Nashville lawmakers express opposition to rule change to prevent conflicts of interest in review of public charter school authorizers

A seemingly routine rule change involving the process of reviewing local school districts that authorize public charter schools faced opposition from Nashville lawmakers in the Tennessee General Assembly’s Joint Government Operations Committee Thursday.In Tennessee all public charter schools are either authorized by school districts or state operators like the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission and the Achievement School District. The Tennessee State Board of Education conducts periodic reviews of each to ensure authorizers are following state law.The rule change Nashville lawmakers objected to allows the State Board of Education to use only external evaluators when conducting those reviews instead of both internal and external reviewers that are currently required.Board Deputy Executive Director Nathan James told members of the Joint Government Operations Committee this rule change is needed to avoid conflicts of interest.The board has just one employee currently who conducts reviews, and that employee has working experience with some authorizers.“What we’d like to be able to do, and the reason we’re saying this added flexibility, is because we think it ought to be able to be reviewed entirely by external evaluators in that case because these folks have worked together in the past and we want to avoid any appearance of impropriety,” said State Board of Education Deputy Executive Director Nathan James.The State Board of Education typically contracts with national charter experts or employees from other school districts to serve as external reviewers but Representative John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, still expressed concern over removing internal evaluators.Clemmons said the charter process is already rife with conflicts of interest.“I just want a better idea of who these external evaluators are because I have a sincere concern and we have seen this entire charter authorization process, which results in massive amounts of money flowing out of traditional public schools into private hands, is rife with conflicts of interest. So I’m concerned. Who are these external evaluators,” asked Clemmons.The Executive Director of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission debunked Representative Clemmons’ comments about “massive amounts” of money flowing into private hands earlier this month and it’s just the latest example of Nashville elected officials making incorrect statements about public charter schools.Clemmons did not address how he'd like to resolve the board's concern about conflicts of interest with internal reviewers and appeared to be among the House members who voted against the rule change on a voice vote. Senator Charlane Oliver, D-Nashville, also voted against it but that opposition wasn’t enough to prevent the joint committee from giving the rule change a positive recommendation.The change also allows the State Board of Education to reduce the fee local school districts and other charter authorizers charge public charter schools if the authorizer isn’t meeting state state standards.Under Tennessee law all public charter schools are run by non-profit organizations.

Educator License Change

The joint committee also gave a positive recommendation for a rule that changes how the State Board of Education revokes, denies, suspends, and reactivates an educator’s license.The rule change removes the requirement that automatically suspends an educator’s license for defaulting on a student loan payment. It would also give the board authority to automatically revoke a license without the right of a hearing, a court order, a settlement agreement, or a plea agreement requiring the educator to surrender their license.This change also gives the state board authority to prohibit those with an expired license from applying for reactivation if the individual has committed conduct that would require the state board to automatically revoke the license.The rules also clarifies that individuals who have committed child abuse, child sexual abuse, and child neglect are ineligible for an educators’ license in Tennessee along with those on the state’s vulnerable person registry, the state’s sex offender registry, or a similar registry in another jurisdiction.