The Knoxville News-Sentinelreports on letter grades assigned to Knox County Schools:
Knox County Schools has made significant improvements on the individual school level, with 42 schools earning high marks in the “school letter grades” announced by the Tennessee Department of Education.
The department released the grades Dec. 19 in its 2024-2025 State Report Card. Twenty of Knox County’s schools received an “A,” and 22 schools received a “B,” which together represent more than half of the 81 schools graded in the county.
Knoxville Preparatory School, an all-boys charter school that opened in fall 2024, failed to meet or fell far below nine of 25 state standards and must work to get up to requirements.
The school struggled in finance management, boosting enrollment compared to projections, protecting the rights of students with disabilities, and complying with government requirements . . .
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.
The Knox County School Board is asking the General Assembly to reject legislation that would require schools to check for immigration documentation before allowing a student to attend.
The Knox County school board will ask Tennessee legislators to stop a bill that could block public education for undocumented immigrants.
The legislature in 2026 could once again take up a bill designed to challenge established rules allowing those without legal status to have the same education access as those who were born here. Board members used their annual legislative priorities list to say they want to educate all students regardless of their immigration status.
The board voted 6-3 to include the priority with two Republicans joining the Democratic minority Dec. 4. Members Betsy Henderson, Lauren Morgan and Steve Triplett voted against it.
Knox County school board members will decide Dec. 4 whether to support a Tennessee bill requiring schools to verify students’ immigration status before allowing them into the classroom.
The General Assembly could take up a bill in 2026 designed specifically to challenge a 1982 Supreme Court decision that guarantees access to public schools for all children regardless of their immigration status. Two school board members – Katherine Bike and Anne Templeton – are urging their colleagues to tell lawmakers the Knox County school board opposes the bill.
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.
Divided School Board votes against adding Lee’s voucher scam to legislative agenda
The Knox County School Board will not ask lawmakers to support Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher push, despite an attempt by the Board’s GOP majority to adopt the issue.
All Republicans except District 5 representative Lauren Morgan and District 9 representative Kristi Kristy voted Jan. 9 in favor of asking lawmakers to expand Tennessee’s private school voucher program. Kristy took a “pass” vote and Morgan voted “no.”
Morgan explained her “no” vote:
I don’t believe it’s in this board’s realm of duties to make vouchers a legislative priority as we don’t have control over what the legislator does. I think it’s our job here on this board to make Knox County Schools the best that they can possibly be and be the place where our students and our families want to get an education and choose to go to school.”
The Knox County School Board has joined a number of districts across the state calling on lawmakers to make changes to the state’s new third grade retention law.
The Knoxville News-Sentinelnotes that as written, the law could mean about 2700 third grade students in Knox County will be held back this year – unless they undergo summer tutoring and/or remediation during the 2023-24 school year.
A state law that goes into effect this year requires that students not testing at “met expectations” – reading at grade level – according to TNReady results, must be retained or complete a summer remediation program.
An article in the Maryville Daily Times explains what this might mean in practice.
The law applies to students who score at the “below expectations” or “approaching expectations” performance levels on the TCAP exam. Statewide, that could mean two-thirds of third graders, Winstead explained. However, Maryville’s third grade ELA performance last spring was ranked sixth in the state, with 60% meeting or exceeding expectations.
That left 40%, 174 children, potentially affected if the law had been in place. However, with exemptions for new English learners, students with disabilities that affect reading and previously retained students, the number drops to 122.
Across the state, districts are asking policymakers to tweak the law to give them flexibility.
It should be noted that the state has provided zero additional funding to districts to support the required remediation.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Here’s a great breakdown of the Knox County School Board races from a local blogger. In it, he explains why he thinks school board races are so important this year:
Probably the biggest threat to public education is the charter school movement. Designed at its heart to divert funding from public schools to private, often religious, schools, it serves as an existential threat to a free and equal public education in the United States. While “school choice” is an appealing phrase, the reality is that these schools diminish funding where most middle and lower socio-economic status children attend to give a tailored, often much less regulated, experience for those who desire their children to be segregated.
When it comes to endorsements, here are the recommendations:
District 1 – John Butler
District 4 – Katherine Bike
District 6 – Phillip Sherman
District 7 – Dominique Oakley
District 9 – Annabel Henley
Reasons for the endorsements are offered in each case along with a plea to restore some sanity to the overall operation of the School Board.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.
Knox County School Board candidate Kat Bike issued a statement today calling out a deceptive campaign tactic known as “push polling” which she suggests is spreading misleading information about her to voters.
Here’s the campaign’s statement:
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.
