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THE COMMERCE NEWS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2016
Editorial
Views
Vote against
state's school
takeover plan
If early voting is any indication, Jack-
son County voters are going to the polls
in unusually high numbers, spurred, no
doubt, by the acrimonious and pres
idential election. But there is another
issue on the ballot that is closer to home
and that warrants careful scrutiny by
local voters.
It is Amendment 1 which, if passed,
would turn over to the office of the gov
ernor some of the lowest-performing
schools in Georgia, removing all local
control and authority.
Passage would create “opportunity
school districts,” basically schools taken
over for up to 10 years by the state.
Currently some 127 schools qualify for
the state takeover based on results of
the Georgia Department of Education’s
College and Career Ready Performance
Index, although none of them are in
Jackson County. Under the proposal,
the governor would appoint a superin
tendent of the new districts, the Georgia
Senate would confirm the nominee,
and the superintendent would report
to the governor. The superintendent
would carry the full power and authority
of a local school board, including the
ability to hire and fire, combine, close
or merge schools, levy taxes and — per
haps most importantly — hire a private
charter school company to manage
the school. While the amendment calls
for “shared governance” with the local
school board, all the power rests with
the superintendent, who is accountable
to no one but the governor. Taxpayers
will pay a per-student levy, three percent
of which will go to the “opportunity
school district.”
Opponents of the measure argue
that the amendment is a back-door
approach to remaking public education
in Georgia, turning over school admin
istration to for-profit companies. They
say the approach has failed in both
New Orleans and Tennessee, which are
cited as precedents for state takeover by
proponents of the bill.
There is no doubt that Georgia needs
to address its failing schools, but taking
accountability and local input out of the
schools is a curious way to address it,
particularly since most of those who
voted to put the amendment on the
ballot regularly cite the need for “local
control” of schools, cities and counties.
Education in Georgia has suffered from
the over-emphasis on standardized test
ing that limits what students are taught
and by the state’s continual failure to
fund education at the levels mandated
by state law.
The wording on the ballot for Amend
ment 1 would have voters think that it
provides “greater flexibility and state
accountability to fix failing schools
through increasing community involve
ment.” In Georgia, that apparently
means selecting charter organizations
to take over local schools.
Amendment 1 would remove all local
control of schools deemed “failing”
by the Department of Education and
turn them over to for-profit companies
whose primary interest will be profit
ability. That is unacceptable. Vote No on
Amendment 1.
Unless otherwise noted, all editorials
are written by Mark Beardsley. He can
be reached at mark@mainstreetnews.
com.
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Mark Beardsley. Editor
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Media incapable of conspiracy
Donald Trump has said a lot of crazy things
during the campaign, from declaring that “all the
polls” showed he won the first two debates, to
alleging that Hillary Clinton started the Obama
birther movement, to the notion that the elec
tion is rigged. But my favorite is his insistence
that the media has conspired to make Clinton
the winner.
By media, one would normally think of “the
press,” which comprises journalists. But Trump
figures Saturday Night Live’s debate sketches
help confirm the “media conspiracy” to defeat
him, which suggests that the conspiracy covers
other media — perhaps, art and music. But wait,
now we have social media, also part of the con
spiracy I’m sure.
That is almost as funny as the idea that “the
media” (meaning news) has the capacity to
conspire to work in concert on anything.
I wallow in the shallow end of the media
pool, but anyone remotely connected to the
journalism industry understands that no force
on earth can get journalists working together for
anything, let alone to influence a political race.
Getting Republicans to put President Obama
on the Supreme Court would be far easier to
accomplish than convincing newspaper jour
nalists to align for any political purpose. Editors
take pride in their independence; any attempt to
organize a conspiracy for Candidate A or Posi
tion A would result in a rash of columns and
editorials damning the attempt to sway them.
MainStreet Newspapers illustrates another
point. The co-publishers are conservative.
It's
Gospel
According
To Mark
By Mark Beardsley
Three other editors (self included) are left of
center. We may be voting similarly in the 2016
presidential election, but that happens with the
frequency of an Atlanta Falcons’ appearance in
the Super Bowl. I’ve worked for the corporation
over 29 years and have yet to be ordered to sup
port or oppose any political cause or candidate,
nor has management ever expressed resent
ment for any position I’ve taken on the pages of
The Commerce News.
I struggle to imagine how one would put
together a “media conspiracy” even as I try to
define what it might be. If management of a
major newspaper or television chain issued an
edict regarding an editorial position, journalists
would rebel to the point of resigning en masse,
but not before they produced innumerable
stories and comments in other media damning
management. They would burn the building
down before succumbing to what they would
consider as an unethical intrusion on their jour
nalistic credibility and responsibility.
The Internet gave rise to millions of websites
that purport to do journalism, which lands them
in the “media” camp in Trumpland. If you do
Facebook, have a Twitter account or use any of
the other social media apps and websites, the
take on the 2016 presidential election coming
from your “friends” or followers is as varied as it
is annoying. All of those sites might act in con
cert in North Korea, but in America and most of
the rest of the world, the probability of spotting
Bigfoot riding a unicorn is greater.
Trump loved the media during the primaries
because he got free coverage. His enthusiasm
waned when the free coverage included his
mean-spirited, abusive and inaccurate com
ments about virtually every constituency his
ignorance of world affairs, his invitation to
Russia to meddle in the U.S. election and an
incredible number of gaffes, missteps and stu
pid tweets that demonstrate he is not fit for lead
ership and that force even the least responsible
news outlets to talk about them.
I’m reminded of a Commerce city council
man who once complained about “looking
stupid in the newspaper.” My response was
that if he quit doing and saying stupid things
at city council meetings, he wouldn’t have that
problem.
The problem is not a media conspiracy. It’s a
candidate who does and says stupid things.
Mark Beardsley is the editor of The Com
merce News. He lives in Commerce.
So many interesting ideas
I’ve always been interested in what people
do with their ideas. For example, a friend
recently handed me a set of “Scoops” - giant
yellow plastic mitts with claws, useful for get
ting leaves up out of the yard at this time of
year. Who, I wonder, first got sick of using a
broom and dustpan, and thought, ‘I bet I’m not
the only one. I bet I could design a pair of giant
claws and sell them all over the country!’
I so admire this can-do entrepreneurial
spirit. It seems emblematically American,
somehow - as if even the Founding Fathers
had said, ‘I bet we could have our own country
here! Let’s all go get our muskets and make it
happen!”
Ideas are constantly flooding through every
aspect of life. Small children, apparently are
wide open to them, because they haven’t had
a chance to learn how challenging it can be to
bring something from “idea” into “reality.” But
most of us never lose the ability to see things
one way and imagine them another. This is
why we don’t still wash our clothes at the edge
of a river, for example, or in a big pot in the
backyard.
David McCullough’s book about the Wright
brothers was a good idea about a good idea.
And it shows the tenacity required of those
two young men. It’s fun to see what they went
through, starting with bicycles, to make avi-
A Few
Facts, A
Lot of
Gossip II
By Susan Harper
ation a reality and then to go get on a plane
and fly somewhere. The comedian Louis C.K.
has a bit about the way we now take flying
for granted. He says that when someone
complains to him about their flight being 45
minutes late in taking off, he says, “So then
you went up in the air, sitting in your chair like
a Greek god, and flew all the way across the
country in four and a half hours, right? You do
realize, don’t you, that the same journey used
to take two years, and that not everybody sur
vived the trip?”
Politicians have ideas, too — and you might
say that what we’ve been witnessing this past
year is a monumental clash of them. It has had
the feel sometimes, to me, of a medieval tour
nament, or some sort of Olympian contest. We
have a man pitted against a woman, a Republi
can against a Democrat, a conservative against
a progressive, in this long, grinding battle from
which all other would-be jousters have been
eliminated — and it’s easy to forget, as the two
remaining contestants battle it out, that the win
ner will not be crowned Ruler of the Universe,
but will in fact have quite limited powers, and
will have to lead by inspiring others, using the
“bully pulpit” of the presidency to do so.
And the truth about ideas is that it’s almost
always this way. Years ago, when I worked in
publishing, a manuscript written by a blind
woman showed up in our office. Entitled
“Obstacle Course,” it was a spirited and often
funny chronicle of the author’s adventures in
raising children after she lost her sight. We
were excited about publishing it, and part of
my job was to try to sell the magazine and
movie rights. And I guess that was when I
learned what a huge world this really is, and
how many exciting stories are out there. So — if
your ideas aren’t currently “winning” or in play,
don’t worry; new ones are constantly coming
along. And if you have a great idea, remember:
you will also need great stores of endurance
and courage, to bring it to fmition.
Susan Harpe■ is a retired editor, lecturer, and
local library director who currently serves on
the Jackson County and Piedmont Regional
library boards.
2 ballot questions unanswered
Two big ballot questions remain unanswered
As Georgians ponder how they will vote in
this general election, there are only two issues
that really have any suspense to them.
Will the state’s electoral votes go to Donald
Trump or Hillary Clinton in the presidential
race? And will voters agree to approve Gov.
Nathan Deal’s school takeover plan?
The future does not look very bright for the
school takeover proposal, known as the Oppor
tunity School District. Deal is asking voters to
give him the authority to appoint a special super
intendent who would take over the administra
tion of low-performing schools.
Two polls released last week tell the tale. A
survey commissioned by the Atlanta Jour
nal-Constitution showed 59 percent of Georgia
voters opposed the Opportunity School District
proposal while only 34 percent supported it.
Ironically the lowest level of support was among
Republicans — only 28 percent said they support
the constitutional amendment, even though it is
being pushed by a Republican governor.
Another poll released by WSB-TV last week
also showed only 34 percent support for the
school takeover plan, with 44 percent opposed.
It appears that voters support the conservative
principle that people should decide at the local
level how they want to run their schools and
how their tax dollars should be spent for this
purpose.
There are signs that Deal knows his proposal
is in trouble. The governor’s chief of staff has
sent emails to local school districts demanding
that they provide records of dues that school
systems collect for two teachers’ groups, the
Georgia Association of Educators (GAE) and
the Professional Association of Georgia Educa
tors (PAGE). The intent is very clear. PAGE and
GAE have campaigned energetically against the
passage of the school takeover amendment.
Deal very likely will try to punish the teacher
groups by asking the Legislature to pass a bill
prohibiting school districts from using payroll
deductions to collect dues from teachers who
join professional organizations.
That would be Deal’s way of lashing back
at teachers and administrators who worked to
defeat his Opportunity School District.
The question of who wins Georgia’s electoral
votes is not quite so clear-cut.
The aggregation of recent polls shows Trump
to be leading Clinton by two to three points,
which seems about right for a Republican-lean
ing state like Georgia. Statistics guru Nate Silver
calculates that Trump at this point has about a
70 percent chance of carrying the state.
But this has been a presidential campaign
unlike any other in recent memory.
Trump’s numbers nationwide have been fall
ing since he performed poorly in three debates
against Clinton.
He is also having to deal with the fallout from
a videotape that had him bragging to an Access
Hollywood host about how celebrities like him
can grab women and have their way with them.
Since that videotape went public, at least 12
women have come forward to allege that Trump
grabbed them or touched them inappropriately
without their consent. Trump has denied all of
the allegations, but it’s possible we could see
another embarrassing videotape released in the
two weeks remaining before election day.
The biggest factor in Georgia’s outcome
could well be this: over the past 12 months,
there have been 342,000 blacks, Latinos, and
Asian-Americans registering to vote.
Where whites made up 80 percent of the
state’s registered voters not so long ago, they
now account for less than 57 percent. In this
highly polarized era, it’s no big secret that most
whites tend to vote Republican while minority
voters are more likely to vote Democratic.
This increasingly diverse voter pool is the
main reason why analysts and pundits keep pre
dicting that Georgia will one day flip from being
a red state to a purple state. That may happen
in 2016,2018, or 2020, but if demography is des
tiny it will happen one day. Those 342,000 new
registered voters may determine whether that
changeover happens this year. It all depends on
how many of them actually vote on Nov. 8.
Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia Report,
an internet news service at gareport.com that
reports on state government and politics. He can
be reached at crawford@georgiareport.com.