Several measures in the General Assembly take aim at school funding, landing direct hits on the budgets of Atlanta and DeKalb schools.
One is the proposed Opportunity School District, which, if approved by voters this year, would allow the state to wrest control of struggling APS and DeKalb schools and their funding streams.
Speaking to the press this week, APS school chief Meria Carstarphen warned the loss of a cluster of struggling schools to the state could take as much as $60 million from the district and hurt all the schools.
On top of that, a bill is pending that would force DeKalb and APS to lower their school taxes. The estimated loss to DeKalb could be $56 million; APS could lose $36 million. And APS is facing another piece of legislation that would let older taxpayers off the hook for school taxes, to the tune of $23 million in reduced funding.
To read about these proposals and why Carstarsphen says they are debilitating, go to the AJC Get Schooled Blog on MyAJC.com
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