The undermining of public education

As a voter and public education supporter, I am opposed to the GA tax credit law (HB 1133 - 2008) for private school parents. A recent New York Times article gave information on Georgia's law which establishes private school Student Scholarship Organizations, and all public education supporters should carefully read the information.This quote from a GA private school particularly caught my eye: “A very small percentage of that (scholarship) money will be set aside for a needs-based scholarship fund,” Wyatt Bozeman, an administrator at (a) school near Atlanta, said during an informational session. “The rest of the money will be channeled to the family that raised it.”

Jay Bookman's article (http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/05/22/the-bait-and-switch-tactic-in-georgia-education-debate/) is very eye-opening and I want every voter in Georgia to see how our state is supporting private school vouchers. Very little scholarship money is going to truly needy students. More attacks on the public school system is not what Georgia needs. The lack of accountability to the voters is shameful.

Maureen Downy of the AJC has also blogged several times about this issue, most recently: "Another Atlanta private school issues statement on tax credit" where Pace Academy tries to distance itself from the practice as described in the New York Times article.

Another good report to further your education on this issue:
http://www.southerneducation.org/getattachment/fa572d99-6d8c-4a88-ae70-49d15158d22e/A-Failed-Experiment-Georgia-s-Tax-Credit-Scholarsh.aspx

Why all the legislative attention to 118,637 private school students when there are 1,667,685 public school students in Georgia whose districts are struggling to provide what is legally due to those students?

Why do southerners always feel compelled to begin conversations with comments about the weather? I was about to lament the lack of rain here on the coast, and stopped. Is it that many of us have the farmer gene and weather has been so critical to the successive cycles of crops? Or is it the pleasantry that precedes serious discussion, softening any adversaries? On this Mother's Day, the imprint of adult conversations overheard, secretly soaked up by little "pitchers who have big ears"comes to mind. Think of how many adult conversations rolled over our heads, yet percolated into our memories and resulted in patterns of our own communication. Think we'll get rain soon? Look at those clouds in the west......