Sam Stockard over at Tennessee Lookouttakes a look at the crumbling wall of separation between church and state as it relates to education in Tennessee:
The latest disassembly involves an opinion by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti saying the state’s prohibition on religious-based charter schools “likely” violates the free exercise of religion in the First Amendment.
Skrmetti wrote the opinion at the request of Republican state Rep. Michelle Carringer of Knoxville who has a bill relating to charter schools. Carringer said Thursday she requested the opinion for “legal clarity” on the relationship between the Constitution and Tennessee charter laws but has no plans to bring legislation related to it.
The opinion is of interest as a Christian charter operator in Knox County is suing for the right to operate an explicitly Christian “public” charter school using state and local funds.
A new Christian nonprofit attempting to operate a charter school in Knoxville has sued the Knox County Board of Education, asserting the board discriminated against the nonprofit because state and local policies won’t allow “unapologetically Christian” schools to apply.
I suspect that since state dollars flow to explicitly religious private schools by way of vouchers, there’s really little difference when the state and/or a local school board sends funds to an explicitly religious charter school.
Wilberforce Academy is hardly the first openly religious school to offer the pretense of being a fully “public” charter school.
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.
While state leaders consider expanding the state’s private school coupon program, a new nonprofit takes a bolder approach. A group calling itself Tennessee Leadsregistered with the Secretary of State as a 501(c)(4) issue advocacy organization with the goal of effectively ending public education in Tennessee by 2031.
The group’s goals: 200,000 voucher students (at a cost of more than $1.5 billion/year), 250,000 charter school students (there are 45,000 now), and the implementation of Direct Instruction.
It’s like every bad idea in education got together and formed a band.
So far, though, it’s not clear who the members are. Stay tuned . . .
The district is among the vast number of Pennsylvania districts that has come out in favor of funding reform in the state. In Pennsylvania we still fund cyber charters by means laid out for bricks and mortar charters over twenty years ago. It’s nonsensical, inconsistent, and highly profitable, which is probably why Pennsylvania is the cyber capital of the country.
The Privatizer-in-Chief seeks reduced accountability for charter school operators
Charter schools are the gateway drug to full-scale school privatization by way of vouchers.
Charters are so nice and easy, even some misguided Democrats have been known to support them. By contrast, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is one of a very few prominent Democrats to support school vouchers.
The federal Charter School Program has been shelling out grants to launch and expand charter schools since 1994. Analysis of the program by the Network for Public Education shows that one out of every four taxpayer dollars handed out by CSP has been wasted on fraud and/or failure. That means of the roughly 4 Billion-with-a-B dollars handed out by the feds, roughly 1 Billion-with-a-B dollars have gone to charters that closed swiftly, or never even opened in the first place.
Seems like something DOGE would be worried about.
But, um, no.
Instead:
Instead, yesterday the Department of Education issued an edict saying that the “unnecessary conditions and overly bureaucratic requests for information” would be stopped and that CPS would start handing out money more easily.
The third issue that the U.S. Supreme Court must address is that it needs to determine whether those who run charter schools are state or private actors. This is because the vast majority of people who run charter schools are private groups. However, these charters are defined by law as public schools and are supported by tax-payer dollars. If the Court rules that those who operate the charter schools are state actors, then because they must be non-sectarian, religious charter schools will be ruled unconstitutional. However, if the Court rules that charter schools are private actors, then religious charter schools will be ruled constitutional.
In Kentucky, the Commonwealth’s highest court found that because charter schools are operated by private actors, they are essentially private schools. In other states, that has not been the case. It will be interesting to see how the U.S. Supreme Court sorts this out.
At the start of the 2024-2025 school year, nearly 100 students have returned to Rutherford County Schools (RCS) after trying out the county’s new charter school: Rutherford Collegiate Prep Academy.
“The opening of RCP [Rutherford Collegiate Prep] has been a disaster,” said Lea Maitlen, parent of a recent RCS graduate. “On the very first day, multiple children were lost by the school for hours as parents became increasingly frantic. One parent referred to the day as ‘apocalyptic.’”
RCP’s charter was rejected by the Rutherford County School Board, but that decision was overruled by Gov. Bill Lee’s handpicked charter school commission.
Part of the supposed allure of charter schools is that they are held accountable. Some proponents even suggest they have more accountability than traditional public schools. After all, based on poor performance, a school board or charter authorizer can close a charter school.
Except that rarely happens.
Instead, as Peter Greene points out with an example from Pennsylvania, once opened, charter schools are rarely forced to close. And, even if an authorizer does take action to close the school, legal battles can keep a school open for years.
The charter system was sold with the idea that charters would be accountable to authorizers, that they would have to earn the right to operate and continue earning it to maintain that operation. The Franklin Towne situation shows a different framing, one that is too common in the charter world–once established, the charter doesn’t have to earn its continued existence. It doesn’t need authorization from anyone; instead, authorizers build a case to close down the charter. Authorization to operate, once given, can never be withdrawn without protracted legal battles.
Tennesseans have definitely seen this myth play out. In fact, the authorizing of charter schools at a local level has also been superseded by Gov. Bill Lee’s handpicked charter school commission.
The state commission can force districts to take charters that local elected officials don’t want. And that commission can then allow those charters to stay open – even if they aren’t meeting community needs. Even if they are actually harming the students they take in by way of poor performance.
The states have taken different approaches – and the results suggest that Tennessee just might be on the wrong track.
What’s happened in the intervening 10 years? Has Tennessee closed the gap with Kentucky when it comes to economically disadvantaged kids?
Actually, no.
In both 8th-grade math and reading, the gap with Kentucky has expanded. Tennessee trailed Kentucky by 2 points in 8th-grade math in 2013 but now trails by 7. In reading, Kentucky went from being 2 points ahead to being 6 points ahead.
In 4th grade in both math and reading, the gap between the states remained the same (+3 for Kentucky in math, +8 for Kentucky in reading).
Turns out, another decade of pushing for privatization has not helped those Tennessee kids most in need of help.
CCA “borrowed” the demographics from Cincinnati Public Schools in weaving a tale of serving low-income and minority students. As a result of their promise to serve underserved students, the school was awarded nearly $2 million in federal education funding.
The reality is that the school is located in a Cincinnati suburb and essentially operates as a free, private, Christian school for predominantly middle- to high-income white students.
The school’s $2 million federal grant received as a result of the application is now under scrutiny:
The Network for Public Education sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona protesting the grant and asking that it be rescinded. It was signed by Phillis’s coalition, along with U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), five state legislators who represent the area, the Ohio PTA, both state teachers unions, the Cincinnati NAACP, and more than a dozen public education, civil rights, local teacher associations and advocacy groups.
Hillsdale, of course, is in partnership with American Classical Education, the charter operator opening two schools in Tennessee next year. ACE has plans to open as many as 50 charter schools in the state. If that number is reached, local taxpayers will be on the hook for charter school funding to the tune of $350 million.
