Former Atlanta Mayor and U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young joined the growing chorus of voices opposing Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposed school takeover. The plan would let the state manage some low-performing schools. On Tuesday, Young held a press conference with Atlanta baseball legend Hank Aaron and Georgia PTA President Lisa-Marie Haygood.
Hear the broadcast version of this story.
Proponents of the so-called “Opportunity School District” say some schools are struggling so much that the state has to step in. Deal said recently that impoverished communities, where most of the 127 schools are located, don’t have a voice.
“People who are silent and are the victim of improper education, somebody needs to help them,” he said.
But Haygood said if voters approve the plan next month, those communities could lose their stake in their neighborhood schools.
“Make no mistake: the children that are affected by this legislation and this constitutional amendment are children of color, they are children of poverty, and they are children that this governor is banking on your parents not knowing what’s about to hit you,” she said.
Aaron said he remembered an English teacher he had growing up in Alabama, who helped him learn on her own time.
“I remember that each day I went to school, she took it upon herself to tell me, ‘I want you, once you get out of school, to stop by my house so we can continue your education,’” he said.
As for Young, he didn’t like the idea of state intervention in schools. He also didn’t like the criteria used for picking which schools are considered “chronically failing.” Schools would be chosen based on their scores on the state report card, which includes standardized test scores.
Young said he was a C student who benefited from attending what he described as a “failing” school in New Orleans.
“It was where I developed a sense of self-confidence and self-esteem, which, for me, is the basis of education,” he said. “And to take that self-esteem from the families, from the teachers, from the principals, from the boards of education locally, and turn it over to a corporate-oriented state structure is a sin and a shame and we cannot allow it.”
Young called for increased community involvement in schools as an alternative to state intervention.
“We’re not just saying ‘no,’” he said. “I think what we’re seeing is … this forces us to make a different kind of commitment to public education.”
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