Metro Atlanta School Districts Push to be Public Charter School Systems

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/06/03/charter_school_application.html

Last month, the Georgia Board of Education approved an application from Wayne County, a district seeking district-wide public charter status. But it tabled until this week final decisions on applications from Decatur, Marietta and Gainesville city systems. (A fifth district, Chattahoochee County, had been recommended for denial and will also be voted on this week.) Tony Roberts of the Georgia Charter Schools Association said the scrutiny of the applications meant that the state board "got it just right." "This same scrutiny is given to an individual charter school," he said. "It's OK to ask for flexibility, but you've absolutely got to give some things up" such as local control. Decatur and Marietta, both metro Atlanta districts, have sent supplemental letters to clarify their applications. Officials in both systems said they are comfortable with what they proposed. "There's a lot of work that went into this and we feel comfortable that what we put forward was a really strong petition," Marietta schools spokesman Thomas Algarin said. "At this point, the ball's in their court." Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who championed the public charter systems law and is now publicly backing those systems awaiting approval by the state board, said, "we're going to do something that is not only going to revolutionize education in Georgia but is going to revolutionize education in the nation." With change, he added, "you're going to find resistance. Obviously, I'd like to give the school board a benefit of the doubt. There is no reason in my mind that any of these [systems] should be denied receiving charter school system status."

Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution
Date: 06/03/2008
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