Maureen Downey of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that there are signs that Governor Nathan Deal’s attempt to change the state constitution to allow state takeovers of low-scoring schools and turn them over to charter corporations is running into a groundswell of unexpected opposition.
The public is waking up.
The ALEC privatization crowd thought they could dupe the people of Georgia into giving up local control of their schools. The amendment is deceptively worded as a way to “improve” schools when it is a bald-faced power grab by the charter industry. It is one of the ironies of our peculiar time that conservatives and rightwingers now fight to eliminate democracy and life cal control. This makes it easier to turn public money over to corporate charter chains.
This is the deceptive language of the amendment:
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?
( ) Yes
( ) No”
Deal calls it the “Opportunity School District,” when he really means the State Takeover District. It is modeled on Tennessee’s failed Achievement School District. There is zero evidence that a state takeover district improves test scores (“student performance”).
As Downey explains, the popular resistance is increasingly visible.
Here are one of the four signs that Downey identifies:
“This morning former Atlanta Mayor Andy Young and baseball legend Hank Aaron held a press event urging Georgians to reject the OSD. “We have to defeat this, we have to vote ‘no’ on Amendment 1,” said Aaron. Young took issue with Deal’s description of schools and students as failing. “Self-esteem is the basis of good education,” said Young. “To take that self-esteem away from families, teachers, principals and boards of education locally and turn it over to a corporate-oriented state structure is a sin and a shame and we cannot allow it.”
A great statement by an icon of the civil rights movement.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think at some point ed reformers have to IMPROVE public schools. That’s what they run on. They don’t run on inventing new “governance models” at conventions and inside think tanks. No one hired them to “create” a government. That’s an outrageous over-reach, especially for people who haven’t met the first goal, which was (supposedly) improving PUBLIC schools.
When does the “improving public schools” part start? After all schools are charter schools?
How can you run around calling yourself a “public education advocate” when you have zero interest in the schools that actually exist other than using them as data collection centers to push a political agenda?
You wound’t believe the discussion on the ed reform side of the ledger. They regularly discuss whether public schools should continue to exist AT ALL. It’s like they forgot to tell the public their schools have fallen out of fashion and are slated for replacement.
In Ohio, we were all told it was essential our kids sit for the incredibly long Common Core tests. Something like 95.5% of kids did that. They haven’t offered any “support” as a result of these numbers. In fact, they CUT funding to public schools and they’re charging ahead opening new charters. They’re using the scores to come up with yet another school grading system and that’s ALL they’re using them for. They’ll spend the next year on that. Meanwhile, the 93% of kids who attend public schools will be scolded about how they have to sit for these tests.
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