Tennessee lawmakers mislead public while attacking plan to provide students of color with better school facilities

Stock image of a student smiling

Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, logged on to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, at 10 PM Friday night to produce a multi tweet attack on proposed legislation designed to improve the school facilities economically disadvantaged and students of color attend.

State Representative Gloria Johnson (Photo by Tennessee General Assembly)

Her followers received a host of misleading information about not only the bill but also public charter schools in general.

“I ended up having an education day today. We met with the school board and listened to their concerns and needs. It was surprising how many bills we have that will affect them that most folks are unaware of,” wrote Johnson. “One that is particularly concerning is about Charter schools getting first dibs on decommissioned school properties.”

The proposed legislation Johnson referenced 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 under the proposed legislation, nor would they be required to bring the buildings they’re selling “up to standard” as Representative Johnson falsely claimed on X.

Johnson provided her followers with a screenshot of the bill that omitted language that clearly identified the “repairs requirement” as only applying to leased property, as is standard practice in Tennessee with leased government buildings.

Facilities funding a growing concern

The “facilities funding challenge” supporters of the bill are hoping to address has become a major concern for public charter school leaders across the state in recent years and it’s believed the problem will only grow in the coming years. A 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.

“There are school buildings that are currently vacant or underutilized across the state but often the access to these buildings can be extremely difficult if not impossible to utilize,” said bill sponsor Representative Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville, in a House committee hearing earlier this month. “This option would provide charter schools with access to space that was designed for school use and financed by taxpayer dollars but now underutilized.”

The facilities funding gap disproportionately impacts economically disadvantaged students and students of color because public charter schools serve a higher percentage of them.

Graphic by the Tennessee Comptroller

The Tennessee Comptroller launched a charter report last year that found white students make up less than 7 percent of the more than 40 thousand students who attend public charter schools statewide while the vast majority, 91 percent, are African American or Hispanic.

Representative Johnson has been a frequent opponent of public charter schools, and has a history of downplaying their success serving at-risk and historically underserved students. Friday night she took that a step further and provided a misleading narrative about who’s starting them, describing school founders as hedge fund managers and venture capitalists hoping to make a profit.

Johnson’s profit narrative is similar to one provided by Representative Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, during a House committee hearing on the bill earlier this month.  Parkinson questioned whether charter operators might utilize the legislation to buy and sell school buildings for a profit.

Dr. Brenda Jones (left) (Photo by Invictus Charter School)

“That’s really my angst about the bill,” said Parkinson. “It could make a CMO (charter management organization) specifically become a real estate brokerage company, you know buy property, sit on it, and sell it to the highest bidder you know after they buy the property and they may use it for a school for six months, they may use it for a school for a year, or a few days or whatever.”

Other opponents have even mischaracterized the proposed legislation as providing public charter schools with the ability to make school districts sell property district leaders want to keep. Representative Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, voted against the bill in a House subcommittee last month referencing that possibility. The bill has no provision requiring any school district to sell property.

“There’s no clear definition of a percentage or a time period that is being used or not used that give me a good feeling that we’re not going to take over some facilities where that LEA (local education association) may have plans for it,” said McKenzie.

Tennessee public charter schools are legally required to be operated by non-profit organizations 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.

Memphis saw two public charter schools approved last year.  Former Memphis-Shelby County Schools Deputy Superintendent Dr. John Barker led the creation of the Tennessee Career Academy while former public school teacher Muna Olaniyi led efforts to establish Empower Memphis Career and College Prep to serve historically disadvantaged students in Orange Mound and South Memphis.

Muna Olaniyi (Photo by Sky Arnold)

In Representative Johnson and McKenzie’s home county, Knox County School Board members approved one public charter school last year and it also has ties to an existing educational operation that serves at-risk students. Prep Public Schools is establishing Knoxville Preparatory School as a replication of its existing all-boys school Chattanooga Prep. More than 90 percent of Chattanooga Prep’s students are students of color and this year the state named it a Reward school for high performance in achievement and growth.

The facilities funding bill passed the House Education Administration Committee earlier this month. Members of the  Senate Education Committee approved it Wednesday.  It now goes to the House Government Operations Committee for a vote next week.