NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — School boards across Middle Tennessee this week have made decisions about a charter school connected to Hillsdale College.
Last year, NewsChannel 5 Investigates put the spotlight on the Hillsdale College president, Larry Arnn, who said teachers come from the "dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges." Arnn said this in a private address with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who at one point said he would like to see the college's affiliated charter schools all around the state. Lee later backed away from that comment, saying it wasn't his vision.
American Classical Education — a group set up to create a network of charter schools affiliated with Hillsdale College across Tennessee — withdrew in 2022 its applications to open schools in Madison, Montgomery and Rutherford counties. The group has come back this spring in Robertson, Rutherford, Maury, Clarksville-Montgomery and Madison counties.
The group said they were separate from Hillsdale, but NewsChannel 5 Investigates found that to not be true. In the fall when they were originally proposed, opponents sounded off against them, though some members of the community said they would be OK to see them in their districts.
Here's what happened in four school districts so far.
Robertson County Schools
In less than a half-hour meeting on Monday night, the Robertson County Board of Education unanimously denied American Classical Education from coming to its school district.
Members voted 6-0 to deny the application.
"While the committee acknowledges the commitment of American Classical, the lack of alignment makes it difficult to assess a viable school. The Robertson County Schools Charter School Application Review Committee recommends non-authorization," the board's committee recommendation read.
No one spoke as part of the public comment.
Rutherford County Schools
In a 5-2 vote, Rutherford County Board of Education members voted to accept the American Classical Education School into the fold.
Before the meeting in red-clad shirts, protesters stood outside to say they didn't want to see the school come into the ecosystem of their school system.
"I really think it's important to know the founder said the teachers are taught in the worst parts at the worst schools in the country," said Mariah Phillips, a previous teacher at RCS and Democratic candidate for Congress. "I was taught at MTSU, one of the best education colleges. Our teachers in Rutherford County Schools have to have certifications and degrees that they are trying to pay off through the funding of our current state system. Our teachers are underpaid and unstaffed. Rutherford County did a great job of approving raises, but our teachers deserve a lot more than what they have been getting."
At Tuesdays' meeting, some school board members questioned the charter school's ability to address special issues across the entire student population.
“Where’s the plan for addressing zero tolerance, special needs, transportation, English Language Learners, mental health and behavioral issues?” Rutherford County School Board member Sheila Bratton said. “I cannot in good conscience go against the recommendation of our charter school committee.”
But others on the board pointed to the growing student population in Rutherford County, saying charter schools offered a way to ease overcrowding in public schools.
“If we're talking about ‘the growth don't pay for itself,’ and how we wish we could put a pause on growth, this is almost a temporary way of doing that,” said board member Caleb Tidwell. “Because these are students we wouldn't have to take into our school systems to buy more portables for.”
Those five votes were enough to get the school moving forward.
"We're pleased that the Rutherford County School Board supported local students and families and approved the application of a high-quality classical charter school," American Classical Education board member Dolores Gresham said. "Our school will open in fall 2024 and will provide a tuition-free public school choice for local parents, students and teachers. This is a victory for more than 7,000 families who have said they want a classical curriculum option in Tennessee."
Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools
Miles away and nearly at the same time, protesters in Clarksville opposed this particular charter school coming to town.
"When I first heard about the school I was concerned," said Joy Rice, the mother of a differently-abled student. "My daughter is autistic. When I heard about it, I wanted to know how it affected me and my family. Looking into it, I had heard some charters don't have to accept those with special needs. It was worse than them not accepting special needs. They were trying to limit the services they would provide. Schools aren't for-profit businesses. We are better served by an educated community and that's why we still pay taxes whether we have children are not. It angers me someone wants to come in here and run it as a business. I stand with public schools and this community."
In the end, CMCS board members voted 6-1 against the classical school.
Maury County County Schools
Maury County had 12 speakers sign up to talk about this school, six for and six against. Each had three minutes to speak.
The board voted to deny the application, deliberating for more than an hour.
The review team looked at academic capacity and operational capacity. They didn't look at how much it would cost the school district. The committee recommended the denial. The applicant said it "wasn't difficult" to find teachers for the academy, even though Tennessee has around 1,000 teacher job openings for public schools.
Out of the thousands of students in Maury County, only 300 to 400 students could attend the academy. Members of the education community by and large said they were against charter schools and this particular academy because of Arnn's comments last summer with Gov. Lee.
Unlike other meetings, this one featured a member of the legislature in Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka.
Cepicky is known for touting education bills and has supported the current third-grade retention law, which will put some students back into third grade or place them in summer school based on the TCAP test. He said the prison system was counting third-grade students in their math to configure building another state penitentiary. He said Maury County shouldn't worry about the classical school coming to town.
"Maury County will receive $17 million for the same number of students we have right now," Cepicky said. "I have studied charter schools, and most of the charter schools you see in Nashville perform higher than public schools. This is deciding on opportunities to students. The high school teachers complain that their students show up to school grade levels behind. Look at the proposal and see if it gives our students in Maury County options."
However, Tennessee charter schools don't always outperform their public school counterparts. A NewsChannel 5 Investigates found that charter schools show a lower success rate than the districts they serve. Out of 109 charter schools for which data was available for the 2021-2022 school year, 87 had success rates below the rates reported for other schools in the same geographic district — in many cases, much lower. More than a third of the charter schools, a total of 38, reported success rates of 10% or less; 10 of those had success rates below 5%.
Jackson-Madison County School Board will meet later in the week to make their decision.
Jason Lamb contributed to this report.
