Tennessee’s new Education Commissioner will continue privatization push
There’s a new Commissioner of Education coming to Tennessee and Volunteer State residents will likely be unable to discern any policy differences when compared with outgoing Commissioner Penny Schwinn.
Jeb Bush – known for privatizing Florida public schools by way of both charters and vouchers – was quick to congratulate Lizzette Reynolds on her appointment as Tennessee’s next Education Commissioner.
Reynolds works for Bush’s pro-privatization issue advocacy group, ExcelinEd.
Congratulations to @GovBillLee and @ExcelinEd VP of Policy Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds for her selection as the next K-12 schools chief in Tennessee! We are so proud of the work she’s done and what the future holds. https://t.co/UPLpGALYXz
While Gov. Bill Lee credited outgoing Commissioner Schwinn with leading the way for the state’s school voucher program, it seems likely Reynolds will continue pushing various methods of school privatization.
Pro-voucher Commissioner leaving role at end of school year
Tennessee Commissioner of Education Penny Scwhinn, who openly advocated for shifting public money to private schools via a school voucher scheme dubbed Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) is leaving her role at the end of the school year.
Current Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn announced her resignation today, effective in just a few weeks when the school year ends for most districts around the state.
Lee commended Schwinn for her service to Tennessee:
“During her years of dedicated service, Penny has played a key role in our administration’s work to ensure educational opportunity for Tennessee students and secure the next generation of teachers, while navigating historic learning challenges,” said Lee. “I have tremendous gratitude for her leadership and wish her much success in her next chapter.”
Lee credited Schwinn with what he called significant education reform, including ushering in the state’s school voucher program.
Schwinn will be replaced by Lizzette Reynolds, a former top official at the Texas Education Agency.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Over at The Education Report, I’ve written about the recently concluded legislative session.
Here are a couple highlights:
As the General Assembly finished its business this week, legislation that would expand the state’s fledgling voucher program (now confined to Memphis and Nashville) to Chattanooga was finally passed.
To be clear, it had been passed in the Senate before.
The House, however, was eager to get vouchers into even more communities – and so added an amendment that would add Knox County to the mix.
Ultimately, Knox County was NOT added – but let’s be clear: The legislature wants full-on privatization of the state’s public schools.
What’s up with third grade?
Tennessee now has a third grade retention law – meaning that students who don’t hit a certain benchmark on the state’s 3rd grade TNReady test MUST repeat third grade OR participate in remediation, including a summer reading program. Some estimates suggest more than 60% of students would be subject to the law’s requirements and around half of those may ultimately repeat third grade.
The legislature did so SOME tinkering – but it won’t help this year’s kids.
Unless the full legislature intervenes before adjourning in the next few weeks, this year’s decisions on who gets held back or sent to remedial programs will be based solely on TCAP reading test results. That’s the current criterion under a 2021 law that lawmakers passed in response to pandemic learning losses.
If the proposed revisions are approved as expected, the state would widen criteria beginning with the 2023-24 school year to consider results from a second state-provided benchmark test, too — but only for third graders who score as “approaching” proficiency on their TCAP.
Guns in Schools?
Gov. Bill Lee did ultimately propose the adoption of a Red Flag Law – but no GOP member of the House or Senate rose up to sponsor it in the legislature’s final days.
Tennessee lawmakers appear determined to expand vouchers to both Chattanooga and Knoxville this year. In fact, the Senate has already passed legislation expanding the state’s Education Savings Account (ESA) program to Chattanooga at the request of Hamilton County state Senator Todd Gardenhire. Now, the House may add Knox County to the voucher expansion and send the plan back to the Senate.
Meanwhile, Georgia lawmakers recently rejected a voucher plan.
Analysis reveals Hillsdale scheme would devastate Tennessee school districts
A fiscal analysis released today from Public School Partners (a group I support and am a member of) reveals that if approved, Hillsdale College’s scheme to create charter schools in five Tennessee school districts (Madison, Maury, Montgomery, Robertson, Rutherford) would cost local taxpayers some $35 million when fully implemented.
Here’s more from Public School Partners:
Five proposed charter schools affiliated with controversial Michigan-based Hillsdale College would drain more than $17 million from Tennessee suburban and rural public schools during their first year of operation and roughly $35 million per year at maximum enrollment, according to a new fiscal analysis by Public School Partners (PSP) and Charter Fiscal Impact.
As a result, the five taxpayer-funded privately run charter schools would trigger steep increases in local school districts’ budgets — with costs passed along to county commissions and, ultimately, local taxpayers. Absent significant amounts of new tax revenue, public-school students and families could be hurt as districts grapple with fixed costs stranded in existing schools — including hard-to-adjust expenses such as staffing, maintenance, transportation, and utilities.
“No matter how you run the numbers, the financial math on charter schools just doesn’t add up for Tennessee students, parents, and taxpayers,” said Dr. Donna Wright, a PSP co-founder and retired superintendent of Wilson County Schools. “Privately run charter schools that aren’t accountable to elected local school boards significantly strain local budgets, which already are being stretched thin by inflation and other cost pressures.”
A PSP analysis found that the initial cost of the charter schools in each district (Clarksville-Montgomery County School System; Jackson-Madison County School System; Maury County Public Schools; Robertson County Schools; and Rutherford County Schools) would be around $3.5 million. That’s with a projected enrollment of 340 students in each location. At full enrollment, projected at 690 students, the cost per district moves to roughly $7 million. The total cost, then, is $35 million – a cost borne by local taxpayers.
MORE from PSP on the potential impact of Hillsdale charters in the state:
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.
“Over the past decade, the explosion of charter schools in Nashville siphoned funds from neighborhood schools and ultimately helped trigger a massive county-wide property tax increase,” said Kenneth Byrd, a PSP co-founder and parent of three children in Metro Nashville Public Schools. “While it’s unfortunate for Nashville that we were at the bleeding edge of school privatization in Tennessee, hopefully our experience can serve as a cautionary tale for suburban and rural districts that now face the same threat.”
Meanwhile, Tennessee voters view traditional public schools more favorably than privately run charter schools. According to a statewide poll by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), 68 percent of voters view public schools favorably compared with only a 41 percent favorable rating for charters. Support for charters falls to 31 percent when voters are asked for their impression of so-called “classical” charter schools, such as those affiliated with Hillsdale.
Tennessee’s track record with charter schools is abysmal. For example, Vanderbilt University researchers found the state-run Achievement School District — one of the nation’s largest and most- controversial charter-school experiments — had “not produced positive effects” despite spending nearly $1 billion in state and local taxpayer money.
Tennessee’s charter-school law adds fiscal stress to a chronically underfunded education system. In 2022, Tennessee’s per-pupil funding level ranked 45th among 50 states and the District of Columbia — earning the state an ‘F’ grade from the Education Law Center. Similarly, the EdWeek Research Center gave Tennessee an ‘F’ in spending on public education.
Efforts to privatize Tennessee’s public schools were deferred today in a key House Committee.
The privatization push includes potential expansion of school vouchers into Knoxville and the other would open the doors for charter schools to operate in districts without first being subject to local review.
This bill (HB433), as currently written, would expand the state’s school voucher program (known as Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs) to Chattanooga. Currently, the voucher scheme only applies to students in Memphis and Nashville.
It’s bad enough that some policymakers are ready to expand this privatization program to another Tennessee school district. However, what’s even more alarming is that Education Administration Committee Chair Mark White has filed an amendment to expand the program even further – this time into Knoxville.
As you might recall, I wrote about an amendment to the charter legislation that would:
Create a scheme for allowing charter schools that serve homeschooled students
Allow for the creation of residential/boarding schools that are charter schools
These new charters would also be able to bypass local school boards and apply directly to Bill Lee’s State Charter Commission for approval.
That would mean zero local input and zero local accountability – even though millions of local tax dollars would be spent supporting these charter schools.
It’s important to look at these pieces of legislation for what they are: A clear agenda.
Gov. Lee and his legislative allies want to privatize our public schools.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
State’s revenue surplus stuffed under mattresses, teachers, schools left behind
As I read through Tennessee’s latest revenue update, I can’t help but think that state leaders are acting like a “broke dad” when all the evidence points to the opposite.
So far this year, Tennessee has taken in $1.2 billion MORE than was estimated.
On the low end, it seems likely that the state will have a $2 billion surplus THIS YEAR when all is said and done.
Let me put it this way: You’re a parent. You have a paid for house, two paid for cars, and enough money in the bank that you can NOT work for a year and still cover basic expenses.
Is that the time when you tell your family that you will all be moving into a car and sleeping in the parking lot of a nearby park?
On a range of issues – from the DCS crisis to third grade retention to teacher compensation, Tennessee policymakers are refusing to invest the revenue provided by taxpayers.
A recent report indicated that only 25% of Tennessee teachers earn $60,000 or more a year.
Here’s an idea: Make the starting pay for Tennessee’s teachers $60,000.
Do it THIS YEAR.
The state can afford it.
In fact, given the teacher shortage, the state really can’t afford not to do it.
Unless, that is, the state is hurtling toward full privatization of public schools and figures public K-12 teacher salaries won’t be the state’s worry soon.
What’s interesting is to see other states that have tried this sort of law – and then backed down.
The Education Reportnotes that Michigan has just repealed its third-grade retention law after seven years. Why? Because it doesn’t work!
Michigan’s legislature recently sent third grade retention repeal to the Governor.
Here’s how lawmakers explained that decision:
“Michigan isn’t the first state to try this,” Koleszar said. “We’ve seen it in other states and there’s zero data from any other states that suggests retention is the way to go. We’ve got enough data to know it’s not working.”
Here’s what else is interesting about the Michigan repeal:
“Let’s use that money for reading intervention specialists, for literacy coaches, after school programs, summer school programs, to tackle the issue that way, instead of being reactive and just holding them back in a punitive and punishing way,” said Rep. Nate Shannon, D-Sterling Heights.
The bill passed Tuesday repeals the retention aspect of the law, but retains other elements such as staffing recommendations, reading intervention services, and the use of evidence-based curricula and instructional material.
Hello? Tennessee??
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
