It probably is misleading if you were educated in a public school. This issue has been around for many years and if a person is mislead by the ballot wording, they must not be aware of what has been going on for this time period.

"Local or State"- does that mean we get to circle one? If not, it does mean "and". Brantley is about as slimy as Chip Rogers' snot.

Misleading to the max! It should have said,"shall the Constitution of the State of Georgia be amended to give the General Assembly the power to provide for the establishment of education policies to establish state charter schools." The State BOE and the local school boards ALREADY have the constitutional authority to establish charter schools. The General Assembly wants more power - and they could have said - "by the way - if you vote for this deceptive amendment you will get a really rotten piece of legislation - HB 797 - which removes your elected voice from any decision regarding the establishment and operation of these state charter schools." So much for "by and for the people." Vote No and tell all your friends.

Out-of-state corporations are profiting everyday from our educational tax $$, as is every overpaid, corrupt superintendent and useless BOE. Every day, our tax $$ are being handed to out-of-state, for-profit corporations that provide gasoline to buses, food to students, books, school supplies, and computers. The NO crowd is clearly just angry that some $$ might not be going into the pockets of the many useless, overpaid for-profit admins & superintendents that they all worship.

Make no mistake about it: The NO crowd has ZERO interest in educational reform nor improvement. It's only about shoveling as many of our tax $$$ into their pockets as possible. If the NO crowd had any interest in fixing our embarrassing educational system, they'd have done so long ago.

Vote YES to give all parents an alternative to these old-school losers.

Is the language biased?
Is a hurricane wet and windy?
The language is certainly misleading. They believe voters will be fooled by the "help children achieve" language and that pray that voters won't read the actual amendment and enabling legislation, creating a politically appointed state commission to take over decisions that had been made by the local Board of Education and appeal-able to the Georgia Department of Ed.
Follow the money.

TSPLOST, Part Deux

The "preamble" to this question is biased and misleading. All ballot questions should be worded without judgmental statements!!!! The peamble on this question, makes a judgmental statement attempting to lead the voter to the conclusion the author desires? Trickery should never be part of a ballot and I point a "shame-on-you" finger at those responsible. Hopefully voters will read the entire ballot before casting their vote on this one.

Of course the language is misleading. It all boils down to big government trying to get bigger and donations for the political cronies supporting this joke of a law. The for profit folks are loving it. Of course the cofers of the political folks who are supporting this amendent are continuing to grow. If you don't believe this will take badly needed funds for local schools I have some oceanfront property in Arizona that I'm sure you would be interested in. This ballot hoax will FAIL. Despite the big wheels support.

This (imo) is what happens when you elect too many republicans... They believe in outsourcing and privitizing EVERYTHING... this drives UP costs - does not guarantee improvemnets and in many cases assure the opposite... they want control of tax dollars and as other commenters have pointed out - this leads to political corruption of those tax dollars.... My advice: Do not vote republican to ensure that the Federal government controls important things like schools, etc. The states will only squander the monies if they get control of it... Public schools have work very well for many years... let's just improve on them... and scrap the privitized Charter Schools and their wasting of tax dollars !!!

Fight Truth Decay!

Cherokee County "HOST" tax...Part Tre

Note that this article has mis-stated the precise wording of the ballot preamble and question. According to the sample ballot that is located on https://mvp.sos.state.ga.us
the CORRECTED wording is shown below (corrections in CAPITALIZED letters):

Preamble: Provides for improving student achievement and parental involvement through more public CHARTER school options.

Question: Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state OR local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?

Of particular importance is the use of "OR" in the question (rather than AND as reported above) since it means that the state can approve a charter school request WITHOUT local approval.

That said, the slight discrepancy between the article and the actual wording on the ballot does not change the fact that the preamble is a disgrace for its clear bias in favor of a Yes vote, and the question itself is misleading in that it implies there is no state approval process in place already (i.e. Georgia Dept of Education).

Because of this situation, I predict that this amendment will pass with a clear majority. I only hope the courts will rule in favor of an injunction due to the clear bias of the preamble and misleading nature of the question itself. The responsible parties (i.e. Deal, Cagle, and Kemp) should all be ashamed!

Passage of this amendment would leade to an enormous waste of tax dollars and students' years of education!!

Every state should pass this amendment so we can then also amend our country's name to the "United States of Entitlement".

By passing this amendment, you put the education decisions in the hands is an "appointed" board that will get to decide that your school does or doesn't need it. They have no immmediate interest in seeing you improve, they just get to say what they think you need. They can also override any decisions that your local board has already made. The govenment was denied this same attempt in 2008. We DO NOT need addition hands in the decision making of our schools.

To the guy who thinks we have "no clue". I have a clue. I spend many days in my childens schools and I'm an active parent who is educated and has chosen public education because my public schools ROCK!!! Not every student is as fortunate nor do they have parents that work so hard for their child's education and that's ok because I will help to be their educated voice to say "VOTE NO"

After reading all of the comments on this article, I have to say that Steely Dan seems to have provided the best argument for voting yes. There is no doubt that our schools are broken, we have a duty to help our children get the best education possible. Steely Dan has converted another undecided to vote yes.

John, I'm almost to the point where I just want to say "fine. Vote yes on this and see what happens." But I know that when I say "told ya so..." a few years down the road, it will be too late. Our public education system will be completely dismantled and education will be polarized or re-segregated...whatever you want to call it. This amendment is only the first step in setting up a voucher system which will bankrupt our state if the Charter Commission set up by this amendment doesn't do it first. Changing the constitution is no small matter. It isn't your Facebook status. Challenging our legislators to fund the vocational programs that they cut out, save many millions of dollars by less testing and stop austerity cuts to lower class size are better options right now.