Community Corner

Better Georgia Weighs in on the Charter Schools Amendment

Better Georgia is a progressive advocacy organization working on a variety of issues that concern Georgians.

 

Find out what's happening in Athenswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Charter schools are often a great choice for students.

But like most Georgians, we believe that decisions on how local education dollars should be spent ought to be made by parents in the communities where those students live and by the school boards they elect.

On Nov. 6, you will be asked to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for an amendment to Georgia’s constitution.

You are not voting for or against charter schools.

Instead, you are voting for or against the creation of a new, costly, and unnecessary state bureaucracy.

Vote ‘No’ to stop the creation of the new government agency.

Over the past decade, our state government has cut more than $1 billion from the state budget in money that is sent to local school boards for K-12 education.

Now, the state government wants to change our constitution to take away your right to elect those who decide how scarce education tax dollars are spent.

In fact, if the bureaucrats get their way, we’ll have a new, state-level, Atlanta-based agency to tell you and your neighbors how to spend your education tax dollars.

You won’t elect these people. You won’t be able to fire these people. You may never see these people set foot in your community. But the members of this unnecessary government agency may stand to profit from their decisions.

Better Georgia believes this is wrong.

And we’re not alone.

Here’s who else wants you to vote ‘No’ on Amendment 1:

And, that’s not all. Who else wants you to vote ‘No’ on Amendment 1? These school boards, educators and professionals:

Find out what's happening in Athenswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In fact, 69 percent of Georgia voters we asked said they are opposed to granting the state more control over education tax dollars raised by local city and county school boards.

Who wants you to vote ‘Yes’ on Amendment 1?

  • Wal-Mart
  • Multinational Conglomerate Koch Industries
  • 10 big-dollar out-of-state donors
  • Gov. Nathan Deal, and legislators Don Balfour and Chip Rogers

More than 92 percent of money contributed to the ‘Yes’ campaign comes from donors outside of Georgia. And that’s just the money they’re telling us about!

It seems that the only people who support Amendment 1 are state government bureaucrats, lawmakers who want a new way to spend your tax dollars and out-of-state corporations who are hovering like vultures, eager to make a profit off Georgia’s children.

That's money that will come straight out of your pocket.

Please join Better Georgia as we fight to keep Georgia’s lawmakers from increasing the size of government bureaucracy while shrinking the budget for local schools.

We don’t need another government agency to tell us how to educate our children or how to spend our tax dollars.

A ‘No’ vote on Amendment 1 will keep the control over schools in your community with your community leaders.

 

 

If you are interested in more articles on charter schools, go to the Athens Patch topics page on charter schools and the amendment.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here