The Georgia House of Representatives voted Wednesday to pass legislation that would enable the state to implement a constitutional amendment on charter schools.
One problem: Legislation that would put that amendment before voters still has not cleared both the House and the Senate by a two-thirds majority, as is required for bills that would lead to a referendum.
And if Wednesday’s day-through-night slew of activity is any indication, charter schools and other school choice legislation -- a priority this session for the majority Republicans -- still faces a tough slog in the Senate.
“Discombobulated” is how Sen. Valencia Seay, D-Riverdale, described Republican efforts to push charter schools legislation through the Senate Wednesday.
The GOP has been pushing for a constitutional amendment on charter schools because the Georgia Supreme Court ruled last May that the state could not force local districts to pay for charter schools they did not approve.
Republicans believe local school districts have been slow in approving local charter schools.
All applications for charter schools were approved in 2004, but in 2010 40 of 80 applications for charter schools were rejected.
There are 162 charter schools in Georgia, and Rep. Rashad Taylor, D-Atlanta, said that number shows there is no emergency in funding charter schools.
The legislation passed by the House, House Bill 797, would allow parallel school systems to be created, he argued -- “one managed and funded by local school systems, and one managed and funded by the state.”
Not long after House Republicans passed the bill, which spells out that the state would pay for the charter schools it approves, the Senate briefly took up a separate bill to establish a charter schools advisory commission empowered to recommend the approval or rejection of applications for charter schools.
That measure, Senate Bill 501, would have charter schools get state funding. If local districts rejected applications that were approved by the advisory commission, they could lose state funding.
Individual school districts would have to get special permission from the state Board of Education to claim exclusive power to approve all charter school applications for schools in that district.
School districts making such a petition would have to notify the charter schools in their district, and the state board would consider how the district treated the charter schools in its midst in determining whether to grant that permission.
Democrats were poised for a rumble on SB 501, but it was yanked from the floor as soon as it was placed there.
Republicans, who control the chamber, decided to tack SB 501 onto the bottom of the evening’s calendar, giving them time to find more support for it. Just as likely, however, was the prospect that the Senate would adjourn for the evening without getting back to the bill.
By 10 p.m., the bill had not yet come up again for debate.
At that time, senators were heading toward what shaped up as a contentious debate on vouchers legislation, Senate Bill 87, that was sure to be strongly opposed by Democrats and just as strongly backed by Republicans.
But the Senate voted to table or postpone debate on the vouchers bill, which would expand the state-funded voucher system to include several different categories of students, including those in foster care, those with a disability, and those attending schools with low graduation rates.
Staff writer Christopher Quinn contributed to this article.
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