It's a good day for charter school supporters as Georgia's House of Representatives passed the charter school legislation, 123-48.
If the Senate approves the measure, which failed Feb. 8, voters will have the ability to decide whether states should have more authority to create charter schools.
Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) said the resolution will be sent to the Senate Education Committee first. He was asked if he thought the resolution had the necessary support in the Senate.
"We certainly hope so," Rogers said. "This is a referendum, and the voters should have the opportunity to voice their opinion on this very important matter."
The Governor made it part of his legislative agenda, Rogers said.
"Students deserve as many high quality options as possible," he said. "Giving students more options is always better than restricting their options."
Rogers said it will help current and future charter schools.
"Most importantly, it will help Georgia's children," he said.
The vote, which surpassed the two-thirds majority needed on legislation, came just two weeks after charter schools backers in the House fell 10 votes short of the needed majority, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The House Democrats began with HR 1335 and today's decision of HR 1162 is a compromise of both parties.
“The House Democratic Caucus fought to protect local control, and the new concessions are a step in the right direction,” said Caucus Chairman Brian Thomas (D-Lilburn). “We negotiated to improve a fatally flawed bill that stripped funds from local schools and given a blank slate to political appointees creating new schools. Our Caucus sought to protect local funds and local control, and we are pleased that this negotiation was prevailed.”
Cherokee Charter Academy was denied funding from the Cherokee County School District after a May ruling by the Supreme Court of Georgia gave local school boards control over funding for charter schools. The county charter school found funding elsewhere for this school year.
Cheryl
5:55 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Where is the money going to come from? Policy without funding is a joke. This is taking local control away from the people. Charter schools have a place in the educational process. If the local people wanted one, there would be enough support locally to have one. Hopefully, the people of the state will vote this down. What a waste of time to even put it on the ballot. I am very disappointed the the Cherokee legislatures supported this.
Get it right
5:51 pm on Thursday, February 23, 2012
Well you know Chip Rogers has wanted this for a long time...why is he pushing Charter schools so heavily in Cherokee County? So glad the Democrats did not let get away with this! The first bill was going to allow this: "...stripped funds from local schools and given a blank slate to political appointees creating new schools. Our Caucus sought to protect local funds and local control, and we are pleased that this negotiation was prevailed.” I think he's also behind all of this mess with our school board members, since they voted down giving funds to his Charter school.