Parents and students plan a rally at the state Capitol Wednesday, hoping to convince lawmakers to give money and momentum to the school-choice movement.
Organizers say at least 1,500 people registered by late Monday to gather at the Statehouse, which is set to coincide with National School Choice Week.
The main objective is to push a constitutional amendment dealing with state-approved charter schools, though rally participants also will be touting virtual and home schools, as well as special-needs scholarships and tax credits for private school scholarships, said Nina Rubin, spokeswoman for the Georgia Charter School Association.
The state’s small but vocal charter school movement was dealt a major blow last year when the state Supreme Court said charter school applicants could not circumvent resistant local school boards by going to the State Charter School Commission for approval. The ruling also freed local school systems from having to help fund state-approved charter schools in their community, a decision that left several schools scrambling to find money to stay open.
“The whole dilemma about how to fix the Supreme Court decision has engaged a lot more schools and parents,” Rubin said.
Republicans introduced a constitutional amendment Thursday to override the Supreme Court decision.
Local school boards and superintendents are planning to oppose the amendment as well as other school-choice proposals floating in the Legislature.
Radio ads and robo calls have been promoting Wednesday's rally, which organizers expect to be double the size of an impromptu Capitol rally after last May’s Supreme Court ruling. Rally speakers will include Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, a vocal supporter of school choice, organizers said
After the rally, participants will be in the Capitol, speaking with lawmakers, Rubin said.
“We want to tell them the human stories so they can understand the issues better and so they know we have a growing army of parents who are demanding better options for their kids.”
Shelby McDonald, mother of a first grader at Atlanta Heights Charter School, said she is looking forward to the chance to meet with legislators.
“I want them to look me in the face and tell me why I don’t deserve a choice … why my six-year-old doesn’t deserve the best education possible,” McDonald said.
She said her daughter Sydney is thriving in the charter school environment, already reading on a third-grade level.
“The public schools have had so many years to get it right, and they are still not getting it right,” she said. “Parents need more options.”
Shortly after the state Supreme Court ruling, Gov. Nathan Deal pledged $10 million as a short-term bailout for the state-approved charter schools.
He's since submitted budget proposals to lawmakers that give state charter schools $8.7 million this year and next, giving them time to see how the constitutional amendment would fare.
Passage of a constitutional amendment is tougher than most other bills because it requires two-thirds votes of approval in both the House and Senate before being presented to voters for their consideration, approval.
Angela Palm, lobbyist for the Georgia School Boards Association, said her group supports locally approved charter schools.
“We have a problem with trying to support parallel schools [the state chooses to approve],” Palm said.
In the debate, she said, “we shouldn’t lose sight of the choice that is offered” with magnet schools, locally approved charter schools and schools within schools.
“School choice should never be defined only as vouchers or something that is antagonistic to children in a local school district, which seems to be the way it is coming down,” Palm said.
Other initiatives pending before the legislature are springboards off the ongoing choice debate. For example, House Majority Whip Ed Lindsey, R-Atlanta, recently dropped a a parent trigger bill.
Lindsey’s bill would allow a majority of the parents at a public meeting to vote to petition the local school board for their school to become a charter school, providing it meets certain criteria. Some say it’s unclear, however, whether the school board would have to act on that parent vote. Similar legislation has died previously.
Lawmakers also could be at odds this session over whether to continue giving extra money to school systems that decide to follow the charter model of flexibility and greater decision-making at the school level. A bill pending from last year calls for stripping charter districts of an incentive passed in the final minute of the 2008 legislative session, amounting to about $88 per student per year.
Members of a state commission looking at all aspects of school financing have suggested that the state cannot continue offering the incentive, particularly now that larger school systems, such as Fulton, are considering becoming charters. Fulton, if approved, as a charter system would receive about $9 million a year through the incentive law.
Palm said she's yet to see evidence this year that there will be much of a push for school choice initiatives this year.
"I actually sense less support this year than I've seen in a while," Palm said. She said that may be because lawmakers seem eager to get their work done quickly and get home.
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