School Superintendent says, “No,” to Amendment

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, August 24, 2012
By Sue Ella Deadwyler

Good morning, Jim. Right now, we are confronted with a problem President George Herbert Walk Bush started 21 years ago. It was 1991, when he announced plans to establish at least one “radical break-the-mold school” in each congressional district in the U.S. His plan was radical because the President of the United States has no constitutional authority to establish public schools, much less radical break-the-mold schools. He, also, announced the creation of a non-government agency to work with the federal government and businesses to get the job done.

With that, he established a public-private partnership to control public schools and over-ride the authority of locally elected school boards. That was an unconstitutional plan that led to another unconstitutional thing. It wiped away voter control of public education and gained traction with a misinformation campaign that disguised radical break-the-mold schools as the best thing since sliced bread. Governors, legislators and the public were told charter schools are the truest form of local control, which is the polar opposite of truth.

Local control means a locally elected board of education manages and controls schools. But, charter schools are governed by a contract held by the State Board of Education and there’s no local control there. Members of the State Board of Education are appointed by the governor.

When the public partner is the federal government and the private partner is a business, there’s no room for parents in the control room. Over 21 years, charter schools have become a mushrooming business. Not only are existing public schools chartered, businesses are creating start-up charter schools run by foreigners brought here on H1B work visas to teach our children.

With this partnership between government and business, schools aren’t educating children. They’re developing workers and, when H.B. 713 passed this year, the Department of Education was given until July 1, 2013 to focus K – 12 curricula on 16 career paths businesses want to fill. Once a pupil chooses a career path, education will be focused on workforce development for that job. This sounds a lot like a “glass ceiling” for students, so they’ll have just enough education to do the job they chose in elementary school. That, my friends, is a tragedy. It’s grand theft of each child’s future! For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.