In August, five new public charter schools will open for students in three Tennessee counties.
Only American Classical Academy-Rutherford has direct ties to an institute of higher education but in recent years, some education leaders have asked the question whether it might benefit students of color if more universities opened their own charters, especially Tennessee’s seven historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
A recent report by the Tennessee Charter Center found roughly 95 percent of the state’s 44,000 public charter school students are students of color and supporters believe HBCUs might be well positioned to provide a unique K-12 learning experience, especially with the important role HBCUs are already playing in educating the next generation of Black educators and professionals.
On Monday, a webinar sponsored by the Progressive Policy Institute and education publication The 74 discussed this issue and whether HBCU connected charter schools might help Black students meet more of their career and education goals, in addition to producing the talent needed to teach at charter schools that focus largely on supporting underserved Black student populations. The discussion highlighted key points from a recent report titled, “Untapped Expertise: HBCUs as Charter Authorizers,” and featured Katherine Norris, chair of the department of curriculum and instruction at Howard University; Sharif El-Mekki, founder and CEO of the Center for Black Teacher Development; and Artesius Miller, founder and CEO of the Utopian Academy for the Arts Charter School and a professor at Morehouse College.
Among examples of HBCU-supported programs highlighted in the report is the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science, which has a personalized curriculum designed to connect and integrate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) literacy across core subjects. Through the program, students can visit the School of Medicine where they meet with medical students to learn about a day in the life of a college medical student, which encourages students to consider careers in health sciences. Much of the staff and instructors are Howard graduates, according to Norris.
“When we graduate [many of] our teachers, they’re going in to teach in the middle school … That’s been a really big part of how we are collaborating,” Norris said of the program.
Artesius Miller, founder and CEO of the Utopian Academy for the Arts Charter School and a professor at Morehouse College, noted that connecting students to career learning opportunities is among the main goals of his school, similar to the program run by Howard. He believes work such as this could “restore faith” in public education among underserved students and families of color.
“I wanted to find a way to give parents assurances that their children will be prepared to enroll in college and will have some type of plan beyond their K-12 educational experience,” he said about founding the school. “I realized there were systematic inequities for access and also in general, the options made available to students here in [our] school district as compared to other communities and school systems across Metro Atlanta.”
El-Mekki said he believes HBCUs’ efforts geared toward providing staff for charter schools could help bring more Black youth into the teaching profession moving forward, which will ensure charter schools are staffed by educators who better understand the unique challenges faced by students of color and considerations to take into account when working with non-white students.
“We want every HBCU to have a school they’re authorizing and that they’re taking responsibility for,” he said. “We can’t keep talking about the Black teacher pipeline without talking about our HBCUs … And we have to recruit Black youth and not be disconnected from the social, political and economic realities that they face.”
Tennessee’s seven HBCUs include the American Baptist College, Fisk University, Meharry Medical College, Tennessee State University, Knoxville College, Lane College, and LeMoyne-Owen College.
