By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

ACWORTH, Ga. – A parent who supports a proposed Georgia charter school amendment was ejected from a parent-teacher meeting this week for distributing literature explaining his position.

He allegedly disrupted the special meeting in which PTA and union panelists discussed why they don’t like the amendment. Ironically, the decision to eject the concerned parent illustrates exactly why the charter school amendment, known as Amendment 1, might be a good idea.

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Just over a dozen people showed up to listen to Georgia PTA officials and a representative from the Atlanta Federation of Teachers union talk about how they can kill the charter school amendment. The measure asks voters to change the state constitution to allow an appointed agency to review charter school proposals rejected by local school boards, the Cherokee Tribune reports.

What the PTA/union group didn’t explain is how their own vested interests conflict with the charter proposal.

As in many states, Georgia requires local school boards to approve charter schools that want to locate in their district. The problem is that charter schools draw students away from traditional schools with superior academic programs, costing traditional schools a lot of state money. That’s why school boards frequently kill charter school proposals.

Teachers unions, like the Atlanta Federation of Teachers, have a special disdain for charter schools because they typically hire non-union teachers who do not pay union dues.

So school boards, their PTA supporters and the unions desperately want to maintain the ability to kill charter schools before they get off the ground. That’s why they oppose Amendment 1.

Ron Fowler, the AFT union representative who attended the meeting, made it clear the union’s focus is on the almighty dollar, not on how the amendment could help expand promising educational opportunities for the state’s families.

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“There’s a bigger piece,” Fowler said, according to the Cherokee Tribune. “There’s a lot of money involved in this thing … there’s a lot of money here folks, and it’s our taxpayer dollars. So don’t be fooled, the public schools are going to be affected by this thing. There’s only so much money.”

Thank you for that bit of honesty, Mr. Fowler. Perhaps Georgia voters will recognize that your opposition to Amendment 1 has more to do with greed than academics and will cast their ballots accordingly.