The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville sued the school board last year after the local district asked it to affirm it planned to open a non-religious school, per state law.
Of note:
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti declined to intervene in the lawsuit earlier this year, months after he published a legal opinion that argued there was “no compelling interest” in excluding religious charter schools from participating in a “public benefit.”
Skrmetti’s office is also currently paying Wilberforce’s main attorney $400 per hour in a separate case to help Tennessee defend its criminal abortion ban against ongoing legal challenges.
A group of Tennessee public school parents joined with faith leaders to oppose the establishment of a publicly-funded, explicitly religious charter school.
An email from the Education Law Center offers details:
The lawsuit, The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville v. Knox County Board of Education, was filed in November 2025 by a religious organization that wants to run a public charter school—funded by taxpayers—that, according to the school’s own legal complaint, would provide an “explicitly biblical and Christian education.” The proposed intervenors are seeking to join the lawsuit on the side of the defendants, the Knox County Board of Education and its members. They oppose Wilberforce Academy’s effort to force the defendants to authorize and fund it as a religious public charter school.
Amanda Collins is one of those seeking to join the suit and stop the religious charter school:
“Public education is part of the common good. A religious charter school would be at odds with the need to ensure public schools remain appropriate for and welcoming to students of all faiths, families, and backgrounds,” said proposed intervenor Amanda Collins, a retired school psychologist and parent of Knox County public school students. “And it would divert already limited public funds and scarce resources away from other public schools in Knox County. We can’t let this happen.”
Faith leaders are also joining the effort:
“The Reformed tradition in which I am formed has long supported the separation of church and state, believing that our faith, and all faiths, are best supported when they are free of undue state interference. This is why I object to the use of tax dollars to support religious education of any kind, including my own religion. Religious education is the job of churches, denominations, and private religious schools,” said the Rev. Dr. Richard Coble, another proposed intervenor, who is a pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Knoxville and the parent of two Knox County public school students.
TC Weber reports on a charter application by a former Tennessee Titan:
A familiar name from the Music City Miracle is now making a different kind of play.
Kevin Dyson—former Titans receiver, longtime educator, and recent principal at Centennial High School—is seeking to open a charter school focused on student athletes.
Music City Academy aims to launch in 2027, offering robust athletics alongside academics and career exploration beyond playing the game.
Schools of Hope co-location shifts costs, concentrates disruption in vulnerable communities, and strips local school boards of authority, all while insulating the neighborhoods and families with the most resources. That’s not innovation. It’s the extraction of resources from public schools for the benefit of charter corporations.
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.
