MythBusters

Nate Rau at Axios has the story about a new nonprofit group that has the stated goal of highlighting the fiscal impact of charter schools on local school district budgets.

The group, Public School Partners, is in the myth-busting business. That is, they seek to dispel the notion that charter schools have little to no fiscal impact on local budgets.

This is an especially important project given a state charter commission with the power to override local decisions and force charter schools in districts where they are not wanted.

The group’s website features a fiscal impact calculator that allows users to determine the cost of operating a charter school in any district in Tennessee.

Here’s more from Rau’s piece:

The expansion of charter schools has spread beyond Nashville and Memphis in the last few years. As charter schools have applied to open in suburban and rural counties, scrutiny of their financial impact has escalated.

Charter schools are funded with tax dollars but operated by independent nonprofit organizations.

The issue reached a crescendo this year as charter schools affiliated with Hillsdale College applied to open new schools in Tennessee.

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State’s Negligence Puts Millions in Federal Funding for Schools At Risk

Newschannel 9 in Chattanooga has the story of how the Tennessee Department of Education’s lack of proper documentation and inappropriate spending could jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for schools.

$328 million in school money could soon be lost, after a federal report says the state used the money inappropriately or didn’t provide documentation.

The money is part of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and is designed to support migrant education, low income community schools and special education.

What’s most shocking about this story is that the state was first advised of issues with how it tracks and spends these federal dollars back in 2018. Then, they were warned again in 2021.

Now, they are under a tight deadline to demonstrate they can accurately track and account for this federal money. If they don’t, the cash will stop flowing – leaving school districts with less money on which to operate.

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Story Time in Sumner County

It turns out, all those legislative attempts to have books removed from school libraries are bearing fruit. That is, a policy that allows community members to challenge school library books and creates a process for removing those books is in full effect.

Sadly, one of the first books in question is one that makes certain white people uncomfortable.

Or, in other words, the law the General Assembly passed is doing EXACTLY what a majority at the General Assembly wanted.

Here’s more from a public meeting in Sumner County over a request to ban Zetta Elliott’s “A Place Inside of Me”

To be clear: 5 members of the Sumner School Board voted to keep the book, 1 voted to remove it, and 2 abstained – 6 votes were required for a final decision, so the matter will be back before the Board in November.

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https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1582832088134619136?s=20&t=oeh3YYYFs9Fpg8dSi7zmUg

MORE on the Tennessee General Assembly’s radical agenda:

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The Erosion of Local Control

Gov. Bill Lee is no fan of local school boards or public education. Even before he was a candidate for governor, he was advocating for statewide privatization of K-12 education.

Now, Lee’s handpicked charter school commission – an agency of unelected bureaucrats tasked with advancing school privatization – is going about the business of handing taxpayer dollars to private entities.

NewsChannel5’s Phil Williams reports on the Commission’s unanimous decision to overturn a vote by Nashville’s school board:

A state board voted Wednesday to overrule the Metro Nashville school board, approving two new privately operated charter schools in southeast Nashville that local school officials say they don’t need.

By an 8-0 vote, the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission approved a request from KIPP Nashville to open an elementary school and middle school — both funded by taxpayers.

Later this month, the commission will hear an appeal from Founders Classical Academy, a group previously associated with the controversial Hillsdale College, to open charter schools in Franklin and Hendersonville over the objections of the local school boards.

This is no surprise – Lee has consistently expressed a desire to suppress the voices of voters and advance a school privatization agenda.

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