Hillsdale loses appeals in Madison, Maury counties
The Hillsdale charter network lost twice this week, with appeals to open their American Classical Academies in Madison and Maury counties denied on Tuesday and Thursday respectively.
It wasn’t just one, but 73 reasons the Jackson-Madison County School Board denied a charter school application connected to Michigan’s Hillsdale College.
The Jackson Sun newspaper reported those reasons included negative financial impact, no safety plans, lack of rigor and an unrealistic budget.
Here’s the story from Maury County in votes that happened earlier tonight:
The Hillsdale charters now have the option of appealing to Gov. Lee’s handpicked State Charter Commission.
Tennessee teachers challenge “divisive concepts” law, say it harms students
The Tennessee Education Association (TEA) joined five public school educators in filing a lawsuit challenging the state’s prohibited concepts law. The TEA says the law is unconstitutionally vague and that its enforcement could harm students.
According to [TEA President] Tanya Coats, the law will be harmful to Tennessee students:
“Tennessee students will fall behind their peers in other states if this law stays on the books. We are already seeing school leaders make changes to instruction and school activities due to the risk of losing state funding, facing unfair repercussions or threats to their professional standing. TEA is committed to fighting for public school educators’ right to do their job and Tennessee children’s right to a fact-based, well-rounded public education,” Coats said.
New education commissioner ready to implement agenda that undermines state’s public schools
Gov. Bill Lee’s new Education Commissioner, Lizette Gonzalez Reynolds, has been on the job since July 1st and says her priority will be implementing a raft of policies supported by Gov. Lee and passed by the General Assembly.
Three weeks into her job as Tennessee’s education chief, Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds says her charge from Gov. Bill Lee is to implement existing major policy changes — from how reading is taught to the continued rollout of private school vouchers — not to craft new initiatives.
Privatizing the state’s public schools has long been a goal of Lee’s, and it seems he’s now chosen a chief implementer of that policy.
Already approved in Rutherford County, Hillsdale-affiliated charter network tries again in Madison, Maury counties
It seems American Classical Education, a charter school network affiliated with Hillsdale College, is not satisfied with having a charter school in just one Tennessee district.
School boards in Madison and Maury counties have until July 28 to review American Classical Education’s latest revision to its charter school applications.
The Maury County School board will vote on the new applications at July 18 meeting. While school officials with the Jackson-Madison County School System said, its board would hold a special-called meeting before the July deadline to deny or approve the resubmitted application.
The network won approval of a charter school to open in Rutherford County in 2024.
However, school boards in Madison, Maury, Montgomery, and Robertson rejected the Hillsdale applications.
In Maury County, the initial vote was 6-5 against Hillsdale. So, if the charter backers can simply switch one vote, they could see approval of a second Tennessee charter school.
Here’s what the Mayor of Maury County’s largest city has to say about Hillsdale:
Winning a second (and possibly third) charter school could put Hillsdale well on the way to the 50 charter schools Bill Lee promised in his 2022 State of the State Address.
And if the local school boards don’t approve the appeals, Hillsdale can still appeal to the State Charter Commission, whose members have all been appointed by Lee.
Why does Hillsdale want so desperately to operate charter schools in the Volunteer State? Money.
The charter network would be financed by state education funds and local property tax dollars – both enriching Hillsdale and driving up education costs for local school systems.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
While Gov. Bill Lee “dreams” of being able to pay starting teachers $50,000 eventually and while the state’s schools languish in the bottom 10 in the nation in overall funding, the state continues to rake in extra cash.
Alas, instead of actually taking the yearly surpluses and investing more in schools, Tennessee policymakers seem content to leave us at the bottom:
When it comes to school funding, Tennessee lags far behind our neighbors in Kentucky.
Tennessee Education Association President Beth Brown points out the significance of this disparity in a recent email to educators. In it, she notes:
“It’s not about how the funds are divided, it’s about how many state dollars are put into education,” said TEA President Beth Brown. “To get to the Kentucky level of school funding, Tennessee needs $3 billion added to the state education budget.”
Our state’s schools have a range of needs and our state has a pile of cash. Seems like an easy fix – just use the cash to fund the schools.
So far, though, policymakers and Gov. Lee seem reluctant to do that.
Instead, our education policy is focused on funneling public funds to private schools and extreme charter networks.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
One Mayoral candidate pitches Karl Dean’s old idea
Nashville Mayoral candidate Alice Rolli says she’s ready to run the city’s public schools in addition to the rest of the city should she become Mayor.
The remarks came at a recent forum as reported by the Nashville Banner:
Alice Rolli said at a mayoral forum Tuesday night that as mayor she would consider seeking a takeover of the school system unless charter schools are renewed.
Candidates were asked whether or not they supported getting rid of the elected school board. The only person on stage seemingly open to the idea was Rolli, who said she would give the authority two years to get their act together before “holding them accountable.” She said the city’s school system should strive to be like Miami-Dade’s, and that without accountability, Nashville’s schools will become like Detroit’s.
As the Banner notes, former Nashville Mayor and charter school proponent Karl Dean sought the authority to take over the city’s schools, but then-Gov. Phil Bredesen rejected the ridiculous idea.
It’s telling that Rolli wants Nashville schools to look like Detroit or Miami.
I’m not sure Nashville wants their school system to look like The Hunger Games, which is how some describe the situation in Detroit:
State House candidate has a record of standing for public education
Progressive activist Aftyn Behn recently announced her candidacy for the Tennessee House of Representatives in Nashville’s District 51. Behn is running in a special election to replace former Rep. Bill Beck.
As an organizer for Indivisible, Behn was active in efforts to protect public education, including organizing resistance to Gov. Lee’s plans to privatize by way of school vouchers.
Here’s more from Behn’s website on her position on education:
Behn’s statement on public education from her campaign website
Tennessee Education Association challenges Gov. Lee’s attempt at union busting
The Tennessee Education Association is challenging a new state law that prevents local school districts from allowing teachers to have their association dues automatically deducted from their paychecks.
The move by the Lee Administration was tied to a teacher pay raise and widely seen as an effort to weaken the oldest and largest organization advocating for teachers in the state.
In recent years, TEA has been the source of the strongest opposition to Lee’s agenda of using public money to fund private schools.
Tennessee’s largest professional teachers organization is challenging the constitutionality of a new state law that prohibits school districts from making payroll deductions for employees’ professional association dues.
The Tennessee Education Association filed its lawsuit Tuesday in Davidson County Chancery Court on behalf of its local education associations and 41,000 members statewide. The complaint names Gov. Bill Lee’s administration, which pushed for the change, and the state education department as defendants. Several local education associations have joined the suit.
State standardized testing is supposed to help identify areas in public education that need improvement – and is often used to highlight achievement gaps based on socioeconomic status. However, a new piece in Jacobin suggests that high-stakes testing has done little to help in this regard and may, in fact, be creating more problems than it solves.
When we sort children into “proficient” and “failing” categories based on test scores, we’re not solving the opportunity gaps that show up in public education; we’re creating new ones. No one is helped, and many people are hurt, when we give students, teachers, and schools an impossible assignment and then sanction them for failing to complete it. Looking forward to the ESEA’s now overdue reauthorization, it’s high time we built accountability systems that nurture the humanity and potential of all kids — rather than placing artificial roadblocks in their way.
Tennessee’s experience with standardized testing has certainly been problematic.
It’s difficult to say this particular iteration of the state’s testing system has done anything helpful. Still, this year, the results determined whether or not third graders would be allowed to move on to fourth grade.
Previous analysis of the state’s testing system found it to be a solid way to identify the relative concentration of poverty in a school district – but otherwise, not really useful at all.
An analysis of TCAP performance over time indicates that those school systems with consistently high levels of poverty tend to have consistently low scores on TCAP. Likewise, those systems with the least amount of poverty tend to have consistently higher scores on TCAP.
Nevertheless, Tennessee’s testing vendor, Pearson, recently received a $40 million increase in its contract.
