Tag Archives: Hillsdale and Tennessee

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Onward, Christian Charters!

Bill Lee’s privatization plot bears fruit

A Christian Nationalist charter school network with ties to extreme-right Hillsdale College will soon operate two schools in the state.

Gov. Bill Lee’s handpicked charter school commission reversed a decision by the Jackson-Madison school board and approved locating a Hillsdale charter in the district.

The Commission also rejected an appeal for a Hillsdale charter in Maury County, noting that the application just “wasn’t there yet.”

The Hillsdale charter in Jackson-Madison will be the second in the state after Rutherford County’s school board approved an application from the charter network earlier this year.

Rutherford School Board Approves Hillsdale Charter School

Lee outlined his plan to partner with Hillsdale for the development of up to 50 charter schools in the state back in his 2022 State of the State Address. In that address, Lee made clear his allegiance with the ideology of American Exceptionalism and his comfort with Christian Nationalism.

Exceptionally Bad

An analysis of the fiscal impact of charter schools found that the Hillsdale charters, as envisioned in their applications, would drain roughly $7 million from each district where they operate.

If Lee’s dream of 50 Hillsdale charters is realized, more than $300 million could be transferred from state and local taxpayers to the charter network.

EXPOSED: Hillsdale Heist Would Drain $35 Million from Rural, Suburban School Districts

Even before he was a candidate for Governor, Lee was an advocate for funneling tax dollars to private, religious schools.

SHOCKING!

Even though as early as 2016, Bill Lee was extolling the virtues of school voucher schemes and even though he’s a long-time supporter of Betsy DeVos’s pro-voucher Tennessee Federation for Children and even though he has appointed not one, but two voucher vultures to high level posts in his Administration, it is somehow treated as “news” that Bill Lee plans to move forward with a voucher scheme agenda in 2019.

How did we get here? In 2018 I wrote:

Bill Lee was on the right team and spoke the right, religiously-tinged words and so earned the support of people who will look at you with a straight face and say they love Tennessee public schools.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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Guess Who’s Back?

It’s Hillsdale College and their quest to open Christian Nationalist charter schools in Tennessee.

Chalkbeat reports:

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.

***

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

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Hillsdale on the March

Despite rhetoric from GOP legislators suggesting that Tennessee will “sever ties” with controversial Hillsdale College, it now appears that all three charter schools with a Hillsdale affiliation are appealing to the State Charter Commission to overturn local school board decisions. If approved, the charter schools would open in Madison, Montgomery, and Rutherford counties in 2023.

So Much for Severing Ties

While I don’t normally do this, I’m going to go ahead and suggest that the Hillsdale charters will all be approved. Believe me, I’d love to write a story about the denial of all three applications. But that won’t happen.

Here’s the deal: When you vote for Bill Lee’s charter commission, you vote to allow Lee to override local school boards and install whatever charter he likes. When you vote to open the door to charters, you vote to erode local control. When you fail to stop Lee’s agreement with Hillsdale during the 2022 legislative session, you have already decided the wishes of your local school board and county commission don’t matter. By supporting Lee’s backdoor privatization agenda, you have told voters in your communities that they don’t matter.

This development is not at all surprising. It is exactly the kind of scheme Bill Lee promised even before he was a candidate for governor back in 2018. It is what his campaign was about. If there was any doubt, he erased it 100% in his 2022 State of the State.

Exceptionally Bad

These three counties are not the end. If Lee and his General Assembly allies have their way, there will be 50 or more Hillsdale charters in communities across the state. Vouchers, too, will take public dollars and funnel them to private schools.

This has been the plan all along, and Bill Lee is executing that plan no matter what he says in the face of pressure from reporters.

Lee vs. Lee

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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