Lindsey Tippins, a Republican from west Cobb County, has resigned his chairmanship of the Senate Education Committee over legislation that he said treats charter schools more generously than public schools, the Marietta Daily Journal reports this morning.
When House Bill 787 passed on the final day of the 2018 session of the Legislature, only seven senators cast votes against it. Tippins was the only Republican to do so.
The bill increases per-student funding for charter schools, beyond what’s allotted for many public schools, which are required to take all comers.
According to the MDJ, Tippins told Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle he could not move the bill as the House passed it:
Tippins wanted to know how he would tell a school system such as Jeff Davis County, the lowest funded district in the state, which receives $6,952 per student, he was voting to raise the funding charter schools received from $8,415 to $8,816.
The Senate president green-lighted his chairman to make what changes he thought necessary. That happened. But then Tippins' GOP colleagues used a floor amendment to restore the bill to its original language. From the MDJ:
"[I]f that bill is reflective of their vision for education in the state of Georgia, they got the wrong person being the committee chairman," Tippins said. "Because I cannot further that vision. I want to be fair to charter schools, but I want to be fair to traditional public schools, which have to take every kid that walks in the door and have to provide an education for students regardless of what the challenges are."
It's worth pointing out that Tippins, an eight-year veteran of the Senate, previously served a dozen years on the Cobb County Board of Education.
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Our AJC colleague Leon Stafford reports that the leaders of the city of Stockbridge in Henry County are considering a lawsuit to stop an effort to carve a new city of Eagle's Landing out of Stockbridge's boundaries -- should Gov. Nathan Deal sign a bill the state Legislature passed last week. "We are exploring all of our options," Stockbridge spokeswoman Shana Thompson said Monday. "It is our hope that the governor will veto this because it is unfair to the citizens of Stockbridge." Read more here.
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Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue today kicks off a four-day swing through the Midwest, with stops planned at ag-related sites in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. This will be the third RV tour undertaken by the former Georgia governor since he was confirmed to the Cabinet last April.
One of us will be there for part of it, and we’d bet good money on him getting asked about the retaliatory tariffs that China slapped on many American agriculture exports on Sunday.
But it’s likely, too, that Perdue will be button-holed by a new constituency kicked in the shins by a Trump administration resort to tariffs: Small-town newspaper publishers.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced last month that the administration would levy duties of up to 32 percent on Canadian paper imports -- a huge blow to community publications already under intense economic pressure. The irony is that small newspapers in rural communities often cater to older readers who are fans of Donald Trump.
The tariff is in response to a complaint made by a single paper mill in Washington state, the North Pacific Paper Co., or NORPAC. We swapped emails this morning with Robert Williams, publisher and editor of the Blackshear Times on the Georgia coast -- "Liked by many, cussed by some, read by them all." Wrote Williams:
"It is a glaring and punishing flaw in U.S. trade law that the impact upon jobs in the 'downstream' markets, such as community newspaper newsprint buyers like me, are not formally taken into account. While NORPAC seeks a gain in its own small market, every congressional district and every state has jobs at risk.
"Community newspapers will be forced to struggle for survival by cutting jobs or possibly raising advertising rates that put our small business customers at risk. If newsprint prices go up, one unattractive option is reducing our space allotted for news and that is a disservice to our readers.
"It is obvious the feds haven't done their homework here to even adequately understand the situation. NORPAC's production would not gain from these sanctions. Its sales are in the western U.S., and most Canadian paper is sold in the East. More importantly, kicking off a downward spiral of newsprint production will ultimately hurt all producers.
"With the dwindling population and decline of locally-owned businesses in rural Georgia, this is just one more mountain for community newspapers to have to climb to serve our small towns."
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So you know that last Thursday and Friday, as the state Legislature was wrapping up its business, an Amazon delegation scouted multiple sites in metro Atlanta on Thursday and Friday as part of its site search for a second headquarters and the 50,000 high-paying jobs it could bring.
Which made a press release sent out by two veteran lobbyists at the state Capitol on Monday seem less innocuous than it might appear:
Amazon Funds New Breakfast Program for 1,000 Local Students in Fight Against Hunger
On Tuesday, Amazon surprised students at West Jackson Middle School in Jefferson with a "Breakfast Bananza" to celebrate the school's new breakfast program as a part of Amazon's Rise & Smile initiative.
It raises an interesting question: Exactly who is selling what to whom?
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On somewhat the same topic, we have this Twitter message from state Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta:
