The fight over the state’s role in charter schools started in many ways at Cherokee Charter Academy. So it was fitting Thursday that Gov. Nathan Deal was at the school to establish the next battleground in the dispute, with the stroke of a pen.
Flanked by students and the 6-member Cherokee County delegation that pushed House Bill 797 through the legislature, Deal signed it into law, putting the charter schools question up to voters as a proposed amendment on the statewide ballot in November.
If passed, the amendment will give the state the power to start charter schools without the approval of local school boards. The Cherokee Board of Education two weeks ago passed a resolution against the proposed amendment and two citizens groups have formed to oppose it as well.
The charter battle came to this north metro county last year after the Georgia Supreme Court threw out a state law that gave the state charter creating authority.
The Cherokee Board of Education then rejected, for the third time, a proposal to start Cherokee Charter Academy. The state then stepped in and provided the funding for Cherokee Charter Academy to open its doors last August.
Deal framed the debate as a question whether parents should have a choice to send their children to charter or "legacy" public schools, which are both funded by taxpayers, rather than the argument some have tried to make it: that the state isn't fully funding "legacy" public schools so it has no business spending money to start charters.
“Georgia parents want more options, and it is my duty as governor to see that they have them,” said Deal. “These schools help students trapped in under-performing schools and aid communities that want to invest in new and imaginative ways of learning for their children.”
School boards in two other counties have passed resolutions similar to Cherokee's opposing the amendment. Deal said the turf battle between the state and local school boards is beside the point.
"Parents, quite frankly, are the ultimate local control," said Deal. "We hear that term quite a bit, but in the end parents are the ultimate local control."
In Cherokee the fight has spilled into the Cherokee legislative delegations redrawing of the school board districts and governance model.
As a result, two of the most outspoken critics of state chartered schools, chairman Mike Chapman, and vice-chair, Janel Read, have been redistricted out of their posts.
The leader of the Cherokee County Republican Party's Charter School Committee, Danny Dukes, said Thursday he's considering running for school board chairman.
Last year the local Republican Party demanded that the four board members, including Chapman and Read, who rejected Cherokee Charter Academy, resign from the party.
The leader of the delegation, George State Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), said Thursday he didn't understand how the board members could be opposed to that most American, and Republican, of ideas -- putting it up to a public vote.
"It's a conservative idea to give parents a choice," said Rogers. "It's up to the people to let their voices be heard, and that's all this legislation did. I don't understand why, as Republicans, they are opposed to that."
Carol Taylor, president of Cherokee People Advocating for the New for Transparent Funding of our Schools, said Rogers' comments ducked the issue. "We're not opposed to choice, or charter schools," she said. "This is about funding. The state doesn't have the money and they can't tell us where it's coming from."
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