the amendment's co-sponsors, blamed House Resolution 1162's defeat on misinformation.

"I would get these emails [from lobbyists]. I would read what they sent out and I would think to myself, ‘My God, I would vote against it, too, if it did what they said it would do,'" Jones said. "Yes, we had a hiccup in the battle today, but don't lose sight of [the fact] the majority of the House of Representatives today voted for the prospect of real change."

Some amendment supporters had ringside seats at the Capitol.

Nina Gilbert, the executive director of Gwinnett County's Ivy Preparatory Academy, said amendment supporters "are not going away, and we're not giving up."

Gilbert and other charter school supporters stood in the hallway outside the House chambers, calling their legislators out for quick lobbying conversations during the long floor debate.

Kylie Holley, principal of Pataula Charter Academy in South Georgia, said: "We will keep rallying until we get those 120 votes.

Holley's school was one of the state-chartered schools that lost 45 percent of its funding after the court ruling.