In mid-December, the state Board of Education removed the absolute veto that local school systems had had over plans for charter schools. Depriving a school of about half its funding smells very like a veto.
Charter schools are publicly funded schools freed from many restrictive state and local regulations.
They have to define specific goals and are held accountable for reaching them within five years. A group of parents or teachers, a business or nonprofit organization, can try whatever works to bring new energy and new methods into play. Many school boards wedded to the status quo look with deep suspicion on entities they would pay for but not control. So, since state law authorized them in 1993, fewer than 50 charter schools have started up in Georgia. But local boards have approved only five.