In its recently adjourned session, the 2008 General Assembly approved a bill that would allow the state to hijack local education tax dollars and divert those dollars to educators and entrepreneurs to start a charter school.

The idea is bad policy, and it may also violate the state constitution. As an advocate of local governance, Gov. Sonny Perdue ought to protect the power of locally elected school boards to control locally generated dollars by vetoing House Bill 881.

HB 881 represents part of a dangerous trend. Increasingly, legislators have tried to wrest control of local taxes away from communities under the arrogant notion that they are better qualified than local officials to spend the money. That's a very strange posture for a collection of hotheads who have proved themselves incapable of handling their own responsibilities, such as addressing health care and transportation. The idea that they should also try to usurp the responsibilities of other government officials is downright ridiculous.

Charter schools are independent schools —- some run by teachers or public systems, others by for-profit companies —- that are allowed to operate with public tax money but with far fewer regulations. Under current law, charter school applicants make their case to the local boards of education, and, if rejected there, can appeal to the state school board.

However, if a charter school application is rejected at the local level but approved by the state, it can collect only state tax dollars.

Charter schools provide a valuable alternative, and Georgia could use more such programs. However, HB 881 is not the way to do it.

With sleight-of-hand language, HB 881 creates a new layer of state government —- a special commission —- that can overrule a local school board and force it to send local tax dollars to finance a charter school.

"If a charter school popped up in a small rural system, it could take half the local monies," warns Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association. "We think this thing is riddled with opportunities for abuse."

HB 881 also dilutes accountability. Today, voters who believe their school board is improperly blocking charter schools can vote that board out. But HB 881 puts immense power in the hands of an appointed commission that will make decisions in a high-rise office building many miles from the communities where the charter schools will operate.

"Great state and local partnerships produce great results," Perdue once said. HB 881 is not partnering. It's commandeering.

—- Maureen Downey, for the editorial board (mdowney@ajc.com)