As Rutherford County Faces Budget Deficit, School Board Grants Tax Money to Hillsdale Charter School

New school could drain $7 million a year from county coffers

Rutherford County is facing a serious budget crisis that could lead to a tax increase and the local school board just voted to exacerbate the problem.

The budget deficit and potential tax increase comes as the Rutherford County School Board voted 5-2 to approve an application for a charter school affiliated with Michigan-based Hillsdale College.

At least one of the School Board members in favor of the new charter, Caleb Tidwell, was backed by County Mayor Joe Carr in his campaign.

An analysis of the fiscal impact of the Hillsdale charter in Rutherford County reveals a first-year taxpayer cost of $3.4 million and a cost at full enrollment of $7 million.

Two key takeaways here:

  1. The Rutherford County School Board has committed the district and county taxpayers to an ongoing, recurring expense of $7 million to fund a right-wing charter school that offers dubious educational value.
  2. American Classical Academy could use the approval in Rutherford to bolster appeals to the State Charter Commission in the four other districts.

This is all part of a larger move to build a network of Hillsdale charter schools in the state that could ultimately cost local taxpayers as much as $350 million a year.

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Rutherford School Board Approves Hillsdale Charter School

Gov. Bill Lee recruited Hillsdale College of Michigan to open a network of charter schools in the state – a plan he announced last year in his State of the State Address.

Last year, Hillsdale applied to open “American Classical Academy” in three districts – Jackson-Madison, Clarksville-Montgomery, and Rutherford County.

All three rejected Hillsdale and the charters then appealed to the State Charter Commission. Eventually, though, they withdrew those appeals.

Instead, they would submit new applications in five districts – Maury, Montgomery, Madison, Robertson, and Rutherford.

School boards in Maury, Montgomery, and Robertson counties rejected Hillsdale’s new applications.

However, last night, the Rutherford County School Board voted 5-2 to approve a Hillsdale charter that would open in 2024.

More from the Daily News Journal:

The elected school board voted 5-2, to approve the ACA charter school application that would establish a free public charter school in the county. Board members Coy Young and Shelia Bratton voted in opposition. The school would start by 2024-25 serving 340 students in grades K-5 and phase in grades until reaching 690 students through 12th grade by 2029-30.

An analysis of the fiscal impact of the Hillsdale charter on Rutherford County reveals that at full capacity, the new school would drain some $7 million a year from local tax revenue.

Fixed costs account for at least 40 percent of some school districts’ budgets. Nationwide, Moody’s Investors Service found that a growing number of school districts face “financial stress” due to fixed costs. In Nashville, an independent study found that charter schools would, “with nearly 100 percent certainty, have a negative fiscal impact” on the local school district’s budget.

In 2024, when the school opens, it is expected to carry a fixed cost to the district of more than $3 million.

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Rutherford Rejects Hillsdale Charter

The Rutherford County School Board rejected a charter school application from a Hillsdale-affiliated school last night. The vote was 6-1 against.

Here’s one Rutherford County School Board member talking about the problems with charter schools, Gov. Bill Lee, and Hillsdale President Larry Arnn:

https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1549478212119547904?s=20&t=fC4-gH_Cg1Cba-14C6Rknw

Arnn’s recent comments disparaging teachers certainly didn’t help matters.

Following the vote, the Southern Christian Coalition issued a statement applauding the move and calling on Gov. Lee to sever all ties with Hillsdale.

Here’s more on that from NewsBreak:

Following the Rutherford County School Board’s rejection of a charter school affiliated with Hillsdale College, pastors affiliated with the Southern Christian Coalition hailed the move and called on Gov. Lee and state policymakers to sever all ties with the private college in Michigan.

Coalition member Rev. Donna Whitney of Metro Interdenominational Church in Nashville released a video statement in which she applauded the Rutherford County decision and pushed Lee to take action to end Tennessee’s Hillsdale connection.

“I’m grateful that the Rutherford County School Board rejected the application of American Classical Academy, a charter school connected to Larry Arnn and Hillsdale College. Since January when Governor Lee announced that he wanted to open 100 Hillsdale charter schools in Tennessee, I have been speaking out against this plan due to the school’s failure to appropriately separate church and state in our public schools and because of the fact that their history curriculum whitewashes history. All children across the state deserve access to a high-quality education with high quality curriculum that meets state standards and prepares them to become successful and productive adult members of our community, and these schools would instead be a disservice to our students.

“The comments made by Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, an education advisor to Governor Lee, that ‘teachers come from the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges’ is just further proof that Governor Lee needs to distance himself from Hillsdale and abandon his attempts to bring Hillsdale Schools to Tennessee. These schools erase the line between church and state and are an attempt to bring White Christian Nationalism into our public schools.”

Whitney ended her remarks with an appeal for full funding of the state’s public schools.

“So today I am asking for Governor Lee to abandon this ill-advised partnership and instead finally fully fund our public schools as much as any other state so that every child in Tennessee has access to a quality public education that prepares them to thrive as productive and successful adults who enrich our Tennessee communities.”

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BREAKING: Rutherford County Schools Moving to Distance Learning

In the wake of a rapidly spreading outbreak of COVID-19, a virus that has already claimed the lives of two district teachers, Rutherford County Schools has announced that it will move to distance learning to until the end of this year. The move will take effect on Wednesday and mean the district will not meet with students in-person from Wednesday through Friday of this, the final week of the semester.

Here are screenshots of an email from the district on the move:

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Voucher Resistance Grows

School Boards in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County both recently indicated opposition to using public money to fund private schools, the Daily News Journal reports.

Lawmakers should oppose state money being used for private education, says a resolution approved Thursday by Rutherford County school officials.

The seven Board of Education members also signed the document in opposition to any state legislation allowing vouchers or education savings accounts for private education. The elected school officials represent a district serving 46,772 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade.

Murfreesboro City School Board members also will be signing the resolution to oppose vouchers and education savings accounts for private schools, Chairman Butch Campbell said Friday.

“I think it’s a continued effort to let our legislators know the opposition that we have for school vouchers,” Campbell said.

The seven-member City School board serves a prekindergarten- through sixth-grade district with 8,989 students.

Despite opposition from the city and county school districts she represents, state Senator Dawn White says she remains a supporter of using public money for private schools:

State Sen. Dawn White, R-Murfreesboro, however, said she backs any potential legislation similar to a law passed a few years ago permitting education savings accounts for special education students.

White’s support for vouchers not only runs counter to the school systems she represents, it also ignores significant evidence that vouchers simply don’t work:

Voucher studies of statewide programs in Ohio, Louisiana, and Indiana all suggest that not only do vouchers not improve student achievement, they in fact cause student performance to decline.

Stay tuned to see if a voucher plan — in whatever disguise — moves forward this legislative session.

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Rutherford Teachers Vote “No Confidence” in Huffman

The Rutherford County Education Association is the latest to join a growing list of local educator associations expressing frustration with Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education, Kevin Huffman.

The organization’s President said of the vote:

Commissioner Huffman wants to make Tennessee the ‘fastest’ improving state in terms of education Rutherford Education Association President Emily Mitchell said. “It seems to me that if you want to go fast, you go by yourself, but if you want to go far, you go together. I wish the commissioner would include input from the outstanding educators we have in this great state so that students, teachers, parents and community members could go far together.

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Rutherford County to Consider Alternative Pay Plan

The Rutherford County School Board will begin discussions tonight on a new pay plan as required by the State Board of Education.  The State Board approved Commissioner Kevin Huffman’s recommendations for a new pay scale and a requirement that districts come up with differentiated pay schemes, including merit pay and pay based on performance on the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS).

TVAAS is facing continued criticism from some who don’t wish to tie teacher licensure to the scores it produces. It has also been suggested that TVAAS has done very little so far to improve Tennessee schools despite having been in existence for 20 years. And, some critics of value-added data note that it is unable to effectively differentiate among teachers.

It will be interesting to see the general outline of the pay plan discussed in Rutherford tonight as it may offer insight in to how the state is “guiding” districts to develop such plans.

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