Question No. 1 on November Ballot

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, September 30, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

The deadline for registering to vote in the General Election is October 11th. Early in-person voting is scheduled for October 17th through November 4th, the Friday before the General Election. To accommodate those who can’t vote during the week, all polls will be open Saturday October 29th; some local polls may choose to open on Saturday or Sunday.

While candidates get most of the attention, also on November 8th voters will decide whether to make four changes to the State Constitution. In addition to those four questions, some ballots contain questions for local residents to decide. For example: DeKalb County voters will decide whether to extend the homestead tax exemption, which is scheduled to expire in a few months. So, I’ll vote YES on the homestead tax question in my county.Since Question No. 1 is a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the State of Georgia, it will be on all Georgia ballots. If it were to pass, (a) it would add a new government-controlled, tax-payer funded bureaucracy that would (b) destroy local control over public education. (c) The governor would pay an un-specified salary to someone he appoints to be a “shadow” state school superintendent. (d) Tax payers will fund un-specified office space, equipment, expense accounts, staff salaries and benefits for a new permanent bureaucracy. (e) The appointed shadow school superintendent would assume authority constitutionally given the current school superintendent when he was elected in 2014. (f) All school districts in the state would become ONE huge school district subject to the “shadow” appointed superintendent, (g) who will decide which schools are “failing.” (h) Schools deemed failing by the “shadow” superintendent would be REMOVED from the management and control of locally elected school boards.

The governor’s appointee could take control of twenty public schools per year and make unlimited changes, even to the extreme of closing schools, firing the staff, displacing students, and re-assigning students to schools across district lines. If Question No. 1 passes, the shadow superintendent would have regional power rather than local power and regionalism would control Georgia schools. Regionalism is appointed government, which is unconstitutional in this state.

Question No. 1 is worded this way: “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?”

That question does not explain the drastic adverse effects of such a change. Vote NO on Question No. 1. For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.