The governor sold it as a deterrent against crime. TV commercials cast it as a lifeline for desperate families. The ballot language presented it as a path to improved academic performance.
None of that was enough to persuade voters to approve Amendment 1, the Opportunity School District.
In a bipartisan revolt, 60 percent of voters refused last Tuesday to grant the state sweeping new powers to seize control of schools and school taxes.
The ballot read: Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?
What voters apparently saw: Should the constitution be amended to allow the state to trample local control, seize local tax dollars and create a new bureaucracy to run schools deemed to be failing on the basis of tests yet proven to be reliable?
Georgians voted on four constitutional amendments. Amendments usually pass with ease because the ballot language is written by proponents, and, indeed, three of the four sauntered to success. Only Amendment 1 faltered.
That tells us voters were gunning for Gov. Nathan Deal’s state takeover plan. Its demise cannot be seen as an accident or the outcome of a befuddled electorate. It has to be recognized as a repudiation of another reform du jour promising salvation without providing substance.
Voters were understandably leery of turning over their schools and local tax dollars to an appointed OSD superintendent, who, in turn, could close the schools, pass them to private management companies or run them.
And that wariness was justified: Little evidence exists that state takeover works. Where improvement has occurred is also where communities regarded themselves as partners in the plan rather than captives to it.
Yes, opponents enjoyed an infusion of outside cash, but proponents still had an edge in the friendly ballot language that didn’t mention the state would not only take control of schools, but of local tax dollars. In the end, Georgians reaffirmed they value local control of their schools and their money. And they didn’t believe the state offered a compelling improvement strategy.
Two questions remain: Will Deal pursue legislative remedies to undercut local control and will he punish the education groups that crossed him on Amendment 1?
We saw evidence of the latter last month when Deal’s office requested every Georgia school district detail their payroll deduction process for dues in teacher groups — a possible intelligence-gathering mission to ban such deductions with the aim of driving down membership rolls of those teacher organizations.
“PAGE hopes those disappointed by the defeat of Amendment 1 will acknowledge that the ballot initiative was beaten fairly at the ballot box by Georgia voters. Petty attempts to retaliate against educators, parent volunteers, local school board members or others who worked to stop the OSD would be politically divisive and a needless distraction from the pressing work of ensuring all Georgia students have access to high quality public education,” said Allene Magill, executive director of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators.
Everyone understands the urgency to improve Georgia’s lowest performing schools, which educate the poorest children in the state.
Education reform will never succeed as long as the governor and Legislature continue to approach it as something done to Georgia educators rather than with them.
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