Nashville continues to overstate the cost of public charter schools. Can any proposed this year get a fair vote?

MNPS Board of Education meeting room (Photo by Metro Nashville Public Schools)

The Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Board of Education hasn’t approved a new public charter school since members voted in Aventura Community School in 2021 on a 5-3 vote.

Only board member Sharon Gentry remains from the five who supported Aventura and all three who voted no, including Board Chair Rachael Anne Elrod, are still serving the district.

This new board has voted down every proposed new public charter school since then, including decisions in 2022 denying KIPP Southeast Nashville College Prep Elementary and Middle School and the Tennessee Nature Academy  along with Invictus Nashville Charter School last year that were all overturned by the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission. Charter schools are free public schools operated by an independent contract or “charter” with an authorizing agency.

One common reason used in each board decision is the estimated “substantial negative fiscal impact” proposed charters would create for MNPS if approved, with public dollars following students leaving traditional public schools for a new public charter school. Charter supporters have frequently pointed out the district's cost estimates are misleading because they don’t include any potential savings public charter schools will bring.

Each charter school approved takes over the financial responsibility for providing students with teachers, tutors, facilities, transportation, and other school related costs the district would have provided. Tuesday night board members will vote on the amended applications from five proposed public charter schools they denied in April, and once again, the district is presenting members with an “estimated cost” that doesn’t include potential savings.

For Encompass Community School, MNPS estimates the state would divert an average of $9,483 to the school for each of the 468 students it could eventually serve at full enrollment. District staff say that adds up to an estimated negative fiscal impact of more than $4 million.The district is utilizing a similar method to estimate the negative fiscal impact of Nurses Middle College Nashville and the other proposed new public charter schools to make the case all five schools will cost the district nearly $19 million.

In the past, district staff have presented negative fiscal impact estimates to the board and public without providing context that the estimate doesn’t actually account for how the proposed school would impact district finances. Perhaps equally frustrating for supporters of these five schools, the same district report that’s presenting the estimated negative fiscal impact also questioned whether the schools would actually be able to attract the number of students used in the calculations.

District staff for example claimed Encompass Community School partially met state standards in part because of concerns it would not be able to attract all 468 students.

“While the applicant amended the application to address challenges related to the start-up budget, the application did not address challenges related to the targeted location, included a realistic and detailed timeline, or the potential challenge of meeting enrollment targets in a quickly changing area,” wrote district staff.

MNPS additionally used questions about enrollment to rate down applications from the Nashville School of Excellence, LEAD Public Schools, and Nurses Middle College Nashville while continuing to rely on the higher enrollment projections in financial calculations.

Charters outperforming district run schools

The district’s continued reliance on misleading financial estimates comes as public charter schools have been outperforming comparable district run schools on state tests.

A recent report from Stanford additionally found charters in Nashville and across the state are outperforming their traditional school counterparts with students who come from significantly more challenging backgrounds.