HUNSTEIN, Chief Justice.
This appeal involves a constitutional challenge to the 2008 Georgia Charter Schools Commission Act, OCGA § 20-2-2080 et seq. (the “Act”). Appellants/plaintiffs are local school systems1 whose 2009 and 2010 complaints were consolidated by the trial court; appellees/defendants are former State School Superintendent Kathy Cox (in her official capacity), the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, its chairperson and members (in their official capacities), the Georgia Department of Education, and the first three schools chartered under the Act.2 Appellants contend, inter alia, that the Act is unconstitutional because it violates the “special schools” provision in the Georgia Constitution of 1983. See Art. VIII, Sec. Y, Par. VII (a). Because our constitution embodies the fundamental principle of exclusive local control of general primary and secondary (“K-12”) public education and the Act clearly and palpably violates Art. VIII, Sec. V Par* VII (a) by authorizing a State commission to establish competing State-created general K-12 schools under the guise of being “special schools,” we reverse.
1. (a) “Authority is granted to county and area boards of [266]*266education to establish and maintain public schools within their limits.” Art. VIII, Sec. V Par-1 of the 1983 Georgia Constitution. This language continues the line of constitutional authority, unbroken since it was originally memorialized in the 1877 Constitution of Georgia, granting local boards of education the exclusive right to establish and maintain, i.e., the exclusive control over, general K-12 public education. See McDaniel v. Thomas, 248 Ga. 632 (285 SE2d 156) (1981) (setting forth in an appendix, id. at 649-659, a comprehensive review of the history of Georgia public education). Art. VIII, Sec. V Par I sets forth the sole delegation of authority in our constitution regarding the establishment and maintenance of general primary and secondary public schools. No other constitutional provision authorizes any other governmental entity to compete with or duplicate the efforts of local boards of education in establishing and maintaining general K-12 schools.3 By providing for local boards of education to have exclusive control over general K-12 schools, our constitutions, past and present, have limited governmental authority over the public education of Georgia’s children to that level of government closest and most responsive to the taxpayers and parents of the children being educated. The constitutional history of Georgia could not be more clear that, as to general K-12 public education, local boards of education have the exclusive authority to fulfill one of the “primary obligation[s] of the State of Georgia,” namely, “[t]he provision of an adequate public education for the citizens.” Art. VIII, Sec. I, Par. I.
(b) Unlike general K-12 public education, provisions for “special schools” are a more recent addition to our constitution. In 1966, the 1945 Georgia Constitution was amended to give local boards of education the authority to establish “one or more area schools, including special schools such as vocational trade schools, schools for exceptional children, and schools for adult education, in one or more of such political subdivisions.” See Ga. L. 1966, pp. 1026, 1029-1030, § 3 (proposing constitutional amendment); Ga. L. 1967, p. 1127 (noting its ratification). This exact language was retained with no significant change when the 1945 Georgia Constitution was replaced by the 1976 Constitution. See Art. VIII, Sec. IX, Par. I of the 1976 Georgia Constitution.
Our current constitution, approved by the electorate in 1983, yet again preserves the now 134-year-old status quo in regard to exclusive local control over general K-12 public education. Art. VIII, [267]*267Sec. V Par. I. However, “special schools” are now addressed in an entirely revised paragraph. Art. VIII, Sec. V Par- VII (a).4 That paragraph states that
[t]he General Assembly may provide by law for the creation of special schools in such areas as may require them and may provide for the participation of local boards of education in the establishment of such schools under such terms and conditions as it may provide.. . .
Id. This paragraph eliminated the previous constitutional language that included “special schools” as one type of “area school”; authorized the creation of “special schools” by the General Assembly alone or together with the local boards of education; and deleted the three specific examples of “special schools” set forth in the earlier constitutions, thereby authorizing the General Assembly to provide by law for the creation of any type of special school.
(c) In 2008, the General Assembly enacted the Georgia Charter Schools Commission Act5 pursuant to which it established the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, OCGA § 20-2-2082 (“the Commission”), and authorized the Commission, inter alia, to “assist in the establishment of commission charter schools throughout this state.” OCGA § 20-2-2083 (b) (1). A “commission charter school” is defined as
a charter school authorized by the [C]ommission . . . whose creation is authorized as a special school pursuant to Article VIII, Section V Paragraph VII of the Constitution. A commission charter school shall exist as a public school within the state as a component of the delivery of public education within Georgia’s K-12 education system.
(Emphasis supplied.) OCGA § 20-2-2081 (2). The Commission is also charged with the duty of collaborating with “cosponsors”6 for “the purpose of providing the highest level of public education to all students, including, but not limited to, low-income, low-performing, [268]*268gifted, and underserved student populations and to students with special needs.” (Emphasis supplied.) OCGA § 20-2-2083 (b) (12). As the language in the Act and the record in this case reflect, the commission charter schools established by the Commission pursuant to the Act are created to deliver K-12 public education to any student within Georgia’s general K-12 public education system. Commission charter schools thus necessarily operate in competition with or duplicate the efforts of locally controlled general K-12 schools by enrolling the same types of K-12 students who attend locally controlled schools and by teaching them the same subjects that may be taught at locally controlled schools.
2. Appellants contend the Act is unconstitutional because the schools the Commission is authorized to create are not “special schools” under Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a). In addressing this challenge to the constitutionality of the Act, we recognize at the outset that
all presumptions are in favor of the constitutionality of an act of the legislature and that before an Act of the legislature can be declared unconstitutional, the conflict between it and the fundamental law must be clear and palpable and this [C]ourt must be clearly satisfied of its unconstitutionality. Moreover, because statutes are presumed to be constitutional until the contrary appears,.. . the burden is on the party alleging a statute to be unconstitutional to prove it.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Dev. Auth. of DeKalb County v. State of Ga., 286 Ga. 36, 38 (1) (684 SE2d 856) (2009).
(a) “ ‘Constitutions, like statutes, are properly to be expounded in the light of conditions existing at the time of their adoption.’ [Cit.]” Clarke v. Johnson, 199 Ga. 163, 166 (33 SE2d 425) (1945). As discussed above, at the time the 1983 Constitution was adopted, local boards of education had been constitutionally vested for more than 100 years with the exclusive control over the establishment and maintenance of general K-12 public education. See Division 1 (a), supra. The “special schools” were not competitors with locally controlled schools in regard to the education of general K-12 students; rather, the scope of special schools was demonstrated by the examples of “special schools” expressly contained in Georgia constitutions since 1966. Examples of “special schools” were “vocational trade schools, schools for exceptional children, and schools for adult education.” See Ga. L. 1966, p. 1030, § 3. As each of these examples of “special schools” helps to demonstrate, the constitutionally significant matters that made a school “special” were a matter directly related to the school itself — its student body and its curriculum. In [269]*269light of these long-standing constitutional examples, we recognize that the “conditions existing” at the time of the adoption of the 1983 Constitution reflected that “special schools” were those that enrolled only students with certain special needs, e.g., adults, deaf or blind children, and those that taught only certain special subjects, e.g., vocational trade schools with jobs-oriented curricula. Based on these “conditions existing” at the time the 1983 Constitution was adopted and in light of the reaffirmation in that constitution of the authority granted local boards of education “to establish and maintain public schools within their limits,” Art. VIII, Sec. Y, Par. I, the “special schools” language in Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII (a) cannot be interpreted either as a relinquishment of the historical exclusivity of control vested in local boards of education over general K-12 schools or as a carte blanche authorization for the General Assembly to create its own general K-12 schools so as to duplicate the efforts of or compete with locally controlled schools for the same pool of students educated with the same limited pool of tax funds.
(b) In construing the meaning of constitutional language, it can also be useful to consider the understanding expressed by the people involved in the drafting and ratifying of the constitution. Collins v. Mills, 198 Ga. 18, 22 (30 SE2d 866) (1944). Two matters are readily apparent from the transcriptions from the committee and subcommittee meetings of the participants working on the revision of Article VIII. The first is the consensus among all the participants that “special schools” were indeed those schools that enrolled only students with certain special needs or taught only certain special subjects. As succinctly stated by Speaker Thomas B. Murphy of the House of Representatives, member of the Select Committee on Constitutional Revision, in regard to Art. VIII, Sec. Y, Par. VII (a),
The reason for this paragraph in the constitution is it allows the General Assembly to establish schools for the blind, deaf, or people of that nature. That’s the reason for this. We might need to establish — we’ve got one in Atlanta, we’ve got one in Cave Springs, and we might need to establish one in south Georgia, and that’s the reason for that part in the constitution.
Select Committee on Constitutional Revisions, 1977-1981, Transcript of Meetings, Legislative Overview Committee, Vol. I, meeting of June 18,1981, p. 67. See also Select Committee on Constitutional Revisions, 1977-1981, Transcript of Meetings, Committee to Revise Article VIII, Vol. Ill, meeting of the Subcommittee on Local School Systems, September 4, 1980, p. 51, statement by Chairman Thorn-hill that “[w]e’re talking about special schools, and special schools is [270]*270interpreted as vocational schools, et cetera”; id. at meeting of the Committee to Revise Article VIII, September 23, 1980, p. 29, statement by Chairman Thornhill of the Subcommittee on Local School Systems that the “special schools ... are schools, vo-tech schools, adult education, exceptional children and so on.” Because this consensus view of the meaning of “special schools” is consistent with the previous constitution, it explains why the drafters envisioned the “special schools” paragraph as constituting only “an editorial revision,” with the “major change” being the new paragraph’s authorization of the creation of special schools “by general or local law.” Select Committee on Constitutional Revisions, 1977-1981, Transcript of Meetings, Legislative Overview Committee, Vol. I, meeting of June 18, 1981, p. 65 (subcommittee report by assistant executive director Melvin B. Hill, Jr., to Legislative Overview Committee).7
The second matter revealed by the transcripts is that, notwithstanding the decision to delete the three examples of “special schools” contained in the previous constitutions in favor of “broadening” the “special schools” phrase in order to include “any type of special school” (emphasis supplied), see id., meeting of the Legislative Overview Committee, June 18, 1981, p. 76, the drafters and participants never considered “special schools” as including any type of general K-12 school. To the contrary, the transcripts reflect that even Mr. Hill, the proponent of “broadening” the “special schools” phrase, clearly maintained that “special schools” were “whatever schools other than the primary and secondary education level schools.” (Emphasis supplied.) Select Committee on Constitutional Revisions, 1977-1981, Transcript of Meetings, Committee to Revise Article VIII, Vol. Ill, meeting of the Subcommittee on Local School Systems, August 21, 1980, p. 53.
Based on these comments by the drafters and participants in the framing of the 1983 Constitution, we conclude that it was their clearly understood and plainly expressed position that “special schools” in Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a) meant those schools that [271]*271enrolled only students with certain special needs or taught only certain special subjects and did not include general K-12 schools comparable to those under the exclusive control of local boards of education.
(c) Finally, “[w]hen interpreting words used in the Constitution the presumption is that they were used according to their ‘natural and ordinary meaning.’ [Cits.]” Williamson v. Schmid, 237 Ga. 630, 632 (229 SE2d 400) (1976). The word “special” does not authorize an interpretation that includes antonymic modifiers such as general, regular, typical, ordinary, or any other “un”-special descriptive term. Moreover, “special” must be interpreted as a term denoting a difference of constitutional significance, both because to interpret it otherwise would eliminate the reason to include this modifier in Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a) and because otherwise the exclusive grant of authority to local school boards in Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. I over general K-12 schools would be rendered meaningless. Established rules of constitutional construction prohibit us from any interpretation that would render a word superfluous or meaningless. See generally Blum v. Schrader, 281 Ga. 238 (2) (637 SE2d 396) (2006). Finally, we must recognize the significance of the fact that “special” modifies “school.” Hence, “special” must relate to the school itself if “ ‘all [of the constitutional paragraph’s] parts [are to be construed so as] to give a sensible and intelligent effect to each [of them].’ ” Brown v. Liberty County, 271 Ga. 634, 635 (522 SE2d 466) (1999). As noted above, see Division 1 (b), supra, the constitutionally significant matters that make a school “special” include, but are not limited to, matters directly related to the school itself, i.e., its student body and its curriculum.
It is not necessary here to provide a definitive list of the specific features and characteristics relative to a school itself that must be present in order to qualify a school as a “special school” under Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a). Rather, in this particular case, the phrase “special schools” is most readily interpreted by defining what those schools are not. From both the natural meaning of the “special schools” phrase and the constitutional history of Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII (a) set forth in Divisions 2 (a) and (b), supra, “special schools” are not general K-12 schools. They are not schools that enroll the same types of K-12 students who attend general K-12 public schools; they are not schools that teach the same subjects that may be taught at general K-12 public schools. To interpret “special schools” under Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII (a) as including those schools that are indistinguishable in every constitutionally significant manner from general K-12 schools established and maintained by local boards of education would render the “special” in “special schools” meaningless.
[272]*272Based on the natural and ordinary meaning of the phrase “special schools” in Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII (a), we hold that schools that “exist as a public school within the [SJtate as a component of the delivery of public education within Georgia’s K-12 education system,” OCGA § 20-2-2081 (2), and provide “public education to all students,” see OCGA § 20-2-2083 (b) (12), do not qualify as “special schools.”
3. In order to find a clear and palpable conflict between Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a) and the Act, we must determine that the Act is not capable of being construed in harmony with that constitutional provision. See generally Buice v. Dixon, 223 Ga. 645, 647 (157 SE2d 481) (1967). Thus, we now turn to the different reasons that have been asserted in support of the position that commission charter schools created under the Act qualify as “special schools.”
(a) We first respond to the assertion that commission charter schools are special schools because the General Assembly has determined that they are, see OCGA § 20-2-2081 (2), and had a rational basis for that determination. The 1983 Georgia Constitution contains no language allowing the General Assembly itself to define “special schools.” Compare, e.g., Art. I, Sec. II, Par. VIII (b) (in provision providing for the legal operation of nonprofit bingo games, “[t]he General Assembly may by law define a nonprofit bingo game”).8 “Special school” is not a statutory phrase but a constitutional phrase. Construing the Constitution is the function of the judiciary and the General Assembly has no power to make such a construction. Thompson v. Talmadge, 201 Ga. 867 (41 SE2d 883) (1947). “[Determining the meaning of the Constitution, which is binding upon everyone, [is] the exclusive function of the courts in the adjudication of cases properly brought before them for decision.” Id. at 872.9 It is thus for this Court alone to determine whether legislation enacted by the General Assembly is inconsistent with the Constitution and where, as here, such an inconsistency has been determined to exist, it is irrelevant whether any rational basis exists for the legislation.
(b) It is asserted that commission charter schools come within the definition of “special schools” because that term was “broadened” in the 1983 Georgia Constitution by the elimination of the three examples of “special schools” set forth in the prior constitu[273]*273tions, namely, vocational trade schools, schools for exceptional children, and schools for adult education. See Art. VIII, Sec. IX, Par. I of the 1976 Georgia Constitution. While the striking of these three examples clearly authorized the General Assembly to create any type of special school, the limitation on a school being “special” was retained; hence, Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a) cannot be read as authorizing the General Assembly to create any type of school that is not special. Had granting the General Assembly the authority to create non-special schools been the intent, it readily could have been accomplished by striking “special” at the same time the three examples were deleted. We therefore must conclude that nothing in the striking of the examples in the 1983 Constitution authorized the General Assembly to create non-special schools.
(c) In reliance on commission charter schools’ unique charters, their individualized, performance-based contracts and their educational philosophy, the assertion is made that commission charter schools are “special schools” because they are special in their operation. But every general K-12 public school has an educational philosophy; every general K-12 public school has a “unique operating charter” — whether memorialized in writing or merely implicit in the unique nature of each school’s faculty, administration and student body; and every educator in every general K-12 public school is required to teach his or her students in accordance with the same statutory standards of professional performance, see the Georgia Professional Standards Act, OCGA § 20-2-981 et seq., that govern the conduct of all of the State’s educators. These are not differences that make commission charter schools “special”: they are the same strengths that may be found in all general K-12 schools, whether locally controlled or Commission established.
(d) Turning to the next reason, it is asserted that because of the manner in which commission charter schools are created, i.e., by the Commission by means of the Act passed by the General Assembly, they are “special schools” because they are “outside the ordinary source of schools,” i.e., not created by local boards of education. In other words, the Commission has the authority to create “special” schools and schools are “special” because the Commission created them. This circular reasoning aside, there are certainly differences between local boards of education and the Commission. On the one hand, local school boards are comprised of members who live in their schools’ districts and must be elected to their positions by the parents and taxpayers residing in the areas from which the students are drawn and the local schools taxes are raised. See Art. VIII, Sec. X Par- H; Art. VIII, Sec. VI, Par. I. The Commission, on the other hand, is comprised of seven political appointees who are selected by the governor, the president of the Senate (i.e., the lieutenant [274]*274governor) and the speaker of the House, see OCGA § 20-2-2082 (b); hence, its members are not accountable in any manner either to the parents or to the taxpayers. But Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII (a) speaks of “special schools,” not “schools from special sources.” The differences that may exist as to the type of entity that establishes a school are not constitutionally significant if those differences have no impact on the school itself. As demonstrated in this case, the fact that commission charter schools are established by the Commission does not affect the types of students enrolled or the curricula taught; the commission charter schools do not enroll students categorically different from those at locally controlled schools or teach subjects wholly unlike those that may be taught in locally controlled schools merely because they were established by the Commission, rather than a local board of education. In the context provided by Art. VIII, Sec. V VII (a), a difference so wholly unrelated to a school itself cannot serve to render the school “special” within the meaning of our Constitution.
A corollary of this assertion is that the commission charter schools are “special schools” because they are not directly funded by local school taxes. Aside from the fact that State tax dollars are no more special than local tax dollars — both have the same purchasing power — there is yet again no constitutional significance as to the source of funding that would render a school “special” for purposes of Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a).
(e) The final reason asserted for commission charter schools being defined as “special schools” is also the least persuasive. Our attention is directed to one statute, OCGA § 20-2-370, regarding the requirement of a referendum to annul a municipal or independent school district’s “special school law”; an opinion from this Court applying that statute, see Upson County School Dist. v. City of Thomaston, 248 Ga. 98 (281 SE2d 537) (1981); and a few brief instances of ill-considered language in three opinions dating from 1925 to 195510 in which the term “special school” is used in a manner wholly unrelated to the “special school” provision first incorporated into our constitution in 1966. See Division 1 (b), supra. None of these authorities are pertinent to the constitutional question of whether a school indistinguishable from the general K-12 public schools established by local boards of education is a “special school” under Art. VIII, Sec. V Par- VII (a) merely because it was not created by a local board of education. However, to the extent these authorities may [275]*275seem pertinent to the issue, they are controlled by our discussion in Division 3 (d), supra.
In conclusion, none of the proffered reasons enable us to construe the Act in harmony with Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a). See generally Buice v. Dixon, supra, 223 Ga. at 647. Labeling a commission charter school as “special” does not make it so when the students who attend locally-controlled schools are no less special than those enrolled in commission charter schools and the subjects taught at commission charter schools are no more special than the subjects that may be available at locally-controlled schools. We thus hold that the General Assembly’s enactment of the 2008 Georgia Charter Schools Commission Act for the purpose of creating schools that do not qualify as “special schools” plainly and palpably conflicts with Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a).
4. (a) Although we find the Act unconstitutional solely on the basis that it violates Art. VIII, Sec. V Par. VII (a), the dissent, relying on Blevins v. Dade County Bd. of Tax Assessors, 288 Ga. 113 (3) (702 SE2d 145) (2010) (statute may not be struck down under a due process vagueness analysis unless it is unconstitutional in all of its applications), asserts that this Court must uphold the Act because the possibility exists that constitutionally permissible schools may be created thereunder, pointing to language in OCGA § 20-2-2083 (b) (12) that identifies “special needs” students as included among “all students” for which charter schools may provide the “highest level of public education.” Because the Act’s provisions clearly allow for the creation of unconstitutional schools, i.e., schools that are not genuinely “special schools,” it follows that the dissent would have this Court exercise its inherent authority to judicially rewrite statutes by editing them in a manner to excise constitutionally defective provisions in order to avoid striking down an enactment of the General Assembly. See Fortson v. Weeks, 232 Ga. 472 (1) (208 SE2d 68) (1974).
However, even under the liberal application of this inherent authority proposed by the dissent, we are not able to uphold the Act. The problem is twofold. First, the Act contains no safeguards whatsoever to prevent the creation of unconstitutional schools. Compare Livingston v. State, 264 Ga. 402, 404 (1) (c) (444 SE2d 748) (1994) (noting as to OCGA § 17-10-1.2 that “our legislature has employed sufficient safeguards within the statute to ensure that victim impact evidence will not be admitted which reflects on factors which this court has found constitutionally irrelevant to death penalty sentencing, and which could result in the arbitrary and unconstitutional imposition of the death penalty”). Second, this Court cannot judicially rewrite a statute when the unconstitutional part “is so connected with the general scope of the statute that, [276]*276should it be stricken out, effect can not be given to the legislative intent.” (Punctuation omitted.) Fortson, supra at 475. In that circumstance, the rest of the statute must fall with the defective language. Id. To judicially rewrite the Act, as the dissent would have us do, in order to limit its application only to the creation of commission charter schools that are genuine special schools under Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII (a), would require this Court to reject the General Assembly’s expressed intent that charter schools be used as a means of “maximizing access to a wide variety of high-quality educational options for all students regardless of disability, race, or socioeconomic status.” OCGA § 20-2-2080 (b) (2). See also OCGA § 20-2-2083 (b) (12), reiterating that “highest level of public education [should be provided] to all students.”11
Therefore, because narrowing the Act to avoid its unconstitutional infirmities “would be less a matter of reasonable judicial construction than a matter of substantial legislative revision,” State v. Fielden, 280 Ga. 444, 448 (629 SE2d 252) (2006), we cannot agree with the dissent that this Court expand the scope of its inherent authority so as to rewrite the Act to render it constitutional.
(b) We have carefully considered the remaining arguments raised in support of the Act by the dissent and find them to be without merit.
5. The record establishes uncontrovertedly that the Georgia Charter Schools Commission Act and the schools established thereunder represent the efforts of well-intentioned people, motivated by their genuine concern over the current condition of this State’s general K-12 public education, to provide the children of this State with an alternative and, in some cases, a superior educational opportunity. In holding the Act unconstitutional under the unique provisions of this State’s Constitution, we do not in any manner denigrate the goals and aspirations that these efforts reflect. The goals are laudable. The method used to attain those goals, however, is clearly and palpably unconstitutional. Because the Georgia Charter Schools Commission Act violates Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII (a) of the 1983 Constitution of Georgia, we reverse the trial court’s order.
6. Our holding here renders it unnecessary to address appellants’ remaining constitutional challenges to the Act.
Judgment reversed.
All the Justices concur, except Carley, P. J.,
[277]*277
Melton and Nahmias, JJ., who dissent.