PATCH VOICES: Georgia Politicians Should Put Kids Before Caucus and Party

by Rae Harkness

The AJC’s Jim Galloway posted this this week:

Reading other people’s mail: Education group takes a whack at Alisha Morgan 

Galloway’s popular opinion column detailed the attack that has already begun to discredit State Rep. Alicia Thomas Morgan in a possible election bid for State School Superintendent in 2014. I was stunned and saddened by the e-mails crisscrossing our state Capitol network.

I would hardly call Verdallia Turner, president of the Georgia Federation of Teachers, State Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler and State Sen. Vincent Fort the “educational community.” In an e-mail to Rep. Dawkins-Haigler, chairwoman of the Georgia Black Caucus, Turner asks the Caucus to withdraw support for Morgan’s “agendas,” including endorsement from her own party for superintendent of Georgia schools. She insinuates that Morgan knows nothing about teaching or education. She adds accusations that Morgan’s voting record deprives teachers of due process and “rights,” prevents schools from receiving adequate funding and causes an agenda that leads to the desegregation of schools by race and income. If Verdallia Turner has experience as a teacher, let’s hope she was not an English teacher. Her writing contains run-on sentences, incorrect grammar and vague statements alluding to documentation that is not referenced or linked to:

School systems are running into trouble holding school for the entire week, special programs are being cut even deeper, professional veteran educators are being disrespected etc. etc.

Valid research from various studies and Ivy School schools  and practices were overlooked and particular legislators, for their own reasons, turned their backs on hundreds of thousands of our students and our teachers and are still advancing an "ill" education agenda!

Her actions have succeeded in helping to grossly under-fund our public schools and accelerate an agenda that leads to desegregation of schools by race and or socio-economic class.

School systems are running into trouble holding school for the entire week, special programs are being cut even deeper, professional veteran educators are being disrespected etc. etc.

c) tightly knitting groups of younger minority lawmakers for legislation crafted by right-winged interest groups. (We can prove whose behind the funding for this type of legislation and what the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ gains amount to).

f) Winning over traditional African American churches and organizations but still supporting special interest (right-winged)  legislation while being (defiant) of what really works for schools...

It is, in fact, Verdallia Turner’s experience that should be questioned. In a news story following the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal, she and the Atlanta Federation of Teachers defended the 48 teacher members that wrongfully received performance bonuses, stating, “At the end of the day the bonuses were not that big, and it’s not worth it, either way.” Eventually, she sued the AFT when she was fired for insubordination and involvement in internal political activity.

Sen. Fort’s response to Rep. Morgan’s Teacher Appreciation event invitation shows that he holds Georgia’s children in even less regard than Ms. Turner. He states:

I can not in good [conscience] "help" you to thank teachers when you have, through your support of charter school and voucher legislation, worked to diminish the rights of teachers.  In charter school and voucher legislation that you have voted for, grievance rights of teachers are almost completely eliminated.  In addition, that same legislation has decreased the civil rights protections for students.  I think as legislators we would do better by teachers if we did less symbolism and more of a concrete nature by voting in the voting for the best interests of teachers.  Your collaboration with right-wing groups that attack teachers rather than cooperate with them is not something I agree with.

You may notice that Fort mentions “teachers” four times and “students” once. Whose interests are he concerned with? The GFT, of which Verdallia Turner is president, gave Fort $500 towards his primary campaign in June of this year. Hmmm....

As for Rep. Dawkins-Haigler, to whom the Turner’s e-mail was directed, her allegiances have proved inconsistent. She supports school choice only when it benefits her agenda of the moment. In a letter from Nina Gilbert addressed to Rep. Haigler, Mrs. Gilbert stated:

You were recommended by Rep. Morgan to be our speaker that year, because she believed that you would inspire our parents and girls. When I met you, I was in complete agreement with her. Your message to our families was powerful and relevant. You stated that you were in awe of the work we were doing, and you appeared to be visibly moved as nearly 200 girls of color, many from poor and underserved communities filed into the auditorium to begin their journey to college.

You engaged them during your speech, embraced and congratulated them after the ceremony, and promised to stay in touch and visit the school. Yet you make the following comment in your email: “This (amendment) is dangerous because these schools can be set up and ran like private schools in which minority children may not be able to attend.” You say in your email that this amendment is “a major blow to public education.” Actually, it is the status-quo that has dealt the most fatal blow to public education, because it places systems and tradition before children.

How is the status quo working for Georgia? It’s not. In fact, as former DeKalb BOE member Nancy Jester points out, Georgia earned an “F” rating in a study by the Cato Institute that rated transparency in spending by state departments of education. She also points out the fact that non-teaching administrative positions have grown in salary and in number over time as smaller totals of our tax dollars end up in the classrooms with teachers. But don’t take our word for it, read the study yourself here.

The vigilant watchdogs at the DeKalb School Watch blog recently urged parents to rescind their tax dollars from the DeKalb school system by withdrawing their children and home schooling them.

Georgia taxpayers, beware!  There are many Turners, Haiglers and Forts in our state and they are threatened by the possible loss of power in their educational mafia.  If you live in DeKalb or Clayton County, you are probably all too aware of the danger of a big education empire. If you live elsewhere in Georgia, you might not have been paying close attention. The voters of Georgia made a powerful statement when they passed the charter school constitutional amendment by a wide margin. See the links below to see how your elected officials voted. It may be time for you to pay your representatives a visit while they are not in session.

Senate Vote

House Vote

As for Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, I am thankful that there are elected officials in our state like her willing to take a stand and do the right thing, even when it makes them unpopular with their own party caucus. I applaud her and the others willing to do what it takes to fix the educational system in Georgia. I am one of the over 350 that sent an RSVP to Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan so that I can thank her in person this Thursday, Aug. 29.