American Classical Education (ACE) faced questions of providing misleading letters of support for a proposed new school at a hearing Friday with the charter review team for Robertson County Schools.

Before Justin Pearson was elected to the Tennessee House, before he gained acclaim for stopping an oil pipeline project planned for his neighborhood, he was a student in Memphis schools who wanted a textbook.Pearson, then 15, brought the issue to the Memphis City Schools board. The next day, the books were found sitting in storage. His principal was reprimanded, and district officials demanded that school leaders across the city prove that they had handed out textbooks.

The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee is offering students more than 150 scholarship opportunities to apply for, but the application is only available for one more week.The CFMT is a local nonprofit that connects donors with charitable organizations throughout Middle Tennessee and parts of Kentucky. Each year, the foundation administers approximately 160 scholarships to Middle Tennessee students pursuing higher education.

A new report from the State Comptroller’s Office found nearly $60 thousand in inappropriate fuel card spending by employees of the Cheatham County School District transportation department.Auditors didn’t specify how the cards were misspent or when the alleged spending occurred, but they do believe the misuse occurred because of deficient policies.

State Senator Dawn White was always going to make an impact on education. The Murfreesboro legislator says even as a young child growing up in Eagleville Tennessee, she was attracted to teaching. “I mean my mother will tell you the stories of when my sister and I would play when we were little kids, I would always be the teacher so it’s just something that I always had a passion for and a heart for,” said Sen. White. 

As instructional leaders in our district, we are fortunate to spend lots of time in classrooms. Cathy loves to share the story of popping in on one fourth-grade lesson to observe student writing. The room was cool, dim and quiet; the only sound was the scratch of pencils on paper as students brainstormed ideas for the poems they were going to write, a culminating task to wrap up an EL Education module on poetry. The teacher circulated as students pondered topics that were especially important to them — topics that were worthy of an entire poem.One word at the center of a student’s brainstorm was particularly striking: “education.”

School districts across the state received 23 letters of intent this month for applications to open new public charter schools next year. That’s the first step potential charter operators must take before submitting their formal application by February 1, 2023.The letters of intent include proposed schools in four counties that do not currently have public charter schools and they’re coming from both existing charter operators in Tennessee and those who were rejected this year.

Reading champion Tallen Haag’s love of books might actually have its beginnings in her mother’s search for a new house.Stacey Haag says she had one very important prerequisite for any home she considered buying.“We have a whole library in our home. When I bought my house, the requirement was it had to have a library and if it didn’t have a library it had to have a place for a library,” said Stacey Haag.  “We always made sure there were a lot more books than toys and there’s books on every surface of our house and it’s really about leading by example.”

American Classical Education withdrew its appeals for proposed charter schools connected to Hillsdale College after local districts rejected them and public outcry ensued.

Tennessee is celebrating six school districts for their work to accelerate student learning following the pandemic.The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) is recognizing Elizabethton City Schools, Cocke County Schools, Union County Schools, Germantown Municipal Schools, Lenoir City Schools, and Cheatham County Schools for their use of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding and their efforts towards student achievement with the TN ALL Corps program.

Tennesseans overwhelmingly opposed Hillsdale-linked charter schools in written comments, criticizing curriculum and concerns over government overreach. The state commission will vote on the applications in October.

Williamson County Schools have the reputation of being among the best public schools in Tennessee but Wednesday morning a group of parents told the Tennessee State Public Charter School Commission that reputation isn’t warranted.Those parents say the district’s schools have become too political and, they have problems with its Wit and Wisdom English Language Arts curriculum.

Rutherford County Schools says it had reasons far beyond controversial statements about teachers to deny American Classical Education’s application to open a charter school.The district says the organization’s application not only failed to show a plan for students with disabilities and learning needs, but it also lacked evidence of true community support.

Rutherford County Schools says it had reasons far beyond controversial statements about teachers to deny American Classical Education’s application to open a charter school.The district says the organization’s application not only failed to show a plan for students with disabilities and learning needs, but it also lacked evidence of true community support.

American Classical Education (ACE) appealed all three denials to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission where the group now claims it has been wrongfully connected to Hillsdale. In two filings with the commission, American Classical Education is making a visible attempt to distance itself from the college.

Each summer students from across Tennessee take part in a competition that takes place in chairs, bedrooms, libraries, and even cars.It’s known as Tristar Reads and the goal is to spend the most minutes reading over the summer break. Tennesseans for Student Success created Tristar Reads in 2016 to help stop the so-called “summer slide” that many students encounter over the summer months when they’re not in school.This year, 77 participants students spent roughly 273 thousand minutes reading including overall winner Jeffrey Stubblefield.