Gubernatorial Candidate Gen. Poythress Blast GOP Candidate Eric Johnson on Education

In am email sent out to supporters Gen. David Poythress blast State Senator Eric Johnson's stance on education. Says Poythress:

In this week’s GOP debate in Athens, former state senator Eric Johnson revealed his latest campaign slogan – he wants to be the “Jobs Governor.” Former Secretary of State Karen Handel took at shot at Johnson’s debate tactic yesterday on Twitter:

“It’s entertaining to hear candidates who think that if they say the word ‘jobs’ enough, people will believe they know how to create them.”

Cute tweet, but she missed the real contradiction – Johnson’s proposal for universal vouchers would be a job killer.

Johnson’s private school voucher scheme is a misguided attempt to draw money away from public schools, already struggling to make ends meet after years of state budget cuts. And he now adds to the evidence of his poor judgment by ignoring a simple fact - when a state steps away from its constitutional responsibility to educate ALL children, it will lose, not attract business opportunities.

Unlike other candidates, I fundamentally believe that we must take immediate action to dramatically transform our public school systems to make them successful. And we must reject the Republicans' artful-but-empty-promise approach which has failed to provide the necessary resources for our public schools and its teachers.

My comprehensive plan will transform our public schools into 21st century centers of learning, where our educators will be empowered to create innovative new programs to fully engage our students and be provided with cutting-edge educational technology. To move Georgia’s economy forward again we must have a world class educational system that consistently produces globally competitive graduates.

I am totally against any type of school vouchers. Vouchers would hurt Rural Georgia schools who are already hurting by the cuts to education every year by the legislature. NO VOUCHERS, NO WAY!