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The three candidates for the Georgia State Senate District 50 seat in Northeast Georgia talked Thursday about the issues just weeks before the state’s primary election.

Sen. Nancy Schaefer, Habersham County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jim Butterworth and Habersham County business owner Terry Rogers met Thursday evening in Toccoa for a forum sponsored by the Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce and WNEG AM-630.

The three candidates, all Republicans, discussed issues ranging from economic development, where the three candidates all called for tax reforms, to water, where all three supported building more reservoirs.

The three candidates also discussed public education in Georgia.

Schaefer said she supports charter schools because it promotes more local control.

“A charter school sort of opens the door so that there is more parental involvement and more individual children’s involvement that in just all of our public schools,” Schaefer said. “Many of our counties are already opening their doors to charter schools. It is just a little bit less of government being involved.”

Rogers said he is wary of CRCT (Criterion-Referenced Competency Test) exams and the No Child Left Behind federal education law

“On the state level, we need to eliminate as much bureaucracy as we possibly can,” Rogers said. “We need to bring it back to local controls. I have a stepdaughter and I have a daughter-in-law who are both teachers. They are second-year teachers, and both of them are already burned out. I will tell you that it is time to make teachers teachers again and to take away that all they are are test givers.”

Butterworth said it all boils down to money and looking at how the state pays for public education.

“We have to fund our school systems properly,” Butterworth said. “Austerity cuts have been choking Stephens County schools and the other schools across the state to the point of it being adversely impacting the students. The goal of education is and always should be to create a better life for our students and our children. Let us not forget that.”

The primary election is July 15. No Democrats have filed as candidates for the District 50 seat, which covers Stephens, Habersham, Rabun, Banks, Franklin, Towns, Hart, and part of White counties.