Party allegiance a boon — and a challenge — for Wilson

Political experience: member of the City Schools of Decatur school board from 2002 to 2011

Family: married (Carter); one son (Nicholas)

As a Democratic candidate for Georgia school superintendent, Valarie Wilson is straight out of central casting.

Warm smile. Affable. Happy to dole out the hugs and kisses that are a politician’s stock and trade.

She’s got a what-brought-me-to-politics story any suburban mom would love: The tough choice she faced, a decade ago, when she was trying to decide if she should enroll her then-rising middle school student in a private school or the local public middle school, whose reputation was less than stellar. (Wilson chose the public school, ran for a seat on the local school board to get more involved, won, and later concluded that the middle school’s poor reputation wasn’t deserved.

And there is zero daylight between Wilson’s policy prescriptions and those of the party: More state funding for local school districts; less focus on school choice options like charter schools, and scorn for programs that give a public benefit like a tax credit to those who underwrite private school tuition.

Ultimately, however, that adherence to party orthodoxy could prove to be Wilson’s biggest challenge.

The July 22 runoff between Wilson and state Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, D-Austell, could come down to whether voters prefer Wilson’s all-Democrat-all-the-time approach or Morgan’s robust support for school choice, which has put her in the political cross-hairs of many in her party.

Wilson, 55, is leaning on relationships she made during her time on the City Schools of Decatur school board. Many in metro Atlanta also know her through her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Wilson, Decatur’s first black mayor.

Valarie Wilson is a former president of the Georgia School Boards Association and has worked as director of Fulton County’s Office of Aging and as director of the county’s Human Services Department. Currently, she’s employed as the executive director of the Atlanta Beltline Partnership, a private, nonprofit organization that backs urban revitalization.

As a candidate for state superintendent, Wilson supports the national set of academic standards known as Common Core. Georgia is one of the more than 40 states that have agreed to adhere to the standards, which some political conservatives have criticized as a federal intrusion into state control over public education.

Georgia was once part of a group of states designing a new standardized test tied to Common Core, but, citing concerns about the cost of the new test, Gov. Nathan Deal and Superintendent John Barge pulled Georgia out of that group. Wilson said that was a mistake.

The central plank of Wilson’s campaign platform is a call for more state funding for traditional public schools, something Democrats have been advocating for many years.

Superintendents, however, have no direct control over how much state funding districts receive; that’s the purview of state legislators. Barge made the pitch for more funding to his fellow Republicans, but legislators continued to give districts less money than the state’s funding formula called for them to receive.

It is unclear how Wilson, a Democrat, would gain more traction with legislators who aren’t in her party.

“I’m proud of the number of legislators who have endorsed me,” Wilson said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I believe those people will work along with me to help. I know you say, ‘Those are Democrats.’ But I do think there are Republican legislators as well who feel this way.”

Some of those who support Morgan say she would be more effective than Wilson in working with Republicans, a necessity in a state where the GOP dominates.

Two years ago, Wilson joined others in her party in opposing an amendment to the state constitution that clarified Georgia’s authority to create charter schools. Morgan bucked her party and backed the amendment, arguing that voters — including Democrats — want school options expanded.

The amendment was approved by a large majority, with nearly six in 10 voters supporting the change.

“Alisha represents a new brand of leadership that pushes politics aside,” said Atlanta Public Schools board member Courtney English. “That’s the kind of leadership that we need. We can’t keep doing the same things and looking for different results.”

Wilson said charter schools won’t fix what ails the state’s public education system. What Wilson describes as the fixes — ending teacher furloughs, returning to a 180-day school calendar — require money, she said.

“For too long in Georgia, we have shortchanged our children,” Wilson said. “I think that we need to make the significant investment necessary to make sure that all of our children are successful. I think education has to be a priority.”