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.
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
Williams notes that education advocates are warning about SCORE’s plan – supported by Gov. Bill Lee – to bring at least 50 new charter schools to the state in the next 5 years.
And not just in Nashville and Memphis, where charters are already an alarming part of the landscape.
This plan would create charter schools in suburban and rural districts.
It’s similar to a scheme being advanced by Michigan-based Hillsdale College to open at least 50 Christian Nationalist charters in the state.
As Williams notes in a follow-up piece, charters don’t always have the best record of academic achievement. In fact, in many cases, charter schools perform worse than the district schools where they operate.
Maybe that’s why SCORE is moving quickly to help the privately run, publicly funded schools game the state’s new funding formula – TISA.
Even as Hamilton County’s own Sen. Todd Gardenhire champions the expansion of the state’s school voucher program into Chattanooga, a local advocacy group is opposing the measure.
For its part, The Unity Group says there are still too many unanswered questions about the program.
Specifically, the group called out issues around accountability for funds spent and suggested that taxpayers would end up footing the bill for sub-par private education.
The potential for increased local tax burden combined with data the group says suggests students fail to benefit from voucher programs led the group to oppose expansion of ESAs into Chattanooga.
The group passed a resolution stating reasons for opposing the program’s expansion and called on lawmakers to heed their warning.
Specific reasons for opposing voucher expansion include:
“Research shows that school vouchers have not been effective at improving student achievement or closing the achievement gap, with the most credible research finding little or no difference in voucher and public school students’ performance.
The push to expand vouchers comes at the same time legislation that could dramatically increase the presence of charter schools is being introduced by the Speaker of the House and the Lt. Governor.
Just when you thought the Tennessee General Assembly couldn’t go any more “all-in” on the privatization of our state’s public schools, House Speaker Cameron Sexton files an amendment to a caption bill that would effectively create statewide charter schools.
Pro-charter propaganda machine Tennessee Firefly is out with the story of a bevy of new charter school applications across the state.
The story that’s gotten the purveyors of privatization so excited is that as of now, there are 23 “letters of intent” from charter operators planning to open schools in districts across Tennessee.
School districts across the state received 23 letters of intent this month for applications to open new public charter schools next year. That’s the first step potential charter operators must take before submitting their formal application by February 1, 2023.
The letters of intent include proposed schools in four counties that do not currently have public charter schools and they’re coming from both existing charter operators in Tennessee and those who were rejected this year.
The applications come from a range of operators, including Christian Nationalist Hillsdale College – a group out of Michigan seeking to open schools in five Tennessee counties – Madison, Rutherford, Montgomery, Maury, and Robertson.
American Classical Education filed letters of intent in recent days with school districts in Madison, Montgomery, Maury, Robertson, and Rutherford counties — all growing suburban areas near Nashville. The proposed schools would open in the 2024-25 school year.
I reported in September on the early withdrawal of Hillsdale’s initial applications – in Madison, Montgomery, and Rutherford counties:
The withdrawal of the appeals, of course, doesn’t mean Hillsdale is no longer interested in Tennessee. It simply doesn’t make sense to conduct such an aggressive campaign and just walk away.
Here’s what NewsChannel5’s Phil Williams reported on the premature exit:
“We made this decision because of the limited time to resolve the concerns raised by the commission staff and our concerns that the meeting structure and timing on Oct. 5 will not allow commissioners to hear directly from the community members whose interests lie at the heart of the commission’s work,” board chair Dolores Gresham wrote in a letter delivered Thursday to the commission.
Gresham, it’s worth noting, is a former Chair of the Senate Education Committee and a legislator with a long history of supporting efforts to shift public money to private schools.
As Williams notes in his story, Hillsdale had asked for a delay in the vote – that is, they had still hoped to appeal and to win those appeals.
This seems to indicate the schools will continue their PR offensive and hope to shift public opinion in order to secure public funds for their Christian nationalist vision.
In short, those predicting Hillsdale’s return were right.
Gov. Lee made his pact with Hillsdale clear in his State of the State in January of this year. Now, it seems Hillsdale and Lee are ready to make good on that promise – the promise of turning over local tax dollars to support what is essentially private, Christian education.
This comes at a significant cost to local taxpayers, of course.
I’ve noted before that if the schools were to open according to Hillsdale’s stated plan, school districts would lose millions in funding in year one alone – and that funding loss would be compounded going forward:
Here’s the deal: 2023 is the first year of school funding under the new, TISA model. This means the charters stand to get more money – based of just under $7000 per student PLUS weights for a variety of categories.
Taking it at just the base, though, each of these districts stands to lose nearly $2.3 million in funding in YEAR ONE of the charter school opening.
Another area of concern? Hillsdale’s call for violent revolution to “overthrow” public education.
In a recent issue of Hillsdale’s newsletter – Imprimis – President Larry Arnn talks about the current “culture wars” and notes that the battle for public schools has “not yet” necessitated violence.
I have said and written many times that the political contest between parents and people who make an independent living, on the one hand, and the administrative state and all its mighty forces on the other, is the key political contest of our time. Today that seems truer than ever. The lines are clearly formed.
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As long as our representative institutions work in response to the public will, there is thankfully no need for violence.
What does this mean? Does it mean that in states like Tennessee, where political pushback caused Hillsdale to pause its attempt to establish charter schools, violence may eventually be necessary?
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Nashville education blogger and new Tennessee Star reporter TC Weber reports that Bill Frist’s education reform organization – SCORE – has hired a national education funding consultant to help charter schools extract public funding for their private operations.
Afton Partners, a national organization specializing in school funding and education policy, has announced via social media a new partnership with the Tennessee State Collaborative for Reforming Education (SCORE) and The Tennessee Charter School Center (TCSC). The stated purpose of the budding collaboration is to help Tennessee’s charter school leaders better understand the operational and financial implications of Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) – the state’s new funding formula for public schools.
The bottom line: The consultant is being paid to help charter operators get the most money from TISA – meaning a greater negative impact to local school system budgets.
This comes as no surprise, as SCORE has been driving the TN education reform bus for more than a decade:
It’s kind of amazing to watch the people who have been the key drivers of reform tell us that 1) schools are failing and 2) they NOW know the solution. If their first claim is true, why in the hell would we let them dictate education policy going forward?
Make no mistake: SCORE is all-in on the privatization of Tennessee’s public schools – and this collaboration is further evidence of where they stand.
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.
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.
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.
