Imagine that, some mindless poster on this board claiming to know more about education than people who have studied it for decades and those who practice it everyday.

In other shocking news, the desert is dry.

Just because you have been to school doesn't mean you have a clue how it works, much less how students learn.

[quote][b]RightWingExtremist[/b] - Alas, you should not throw stones in a glass house my friend.[/quote]

That doesn't even make sense. But some unionized teacher would have told you that your logic, even hidden behind such eloquent aphorisms, is, in fact, not logical. Is that the source of the disrespect? Mr. Yarbourgh is suggesting the very lesson you propose. You get that, right?

[quote][b]RightWingExtremist[/b] - Our state legislature isn't starving our school systems, it's the ineptitude on display in the Metro Atlanta Area that starves the life out of our schools.[/quote]

Your state legislature is definitely starving our schools. Since Sonny's reign, the dismantling of the state's constitutional obligations to our children have been systematically and deceptively undone. This has been exacerbated by the economic crisis and the subsequent attack on the public sector at all levels of government. I am sad that you too are under the spell of propaganda. You understand that teachers in Georgia cannot be in a union, right? We, Georgians, love the right to work. How many teachers do you know? Sadly, the injury caused by your lack of respect, the lack of respect of kids, and the frustrations caused by the Gold Dome make that massive paycheck just not worth it for most teachers?

@T J Haas: Americans used to believe in community, Mr. Haas. They used to understand their responsibilities to their neighbors. You apparently have reduced all community to economic relationships and abandoned your obligations to our community. What a shame! You understand that schools can never operate under the principles of competition, and you understand Adam Smith advocated for government spending on behalf of the public good, right? You have read Smith, right? Taxes are not confiscation, not stealing.
Vouchers do not implement capitalist principles. In the free market, those who produce can determine the value of what they sell. They can determine the raw materials and labor used in the creation of a product. None of this is available to the public school teacher. Unlike your vision of educating a few at the expense of your neighbors, teachers who serve the community must accept ALL students, no matter the flaws. They must accept those with disabilities, those who lack your wealth, and those who make mistakes (or as you say, those who sin). Public school teachers cannot change these things as a CEO can. That is just the production side. Once the product is created, according to capitalism, the market will determine the winner if all restrictions are removed. Are all students, even those who receive vouchers to attend sub-par private schools, going to be tested in the same way to determine the worth of the product? Hardly. Unfortunately the market is not really what you want. Please reconsider your constitutional responsibility to ALL of Georgia's children. Please consider the interests of others before yourself. Amazingly all of those "incompetent" and "union-controlled" public school teachers have discovered that gospel.

The Catholic Church has a single doctrine, hierarchy of clergy, etc. Every church follows the same principles, beliefs, and practices. Of course, diversity submits to these top-down realities; otherwise this would not be Catholicism. The nature of the Baptists is that each church is different and makes its own rules. Therefore if cultures differ, they split apart. Comparing the two is unfair. Perhaps both the Catholics and Baptists are necessary to teach all how to get along.

@fixit: If you think public-school principals cause this, you have no idea how public education works. Please turn your attention to Atlanta and find, oh, any legislator to blame for overcrowding, poor curriculum, etc. The chorus of failing public education is tired and sad. It has been a myth since the beginning. It is amazing how some Americans fail to see the value in their neighbors.

[quote][b]fixit[/b] - Public school administrators are not "educators." As a group, they don't teach and they block implementation of the management tools that every other industry relies on[/quote]

Insane. You understand they are not producing machine-made goods, right? Principals and teachers train, educate, and care for people, for children. They do not monitor machines, implement science to serve greed, or eliminate the raw materials and inefficiencies not conducive to profit. Get over yourself. These folks serve people, not pocketbooks. They have not the freedoms of CEO's.

Like our student evaluations, these evaluations attempt to quantify something that cannot be quantified. Teaching is an art, not a science. The more arbitrary numbers assigned to teachers and students, the more the schools can be deemed failing. We will know less about ourselves, what our kids know, and how to teach. The ultimate goal is to destroy the institution born alongside our Constitution--public education--not to make school better. Thank you, NCLB! It's your birthday, and we are all the worse for it.

John Locke, not God, authored the natural rights of life, liberty and property based on the idea that humans are born without predetermined tendencies, such as original sin--a fundamental Christian belief. Atheist and Deist ideas permeated the Enlightenment and the minds of the founding fathers. Certainly none were fundamentalist Christians of this century. Why does the Bible (the inherent word of God), for instance, fail to condemn slavery, if God was on the side of life, liberty, and property? Perhaps we should also mention that the perpetrators of the American Revolution, and the founders of Jamestown, acted in order to make some folks rich, the very thing Christ notes as a stumbling block to faith. The Gospel is not Adam Smith. When reason is used to justify America's religious origins, folks at least have the decency to point to the good Calvinists of New England. But always we have substituted our politics for true faith. Someone needs to move those history books to the fiction aisle, and possible the politics away from fundamentalist dogma.

[quote][b]kayron4[/b] - On average, a public
charter school receives 62% of the funding that is spent per student by traditional schools.[/quote]

Again, more deceptive statistics. 100% of charter funding will come from the State, while the State is now funding only about 40% of each child's education. So the state is going to pay over twice as much to educate the children on its choosing and leave the rest behind. Where will the money come from? From the money collected by the state to educate ALL of Georgi'a children, not to educate a SELECT FEW. Shame, Kayron, shame.

[quote][b]Lee Becker[/b] - Sen. Bill Cowsert's comments i[/quote]

It is a shame Cowsert and Williams lacked the courage to stand up for Georgia's children. I guess the corporate interests and the Deal pressure was too great. Cowsert has also said that the amendment, if passed, would not affect Oconee schools. This is absurd. Where will the money come from? How will the State, which cannot adequately fund students' education today, find twice as much to send to charter schools, with little to no accountability? Education is not the issue; it is all about giving the most money to the students the State finds worthy. The Gold Dome simply does not think the Constitution is right; they see no responsibility to educate ALL our kids. It is sad especially since public education was an American idea from the beginning. Even those who feared big government the most--Jefferson, etc--were adamant that public education was essential.

@jrtank: Historically most Americans have been very clear and united on the issue that slavery to the government would happen only when we stop educating ALL of our kids. Thanks for supporting this, jr. Why abandon your responsibility to ALL Georgia's students and use the salaries of a handful of administrators to eliminate opportunity for children. Ah yes, because some children are worth educating and some are not. Herein lies the promise of this amendment and our shady Gold Dome.

@Save our Republic: You understand you are defying your name. The founders believed that public education funded adequately for ALL students was essential to the preservation of the republic. You are advocating separating some students for "better" education than others, though the numbers don't even support that. If everyone those with the self-interest as you, unable to see beyond their own home, our Republic would cease to exist. Even Jefferson, who defended small government, equal rights, and yes slavery, believed that all kids should be educated and it was the COMMUNITY's responsibility. The charter school idea is built upon segregation of students: those whose parents can provide transportation v. those who folks cannot, those who have special needs, and those who don't meet certain criteria (or as the charter folks call it, a lottery system). Why not give the freedom from bureaucracy (which was created by the pro-charter folks) to ALL children, teachers, and parents? Why not make every school a charter school? This would be only fair. Shame on our state for promoting lies and deception, while ignoring our responsibilities to the next generation.

@hardrocker: This is a great idea to remedy the excess bureaucracy that the "Vote Yes" folks have been crying against. The number of counties in Georgia has often limited our ability to make good things happen. But then you might have a larger number of folks disconnected from the political process, which has driven so many in metro Atlanta to lash out against school boards. It is a tough problem. I trust no one at the Dome to make a reasoned, honest decision. Everything is a veil for corruption, greed, etc.

[quote][b]jrtank[/b] - ou have to ask youself why are local school boards so afraid? I meant they are doing such a great job don't you think?[/quote]
They are afraid because no longer will local people be able to make decisions about the education of their own children. They are afraid because they know what great things happen in "failing" schools and understand the hard work of teachers in the face of moronic and ignorant criticism based on a faulty narrative of failing public education that has dominated our discourse since 1957. They are afraid because they know that teachers serve students better than corporations who prey upon the American Dream in order to get rich. They are afraid because the State has eliminated their ability to educate children and is now demonizing them for failing kids. Between Perdue and now Deal, the State has ruined opportunity for so many (and this was not caused by economic recession). That is the source of the fear.

[quote][b]armamentalist[/b] - more schools means more choices for parents[/quote]
Who gets to choose? Some parents do, if they win the "lottery" that charters use as a guise to select students. The corporations that will have a fast track to tax dollars, they will have more choices. Sure. But if you cannot transport your child, if your child has special needs, etc., you have fewer choices, because the likelihood that your neighborhood school can withstand the elimination of funding that will increase dramatically from this commission is simply not possible. It is all about the state choosing who wins and who loses. Rather than funding education for ALL students and giving ALL students opportunity, the proponents have redefined "choice." Shame on us, for abandoning the next generation.

@kayron4: I am assuming while completely ignoring the total number of special education students served by charters. Given the source of such stats and his propensity to lie, cheat, steal, should you think a little more critically about the numbers? Even if you believe the numbers, should we change our constitution for 2.3%?
Oh wait, your ilk made the ballot question and is banking on the fact that no one thinks critically. Why NOT give the freedom granted to charters to ALL schools and ALL students? Why only give those benefits to some kids? Ah yes, because it would eliminate the privileges and kickbacks to the crooks running this state. Some kids privileged, some kids left behind. This is what the GOP legislature dreams about.

@kayron4: This is nonsense. Where is the money going to come from? It will come from education dollars at the state level and not be RETURNING to the local schools. Is state tax money not local money? Why do you think charters spend less: no buses, no special ed, no lawyers. All of the burdens are placed on the parents. This would be fine if all parents could shoulder this burden, but many simply cannot. You are advocating leaving those kids behind. Shame.

Any teacher can tell you what administrative positions are unnecessary, but every teacher can also tell you that no one at the state level has any idea about what happens in a school. The local money taken by this proposed charter commission will not affect the local system bureaucracy; it will simply increase class sizes and injure students. But the state legislature and our local representatives agree that such is not a big deal, and this is why teachers trust them even less than the local bureaucrats. Don't use the need for reform to injure children. Make good changes that help kids, and for goodness sake, consult a teacher or two. Jones, Lindsey, Deal--none of them have a clue except for who contributes to their reelections.

Could it be that such an increase bureaucracy was needed to manage the endless stream of tests proposed by folks like Scafidi, who simply want to confirm the social order and "prove" that schools have failed? Could it be that such bureaucracy is needed to defend the children from folks such as Scafidi? Would classroom teachers, while monitoring and teaching the children, be coordinating with the stream of lawyers that school systems face on a daily basis?
Certainly bureaucracy needs to be trimmed and monitored when necessary, but how does the charter school amendment solve that? How does creating a new commission of cronyism and a new brand of bureaucrat eliminate bureaucracy? How many hundreds of thousands of dollars did the principal (or is it CEO) in Orlando make to close a failed charter?
The bureaucracy has exploded in order to defend the existence of public schools and the education of ALL children from those like Scafidi, who find such democracy illegitimate? Defending one's existence is why administrators exist and why teachers quit. Until folks like Scafidi eliminate the dream for all except those they choose, they will still oppress schools and make learning even more daunting.
Simply put, Scafidi wants the money made by principals to be banked by corporations, who, through this amendment, are making their pathway to state money easier and any future accountability of such money entirely nonexistent. What about the free market, Scafidi? Doesn't wealth stem from hard work or it just a product of the shady-ness that wrote this ballot?

[quote][b]jimgeiser3[/b] - Let's also remember that independent charter schools ARE public schools --so this amendment also supports public education as the foundation of our Republic.[/quote]
This is not true. The promise of education was for ALL children. Simply because a corporation will take public taxpayer money to offer education to a select few does not make it public.

[quote][b]jimgeiser3[/b] - Just a reminder that our current system is not serving ALL children. With 1 in 3 kids not graduating--our current system is failing large numbers of our children.[/quote]

Of course, the system is not working. It is not working because of the very people demanding charters. They have eliminated creativity through standards, eliminated good teaching through standardized testing, and now claiming that public education has failed. The failure of American public education is a narrative used by people with an agenda, which rarely involves helping kids. If our model has failed, why do the the nations with the "best" schools use our model? If charters are great, why not allow such freedom to ALL teachers, administrators, and students? Why must we choose which kids get the greatness of a charter and which kids do not. It is America; we educate ALL kids (see above).

Cadman claims that parents have little recourse because they only vote 3 times during a child's schooling. Does she understand that being involved in our democratic process is more than voting? That she can communicate with school boards, attend meetings, and work for change in traditional schools? That a an elected school board is more accountable to voters and parents than a mysterious commission? Does Cadman believe that handing over state money to a state-appointed commission (Deal's most recent appointees/cronyism) will increase parental voice for those left behind once the charters receive twice as much money as the traditional school? Does she think that Florida voters had a more significant say in several hundred thousand dollars were awarded to a principal of a failed charter simply to shut down the school last week? Cadman and her ilk are simply unbelievable and most definitely un-American.

[quote][b]jimgeiser3[/b] - we need quality educational competition[/quote]
We have covered this more than one can imagine. But the charter commission will not increase competition. Children are not raw materials that can be manipulated and rejected if not suitable to the creation of a new product. The Charter Commission simply eliminates a level playing field, allowing some schools (charters) to receive more money to self-select students. How, for example, do the state-created charters have so few special education students, in comparison to the regular student population? Because the entire purpose of the charter commission is to leave some students behind. The amendment is about picking winners before some even have a chance. Give ALL schools and ALL students the freedoms from bureaucracy that the state and federal governments have implemented. Why are the same folks who have strapped public education claiming that charter schools are superior because they lack such control? Because they want to leave some behind. Period.

How Ms. Cadman sleeps at night after such half-truths aimed at destroying the lives of Georgia's children is incomprehensible. She refers to public schools as "fiefdoms." Does she understand the purpose of public education in the United States, designed to provide equal opportunities for ALL children, not just those designated by a state-appointed committee? Does she understand that public education, according to most Americans from the founding of our state until the present, is the foundation of a sound Republic? How many children will be left behind with the passage of this amendment? How can she justify the trickery that is the amendment language? How can she justify the corporate takeover of money intended for children? How can she charge "education establishment" as evil, when she is the education establishment that stands to gain with corporate takeover of schools?

Mr Delk, you have called Supt Barge's actions "egregious," which I will concede is a big word for a lawyer. Perhaps you do not understand the meaning. Barge is standing up for the children. Your long-standing war against Georgia's children is what I would deem egregious. How is corporate take-over of American public education not egregious? How is your fight to divide and segregate communities not egregious? Is deceptive ballot language designed to trick Georgians not egregious? Is using children in these charter schools to campaign against the opportunities for the rest of Georgia's children not egregious? How is the Governor's intimidation tactics against all of those serving the children not also considered egregious? How can you claim to understand the history of law and equality while deeming the preserver of such--American public education--egregious? Our country was first founded upon public education, even by those who owned slaves. Perhaps you have changed the meaning of "egregious" in order to sleep at night, to alleviate the pangs of conscience. Is this what lawyers do for a living?