By Wayne Washington
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
March 19, 2012

The Georgia Senate passed a resolution Monday that would send a constitutional amendment to voters that would allow them to determine how much authority the state should have to approve and fund charter schools.

Monday’s vote was the culmination of an intense lobbying effort driven by the fact that the resolution, House Resolution 1162, needed to be approved by a two-thirds majority. It was approved by a vote of 40-16, two more votes than were needed.

Democrats had put up a wall of opposition to the resolution, but a pair of Democrats spoke in favor of it on Monday.

“I’m always going to be for public education, and that’s what this is,” said state Sen. Steve Thompson, D-Marietta.

Republican supporters of charter schools backed the amendment after the Supreme Court ruled last year that the state could not force local school districts to pay for schools it did not approve. That ruling weakened the clout of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, which had served as a secondary body of approval for those who had tried but failed to have their application for a charter school approved at the local level.

Democrats and local school board members praised the ruling and had held firm against the amendment legislation as a usurption of local school board authority.

The charter schools resolution was approved by the House of Representatives last month, needing two separate votes to clear the two-thirds hurdle there.

Separate legislation that would spell out how the amendment, if approved, would be implemented has been passed in the House but has still not been passed in the Senate. That legislation, House Bill 797, would seem likely to pass now that Republican charter school backers have pushed the amendment legislation through.

© 2012 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution