Georgia Supreme Court Rules Charter Schools Commission Illegal (GA)

May 18, 2011

In a 4-3 vote, the Georgia Supreme Court has rejected the legality of the state commission that authorized charter schools and allocated education funding over the objections of local school boards. In the majority opinion, the justices pointed out that the state constitution charges local school boards with managing general K-12 education; therefore, no other government agency may exercise overreaching control over it.

    “By providing for local boards of education to have exclusive control over general K-12 schools, our constitutions, past and present, have limited governmental authority over the public education of Georgia’s children to that level of government closest and most responsive to the taxpayers and parents of the children being educated.”

The lawsuit was brought by the school districts of Atlanta, DeKalb, Candler, Coweta, Bulloch, Gwinnett and Griffin-Spalding after the General Assembly created the Charter School Commission in response to complaints that local schools bo ards were biased and turning down strong applicants. The Assembly gave the commission the power not only to approve charter schools, but also to direct local money away from school boards in order to fund them. Having lost their case in the Fulton County Superior Court a year ago, the school boards filed an appeal with the Georgia Supreme Court in October of last year.

The ruling only affects the 16 charter schools approved by the commission so far and will not have an impact on 160 schools approved by local school boards. If charter school applications are rejected by local boards, the state Board of Education may still approve them, but the schools must be funded solely with state money, which, on average, makes up about 55% of a school’s total revenue.

There were no immediate announcements about the future of the 16 schools approved by the CSC, but the Journal-Constitution speculates that they might be “adopted” by their local school districts who will maintain their funding.