Project Logic Ga

If Georgia’s Governor wants to pass a constitutional amendment to create an “Opportunity School District,” what is his ultimate goal?  This OSD would be a statewide school district operated by the governor’s office or his appointee and would be comprised of under preforming schools.  Those schools would have zero to do with the local school system.

I view the OSD as a Trojan Horse and once a Trojan Horse gets into your kingdom or your computer it destroys.  The ultimate scenario could be:

1. Take failing schools into the Opportunity School District and turn them over to a private company with no accountability to the local taxpayers or local school board.
2. Close some of the schools and therefore move those students into other area schools.
3. Parents who don’t want their kids attending school with children from a failed school would push for vouchers so they can send their kids to private school or keep the money and homeschool them.

In summary, the ultimate objective might be creating a climate for vouchers.  The school choice debate can be had because vouchers sound good to some but come in the front door…don’t be sneaky.   The ultimate goal for supporters of the horrible OSD amendment is to keep some kids from going to school with certain kids.

Also, the cause and effect relationship surrounding failing schools isn’t as simple as the governor’s office might think.  What is a failing school anyway?  You can’t measure all factors based on test scores.  We should appreciate the educators who take assignments with challenged kids from challenged environments.  It’s not the kid’s fault that he or she wasn’t born into a more ideal situation.

Some educators go into teaching because they want to help kids from rough situations because they were once that kid.  Oh, as quiet as it is kept, those kids unfortunately have a “seasoning” that some kids don’t have because they faced adversity too early in life.  Hell, every Black kid in the South born before say 1976 have that seasoning because we faced constant racism as well as the crabs in the barrel Blacks.  Good teachers know how to bring out the best in kids rather than stigmatizing them as the OSB would.

State officials should be working with the local school systems to improve failing schools rather than using them to push a secret agenda.  If we don’t vote against the Opportunity School Board amendment, our overall education system will be at risk.