The campaign to defeat Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposed constitutional amendment to let the state intervene in chronically low-performing schools got another $3 million boost from national teachers unions over the past few weeks, according to disclosure reports filed Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a member of the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame recently gave $400,000 to the effort to pass the Opportunity School District amendment, which is on next week's ballot. And a Deal fund that doesn't disclose donors, Georgia Leads, chipped in another $550,000.
In total the pro-Amendment 1 committee had raised $2.6 million as of the beginning of last week, including $1.4 million from Georgia Leads, which was set up to push Deal's agenda. Much of the rest of the money has come from out-of-state school choice groups. Members of the Walton family, which founded Wal-Mart, have given millions of dollars across the country for charter school and other pro-school choice advocacy.
Meanwhile, opponents of the amendment have raised about $5 million. While the Committee to Keep Georgia Schools Local reported many small-money donors in October, the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, has been the main patron of the campaign. As of last week, the NEA had put $4.7 million into the effort to defeat the amendment.
Amendment 1 would enable an appointee of the governor to intervene in "chronically failing" schools using the local tax dollars that support them. Those schools would either be shuttered, run directly by a new statewide district or converted into charter schools under independent management.
Deal says passage will empower parents and teachers to “fix” bad schools and end an “inexcusable crisis” that has trapped more than 67,000 kids in a cycle of poverty and crime. That is how many students attend the nearly 130 schools with a “failing” grade three years running on the state’s scoring system — schools that could be taken over if the measure passes. He has made personal fundraising pitches and plugged the proposal across Georgia.
Teacher groups, the Parent Teacher Association and other opponents say Deal is making a “power grab” for those schools and the dollars that go with them. They say it removes the control of those schools from local boards and communities. Opponents filed a lawsuit in September over the wording of the ballot item and preamble for the proposed amendment.
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