House Democrats oppose legislation to support economically disadvantaged students in their districts

State Representatives John Ray Clemmons (left), Justin Jones (center), and Gloria Johnson (right) (Photos by Tennessee General Assembly)

State Representative Justin Jones, D-Nashville, represents a district that touches four school clusters with some of the highest performing public charter schools in Nashville.

Those charters in east and southeast Nashville include a dozen that outscored the average grade district run public schools received in their cluster on the state's School Letter Grades assessment. The remaining public charter schools scored equal to the cluster average and 40 percent of the Reward schools in these four clusters are charters.

The results are especially noteworthy as statewide public charter schools serve a higher percentage of economically disadvantaged and students of color than traditional public schools. More than 85 percent of charter students in Nashville are students of color.

Despite this success, Jones was among the most outspoken opponents of a plan to help these schools provide better facilities to students.

During Monday’s debate in the House Government Operations Committee on proposed legislation that would make it easier for charters to access vacant school buildings, Representative Jones mocked the plan by mischaracterizing it as financial support for hedge fund managers.

“I would like to make an amendment to name this bill the Hedge Fund Real Estate Support Act,” said Jones. “Would you be open to that name so we could be clear to the taxpayer and to Tennesseans about what this bill is really about?”

State Representative Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, made a similar mischaracterization of the bill earlier this month accusing charter operators of supporting the bill to make money in real estate.

Neither representative provided any specific examples of a Tennessee public charter school led by a hedge fund manager and the narrative goes against state law.

Charter schools in Tennessee are legally required to be operated by a non-profit organization and those approved last year are led by individuals with experience educating Tennessee students, not real estate development.

The founder of Nashville’s lone new public charter school approved last year is a former Metro Nashville Public School teacher. Dr. Brenda Jones grew up in East Nashville’s James Cayce homes and founded Invictus Nashville Charter School with the goal of serving students of color in Donelson who have few school choice options.  That school will open in the McGavock school cluster that includes part of Jones’ House district.

Supporters of the bill Jones and Johnson are opposing say it will help with a facilities funding gap charters across the state are facing. A recent report by the organization ExcelinEd found current state funding is only meeting 50 percent of charter facilities needs and this gap is expected to grow to just 42 percent of facility needs met in five years as more families choose to send their children to public charter schools.

The proposed legislation would require local school districts that have public charter schools in them to provide a list of vacant and underutilized buildings on an annual basis. Under the bill, school districts would additionally be required to make those properties available to public charter schools at a fair market value and give charters a first right of refusal for either purchase or lease.School districts would not be required to sell or lease buildings district leaders want to keep, a point another Nashville representative with successful charters in his district seemed to misunderstand.

Representative John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, mischaracterized the bill as having the potential to force school districts to sell or lease property that's in use for storage.

“What we’re saying is to a public school system is that if you have property that you own, you’re using for storage or for any other purpose for future planning purposes - they probably want to use it for a school they just don’t have the funding from the State of Tennessee to fit it for a school - now they have no choice but to sell it to a charter school operator, which is a private entity, at or below market value,” said Representative John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville. “Or lease it to them at or below fair market value.”

Bill sponsor Representative Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville, assured Clemmons that’s not the case.

“That’s a great story but that’s not what this bill does,” said Representative Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville. “If it’s deemed storage, it is a utilized building. This is for vacant or underutilized buildings not storage buildings as you describe.”

Representative Clemmons' district touches three school cluster in Nashville and much like Jones' district, ten public charter schools received a higher school letter grade than the district run public school average in those clusters.  The remaining four public charter schools received the same grade as the district average.

The House Government Operations Committee advanced Williams’ bill on a voice vote.  The full Senate will vote on it Thursday and the House Finance, Ways, and Means Committee will take it up next week.