The president of Georgia’s largest teachers union is sounding the alarm on school choice, claiming that “extreme” policies and “disinformation” are leaving traditional public schools “grossly underfunded.”
Verdaillia Turner, president of the Georgia Federation of Teachers, told Fox News Digital that a decades-long push for alternative education has misled the public about the health of the state’s education system.
“People have been told through a campaign that schools fail, and that’s not true. They have not been given the systemic reasons why the state has failed the schools here,” Turner said.
Turner pointed to a 20-year effort in the Peach State to elect “extreme right-wing” and some Democratic officials who support “so-called choice.” While charter schools have become a staple in the Atlanta metro area, Turner argued that many residents are being sold a bill of goods.
“Some [Democrats] were former state representatives that are now running charter school groups and charter school associations, and they’re making their living… miseducating the public with disinformation and false information,” she claimed.
TEXAS PARENTS FLOOD SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM, FAR EXCEEDING THE INITIAL 90,000 STUDENT CAPACITY
The tension comes as school districts nationwide grapple with a declining enrollment. In December 2025, the Atlanta Board of Education took the drastic step of voting to close 16 schools starting in the fall of 2026.
The numbers tell a stark story: Atlanta Public Schools (APS) currently has a capacity for 70,000 students, yet only 50,000 are enrolled. This 20,000-seat surplus has forced officials to “right-size” the district to account for the overhead of maintaining half-empty buildings.
Teachers unions have long argued that “money follows the student” policies siphon critical per-pupil funding away from neighborhood campuses. Critics of the choice movement contend that if those funds remained in the traditional system, they could be used to bolster teacher salaries, modernize aging facilities, and improve recruitment.
“Who owns those schools? Who are the stockbrokers behind it? Why are they pushing it? What’s the evidence that it works?” Turner asked, calling for “evidence-based solutions” that are “sustainable and scalable.”
The debate in Georgia mirrors a national trend. Parents, frustrated by pandemic-era lockdowns and shifting curricula, have increasingly sought out homeschooling, private education, and charter options.
In response, several GOP-led states have passed universal school choice legislation. On the federal level, the Trump administration has proposed aggressive tax credits for donors who fund scholarships, allowing parents to move their children from underperforming public schools to private institutions.
Dept. of Education Secretary Linda McMahon said this week that the federal tax credit scholarship will help parents flee failing schools.
“This is money from the private sector added into the education pot,” McMahon told “The Faulkner Focus” on Monday. “Those scholarship granting organizations which are approved by the governor in the state can then award scholarships to parents who want to move their child out of a failing school or have private tutors or if they have kids with special needs, they can supplement that all at no cost to taxpayers whatsoever.”
Turner, however, views these incentives as a manufactured threat to the public good.
“The ground has been tilled and fertilized for all types of schools to come in, and there has been a scaffold of legislation to make sure that these schools exist at the state level,” Turner said. “Different types of incentives are given to so-called choice.”
