Knoxville lawmakers share misinformation about public charter schools to attack legislation that supports them

Legislation that supporters say will help ensure public charter schools are approved timely and without political bias advanced from the House Education Committee Tuesday, but not without multiple misleading statements by Knoxville-based opponents.

Representatives Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, and Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, both repeated factually incorrect talking points in the meeting that are frequently used by charter opponents.

Charter schools are free public schools operated by an independent “charter” with an authorizing agency like a school district and most serve high percentages of historically disadvantaged populations.  A Tennessee Firefly analysis of the most recent state report card found charters are outperforming traditional public schools serving comparable families and neighborhoods.

This is true in Knoxville as well, where Emerald Academy outperformed the district-run elementary school three miles away by at least 14 percentage points in every subject. Still Representative Johnson argued against changing the approval process for charters because of alleged underperformance.

“We see the dismal performance of charter schools on our own Department of Ed website,” said Johnson. “Just opening charters off of other charters I think is a dangerous proposition.”

Under current law, potential charter applicants first apply to their local school board for approval. Board members are supposed to follow state guidelines when making those decisions and denied charter applicants have the option of appealing to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission if they believe guidelines weren’t followed.

In its history, the charter commission has upheld exactly the same number of denials as overturned, but Metro Nashville Public Schools’ (MNPS) decisions make up more than 60 percent of the charter commission’s overturned decisions, including three last year.

Concerns about political bias, especially in Nashville led charter supporters, including Governor Bill Lee, to back legislation co-sponsored by Representative Mark White, R-Memphis, allowing charter applicants the ability to apply directly to the charter commission if they want to open a school in a district that has had three charter denials overturned in three straight years. The charter commission’s “direct authorization” would be in effect for the district for up to five years.

“What we’re having a lot of times is certain districts just may not like charters and therefore they turn a lot of em down,” said White. “I have a lot of faith and confidence in the history of the charter commission that we established a number of years ago, that they are really looking into these and they have rejected charters also but if you just have continual rejections by an LEA and the charter commission has overturned those rejections, which many times they don’t, then this puts that in place.”

Representative McKenzie spoke against White’s legislation by characterizing charter operators as outside venture capitalists seeking to make money. In Tennessee charter schools must be operated by a non-profit organizations and a number approved recently in Nashville and Memphis are led by experienced educators from the community.

“They’re doing a great job with their public schools, but you have this outside venture capitalist or outside entity that just doesn’t mesh that LEA, and they understand that,” said McKenzie. “This might be solving a particular problem that your charter commission is looking at but it doesn’t solve all of them. I think we kind of look inward, we get tunnel vision when we pass these type of bills, it can be detrimental to an entity that doesn’t need that.”

Representatives on House Education Committee disagreed, voting 15 to 4 to advance the legislation. A companion bill in the Senate passed last week.

Both bills would additionally provide the charter commission with new flexibility to renew charters every 5 years instead of every ten and allow public colleges and universities and charter operators who want to replicate an existing academic model and the ability to apply directly to the commission.