Chalkbeatreports on the Shelby County School Board’s denial of 11 charter school applications:
With scant public discussion, Shelby County Schools board denied 11 new charter school applications this week.
The denials at Tuesday night’s board meeting were not unexpected, since district staff recommended changes to the applications, said Shelby County Schools Chief of Strategy and Performance Management Bradley Leon after the board meeting.
The schools may amend their applications and resubmit, but if denied a second time, would have to appeal to the State Board of Education. Soon, the appeal duties will fall to Bill Lee’s Super Charter Authorizer. A similar entity has created significant problems in Alabama.
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Shaka Mitchell, the head of the Tennessee branch of Betsy DeVos‘s school privatization group American Federation for Children, joined two other school privatization advocates in penning an OpEd calling on legislators to ignore legitimate concerns about the way in which the plan passed in the House.
Mitchell’s piece suggests an urgency to moving forward with the incredibly expensive Education Savings Account (ESA) scheme. He glosses over the fierce resistance to vouchers from across the state and fails to mention the win-at-all-costs tactics of voucher advocates that ultimately led to the plan’s passage this year.
Readers may remember Mitchell as the charter school leader who ran Nashville’s Rocketship schools into the ground.
In fact, while Mitchell was failing in his attempts to expand Rocketship, the State Board of Education noted:
In fact, Rocketship’s appeal to the State Board was rejected last year in part because of low performance:
“They did have a level 5 TVAAS composite, which is the highest score overall you can get in growth,” Heyburn said. “But their achievement scores are really low, some of the lowest in their cluster and in the district.”
The MNPS review team addressed this as well:
In summary, with no additional state accountability data to consider, and no compelling evidence presented that provides confidence in the review team, converting an existing low-performing school before Rocketship has demonstrated academic success on state accountability measures would not be in the best interests of the students, the district, or the community.
According to the Metro Schools letter, Rocketship is not providing services to children with special learning needs, like English language learners and students with disabilities.
The notice was sent from Metro Nashville Public School’s top administrators after a monitoring team with the Tennessee Department of Education came in to conduct a routine audit of special services, primarily programs adhering to The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
It’s pretty amazing that the guy who literally failed in helping kids when he was in charge of a school is now telling the Tennessee legislature they should heed his advice about education policy. Of course, it’s not at all surprising that Mitchell ignores the evidence that vouchers have simply failed to improve student achievement in state after state. After all, in spite of his troubled past at Rocketship, Team DeVos gave Mitchell a safe landing space. Rather than walking humbly after a fall, though, Mitchell continues boldly making pronouncements on how to fix Tennessee schools.
While Shaka Mitchell and his privatizing friends ignore the facts, lawmakers would do well to ignore their advice. Instead, the General Assembly should move to protect Tennessee’s public schools from a private school welfare scheme that has failed everywhere it has been tried.
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The Tennessean has the story of a Nashville charter school facing turmoil amid financial challenges created by poor management and lax oversight.
Knowledge Academies charter school has operated with a large deficit, occasionally failed to pay teachers on time and slipped into financial turmoil while its CEO ran side businesses out of its Antioch school building.
Understaffing at the school forced teachers to regularly take on extra students, while long-term substitutes without teaching licenses filled in as if they were full-time staff.
Teachers say the staffing, financial problems and cavalcade of issues centering around school leadership created a culture of disorganization and made classroom instruction extremely difficult.
The news about Knowledge Academies comes after a state legislative session which saw Governor Bill Lee win approval of a new, statewide charter authorizer.
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The Senate Finance Committee was slated to take up both Governor Lee’s charter authorizer bill and his plan to voucherize Tennessee public schools today. Instead, the committee only completed discussion on the charter bill, ultimately approving it and moving it forward.
Apparently, the voucher legislation will have to wait at least a week as revelations about growing opposition are causing concern among Governor Lee’s team.
In fact, in a budget update presented to the committee, Lee’s Finance Commissioner noted that $25 million was being dedicated to fight Hepatitis C in Tennessee prison. Where’d that money come from? It’s the exact amount previously dedicated to year one of Lee’s voucher scheme.
Commissioner McWhorter said the money shift would not impact the voucher scheme in year one, but the move raised questions among advocates and critics alike.
It’s entirely possible the Senate Finance Committee is waiting to see how the House acts on vouchers before taking a controversial vote. It’s also quite possible the votes simply aren’t there for a voucher plan this year.
Tune in next week to see what, if anything, the Senate does with vouchers. Will a weekend of arm-twisting by Bill Lee move a vote or two? Will the House advance the bill and thereby push the Senate to act?
The drama continues …
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Tomorrow, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to take up Governor Bill Lee’s “super-charter authorizer” bill that would effectively usurp the authority of local school boards by creating a state board that has the power to authorize charter schools anywhere in Tennessee.
While I’ve warned before of the dangers of such an authorizer by pointing to Arizona, perhaps our neighbors in Alabama offer an even better example of what can go wrong with such an authorizer.
Woodland Prep is a charter school horror story — and it hasn’t even been built yet.
Located in rural Washington County, Woodland Prep, which will open as a K-7 school this fall and add a grade level each year, is everything state leaders assured us could never happen under Alabama’s charter school laws.
Its land is owned by a shady Utah holding company. Its building is owned by a for-profit Arizona company. It will be managed by a for-profit Texas company that doesn’t employ a single Alabamian. It will pay the head of that management company around $300,000 per year — up front. Its application was rejected by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, which Alabama pays a hefty sum to review and approve charter applications. Woodland’s management plan failed to meet basic standards for approval in any of the three plan areas reviewed by NACSA.
In spite of all of those concerns, Woodland Prep was approved by the Alabama Charter School Commission — a board similar to the one envisioned by Lee and his legislative supporters for authorizing charters in Tennessee.
Who is behind this mysterious charter?
Soner Tarim. Tarim is the CEO of Unity School Services and was the founder of Harmony Schools, a mostly-successful charter school group in Texas. Tarim and Harmony also have their very serious problems, not least of which is their ties to a Muslim cleric and controversial preacher from Turkey, Fetullah Gulen, and his Gulen Movement.
Numerous reports from the New York Times to Reuters and other local news outlets linked Harmony and Tarim to Gulen, and some labeled Harmony a financial front for Gulen’s movement. While Gulen espouses a more moderate brand of Islam, his movement has been labeled a terrorist organization by Turkey, which has accused Gulen and his followers of attempting to overthrow the Turkish government. Others dispute those claims, and believe the terrorist label is unfairly applied to Gulen, who has shown no proclivity for violence.
Regardless, other legal questions have been raised about Harmony and Tarim’s use of the schools to exploit a visa program and to skirt hiring laws in order to give contract jobs to Turkish workers and teachers.
Follow the Money
A copy of the USS contract with the Woodland Prep board shows that Tarim will make 15 percent of all federal, state and local funds received by Woodland. Which means that for every student allotment — and Woodland estimates in its application that the per-pupil allotment will be more than $8,200 — Tarim will make 15 percent off the top. If Woodland’s projected enrollment of 260 students is accurate, Tarim will make more than $300,000.
Can this happen in Tennessee?
Yes. Interestingly, the legislation creating the state charter authorizer also contains a provision specifically related to H1B visas — the same program used by Tarim at schools in Texas and contemplated in Alabama. Here’s that provision:
(1) An authorizer may deny a public charter school application if the proposed public charter school plans to staff positions for teachers, administrators, ancillary support personnel, or other employees by utilizing, or otherwise relying on, nonimmigrant foreign worker H1B or J1 visa programs in excess of three and one half percent (3.5%) of the total number of positions at any single public charter school location for any school year. (2) Notwithstanding subdivision (d)(1), an authorizer shall not deny a public charter school application solely because the proposed public charter school plans to exceed the limitation in subdivision (d)(1) by employing foreign language instructors who, prior to employment, meet and, during the period for which the instructors’ H1B or J1 visas have been granted, will meet all Tennessee educator licensure requirements. If an authorizer denies a public charter school application under this subsection (d), then the sponsor may appeal the authorizer’s decision to deny the application as provided in subsection (b).
Why would Tennessee’s proposed law contemplate this specific issue? The case out of Alabama should be alarming. We’re told again and again that Tennessee’s authorizer will be different, that our law builds in accountability. The Alabama law did the same thing and look what happened. Moreover, the law as proposed in Tennessee — with its H1B provisions — would make Soner Tarim smile.
Tennessee lawmakers would do well to look to Alabama for what could go wrong.
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“I’m really cheering the governor and all of the legislators on here,” DeVos told reporters during a brief news conference at LEAD Cameron, a middle school operated by a Nashville-based charter network.
“School choice and education freedom is on the march,” she added.
One of Lee’s proposals would start a new type of education voucher program in Tennessee, and the other would create a state commission with the power to open charter schools anywhere across Tennessee through an appeals process.
While evidence from states around the country indicates that vouchers simply don’t improve student achievement, Lee has pushed forward with a plan known as Education Savings Accounts, a type of “voucher” particularly susceptible to fraud.
Lee’s plan is expected to cost at least $125 million a year by the time it is fully implemented, three years from now. It’s likely the plan will effectively create a “voucher school district” and result in local tax increases as a result of money moved from the state’s school funding formula (BEP) to the voucher scheme.
Lee has long been a supporter of DeVos and her anti-public school organization American Federation for Children. In fact, Lee hired a former AFC staffer to a senior role in his administration.
In addition to vouchers, Lee is also pushing a state charter school authorizer plan that would usurp the authority of local school boards and create a climate similar to the one in Arizona, where the charter industry has been riddled with fraud.
Legislators who oppose Lee’s school privatization agenda have been punished by ads from dark money group Tennesseans for Student Success and also have lost key leadership roles.
Lee’s voucher scheme is moving through the legislative process, passing a key House committee today and heading toward a likely floor vote near the end of April.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
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Governor Bill Lee is pushing aggressively to privatize Tennessee schools — both by creating a new, unaccountable voucher scheme and by expanding the reach of charter schools in our state.
This story out of California should give policymakers pause as they explore the possibility of more charter schools across the state, even in districts where the local school board is not consulted.
Here’s a quick summary:
“The warning signs appeared soon after Denise Kawamoto accepted a job at Today’s Fresh Start Charter School in South Los Angeles. Though she was fresh out of college, she was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for the school to churn so quickly through teachers or to mount surveillance cameras in each classroom. Old computers were lying around, but the campus had no internet access. Pay was low and supplies scarce — she wasn’t given books for her students. She struggled to reconcile the school’s conditions with what little she knew about its wealthy founders, Clark and Jeanette Parker of Beverly Hills. The Parkers have cast themselves as selfless philanthropists, telling the California Board of Education that they have ‘devoted all of our lives to the education of other people’s children, committed many millions of our own dollars directly to that particular purpose, with no gain directly to us.’ But the couple have, in fact, made millions from their charter schools. Financial records show the Parkers’ schools have paid more than $800,000 annually to rent buildings the couple own. The charters have contracted out services to the Parkers’ nonprofits and companies and paid Clark Parker generous consulting fees, all with taxpayer money, a Times investigation found. How the Parkers have stayed in business, surviving years of allegations of financial and academic wrongdoing, illustrates glaring flaws in the way California oversees its growing number of charter schools. Many of the people responsible for regulating the couple’s schools, including school board members and state elected officials, had accepted thousands of dollars from the Parkers in campaign contributions.”
This is exactly the type of abuse of the system that could be on the way to the Volunteer State if Lee’s proposals become law. Key votes are coming in the next few weeks. Stay tuned …
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Governor Bill Lee is moving to create a state charter school authorizer that would usurp the authority of local school boards. The plan would allow charter operators to apply directly to the state board rather than utilizing the local and state accountability measures currently in place in Tennessee.
The idea is strikingly similar to the state authorizer that helped start charter schools in Arizona in the 1990s. I’ve included some excerpts of the Arizona Republic’sreporting on charter schools in that state. The state authorizer has proven to be an avenue for shady operators to gain access to public funds for nefarious purposes. Perhaps the same fate awaits Tennessee should lawmakers travel down this road.
The board was given conflicting responsibilities: Not only would it oversee the new schools, it would also promote them.
Early Fraud:
Citizen 2000 was one of Arizona’s original 46 charter schools. Its founder and operator, Lawndia White Venerable, claimed that almost 500 students had signed up. It looked like an early success story for a charter that was on its way to becoming a longstanding institution.
A few months into the school’s first year, state officials opened an investigation into the school. A state audit said Venerable had used more than $126,000 in state money to buy jewelry and to make a down payment on her mother’s house. The state Board of Education review found the school violated record-keeping, cash-control and bidding rules. Its enrollment figures had been inflated.
When you combine his desire for a state charter authorizer with his push for vouchers, it seems clear Bill Lee is working overtime to undermine Tennessee public schools.
The Tennessee General Assembly can, of course, oppose these privatization efforts. Key votes are happening on both fronts in the coming days. Stay tuned …
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What happens when legislators stand up for their local public schools and also support accountability in charter schools?
They get attacked as tools of “Hillary Clinton’s NEA.”
That’s exactly what happened when two Republican lawmakers opposed Governor Bill Lee’s proposal to allow charter schools to circumvent local school boards.
Supposedly non-partisan group Tennesseans for Student Success immediately went on the attack against Mark Cochran and Chris Hurt.
Apparently, being for student success also means being ok with outright lies and deliberate deception in order to advance an agenda detrimental to the actual success of our state’s public schools.
Here are those ads:
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It should come as no surprise that Governor Bill Lee is pursuing an aggressive agenda of school privatization complete with a fast-growing voucher program, additional money for charter schools, and a way for charter operators to bypass the accountability of local school boards. Now, however, it seems Lee has enlisted co-conspirators from the school district likely to be most negatively impacted by his agenda.
Senator Brian Kelsey and Rep. Mark White have agreed to carry Lee’s legislation creating a state charter authorizer. It’s a bill some critics are calling the worst charter legislation in the nation.
State Sen. Brian Kelsey, a Germantown Republican, and State Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs the House Education Committee, are carrying Senate Bill 796 and House Bill 940, one of the signature pieces of Gov. Bill Lee’s K-12 education initiative.
White didn’t want to use the word “bypass” but acknowledged the legislation would remove the step for charter applicants to go to the Tennessee Board of Education if turned down by local boards.
“But basically, yeah, you would come to the state without going through that process,” White said.
The change is significant because current law requires a charter operator to first apply to the local board of education to determine if the proposed charter is a good fit for the district. The case of Rocketship in Nashville is a good example:
In summary, with no additional state accountability data to consider, and no compelling evidence presented that provides confidence in the review team, converting an existing low-performing school before Rocketship has demonstrated academic success on state accountability measures would not be in the best interests of the students, the district, or the community.
If Governor Lee’s proposal is successful, schools like Rocketship will now be able to circumvent local input altogether. In this case, MNPS identified key problems with Rocketship and decided an expansion was not in the best interests of the students of the district.
It’s not yet clear whether there is broad support for circumventing local school boards. The legislation did pass a hurdle today, clearing a House subcommittee and moving forward in the process.
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