Voters approve $3.2 billion worth of educational fundingIt never occurred to me that this might pass. Honestly, I thought Georgia voters had more sense.
[ajc] Throughout metro Atlanta, the SPLOST passed despite a struggling economy, heated opposition from tax weary residents and sagging public confidence in several school systems recently rocked by scandal.
Voters essentially gave DeKalb County schools, where the former superintendent is facing fraud charges related to previous SPLOST money, $475 million for school construction, including $144 million to replace seven elementary schools.
Atlanta Public Schools, which is in the midst of one of the nation's biggest ever test cheating scandals, could raise $513 million. Two new schools in Buckhead and a new middle school in Midtown are among the projects the 1-cent tax would fund.
If APS is having money problems, it's because it's a target for every educational grifter and smarmy technology salesman in the southeast. We've got hot and cold running money (I can just picture them saying, as long as it's Not For Attribution), as long as the phrase "for the children" is in the prospectus somewhere.
Or maybe voters figured that now that the barn door is closed and the corruption of the previous regime is a thing of the past, now this money will be spent wisely. I can't even say that with a straight face.
LOST isn't an acronym, it's a word, and that's what this money is going to become--lost. Meanwhile, teachers are still buying their own photocopy paper for class handouts.
