The AJC ran a series of articles written by Tim Eberly between March 6 and June 12, which examined GCPS land purchases. These front page articles carried headlines including Land flips sting taxpayers, Gwinnett schools paid inflated price for land and Gwinnett schools’ payout, developer’s windfall. The articles suggested that GCPS paid more than the properties were worth Continue reading
By a 4-3 decision, the State Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling and found the law creating the Georgia Charter Schools Commission is unconstitutional. Continue reading
Two FY2012 budget documents are currently available:
Superintendent’s Recommended FY 2012 Budget – Executive Summary and
Superintendent’s Recommended FY 2012 Budget Overview Continue reading
The state Board of Education approved Barrow County School’s charter system petition on April 13, making Barrow the tenth school system in Georgia with charter status. Continue reading
Georgia’s HOPE scholarship, which is funded with lottery proceeds, required substantial changes. Although the lottery is one of, if not the most successful in the country, the revenue was insufficient to cover increasing costs. After lively debates in both the House and Senate, these are the changes which now await final approval by Governor Deal: Continue reading
Federal and Special Programs director Carol Grady started her presentation at this month’s GCPS public meeting with some statistics about 33 of Gwinnett’s Title I schools that serve over 40,000 students – 51 percent of GCPS’ ESOL students, 21 percent of Gwinnett’s Special Ed students, poverty rates as high as 96 percent – all numbers that we’ve frequently heard associated with Title I schools. Continue reading
After winning $250,000 as a finalist in last year’s competition, Gwinnett County Public Schools won the top prize – $1 million – in the 2010 Broad Prize, awarded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The winnings are used for scholarships for graduating seniors. Continue reading
The Charter Schools Commission case was argued in State Supreme Court today by four attorneys for the plaintiff school systems and two attorneys for the defense.
Mike Bowers, attorney for Gwinnett County Public Schools, used the majority of the plaintiff’s time to argue the lower court erred in its definition of a state “special” school. Because Georgia’s Constitution says the state can operate special schools, but doesn’t define what “special” means, this has become one of the main points in this litigation. Continue reading
When the Georgia Charter Schools Commission deducted nearly $850,000 from Gwinnett’s QBE earnings and gave this money to Ivy Prep last year, Gwinnett filed a lawsuit. Atlanta Public Schools and DeKalb County Schools, who had much smaller amounts deducted by the Commission, joined the legal action shortly after it was filed. It appears their predictions were accurate. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, Gov. Perdue angrily and loudly proclaimed the Blue Ribbon Commission investigation into Atlanta Public Schools’ CRCT irregularities (which resulted in the referral of over 100 administrators and teachers for action) was “woefully inadequate in both scope and depth.” The governor hired Bob Wilson and former Attorney General Mike Bowers to run a state level investigation. When APS hired former DeKalb District Attorney J. Tom Morgan, who had previously worked with both Bowers and Wilson, to assist in the state probe, things got ugly. Continue reading
