Education would be key in Barge vs. Deal race | www.myajc.com

Gov. Nathan Deal wants another term. Georgia School Superintendent John Barge wants one too. He’s just not sure yet whether he’s running for another term as education chief or if he’s going to take on Deal in what would be a tough intraparty scrap.

A race between Deal and Barge, who has said he won’t announce a decision on his political future until next month, would further politicize just about every aspect of public education.

Should the state stay with Common Core, the set of controversial national education standards that have drawn the ire of some conservatives? Does Georgia plow some of its growing surplus into teacher pay raises? Is the $400 million Race to the Top education improvement plan going smoothly? And are test scores rising high enough fast enough?

Those are just a few of the questions that would take on added political weight if Barge and Deal squared off.

The two men have disagreed before, most notably over whether voters should pass a constitutional amendment clarifying the state’s authority to create charter schools, and over the appointment of a staff member to oversee Race to the Top, a four-year federal grant program aimed at improving k-12 education.

For Deal, holding firm on his support for Common Core has meant taking political fire from David Pennington, the Dalton mayor who is already challenging Deal in a primary. Pennington said, “It would have taken me three seconds to reject Common Core in its entirety.”

As for Barge, the superintendent would, again, find himself in an unusual spot for a conservative Republican: relying on the financial support and votes of teachers and education groups who are often key Democratic constituencies.

Tracey-Ann Nelson, director of government relations for the Georgia Association of Educators, said it’s not a lock that teachers in conservative Georgia would throw their support to a Democrat. Many, in fact, are Republicans.

A race between Barge and Deal would, Nelson said, mean a public airing on education.

“It’s not just a single issue like Common Core or test scores,” she said. “It would be a discussion about public education — how its perceived, what we should be doing.”

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