Proposed legislation could discourage school districts from opposing public charter schools

Tennessee Nature Academy students learning in a classroom. The school was approved in 2022 by the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission (Photo by Tennessee Nature Academy)

Dr. Brenda Jones had a lot of reasons to feel optimistic when she applied to open Invictus Nashville Charter School in 2023.

Jones was herself a living success story of Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS). She grew up living in East Nashville’s James Cayce Homes public housing complex and utilized the district’s special transfer program to attend a high school that put her on the right track to eventually become an MNPS public school teacher.

Those years in the classroom lead Jones to create her own education model that was a mixture of Montessori principles and project-based learned. Jones envisioned Invictus using that model to better serve students like she once was, in the Donelson and Hermitage communities.

Instead of embracing the concept, school board members voted Invictus down and then coordinated with district staff to encourage parents whose children attend a district-run Montessori school in Donelson to speak in opposition of Invictus’ appeal.

Dr. Brenda Jones (center) with Invictus supporters (Photo by Invictus Nashville)

“It’s disheartening to know that parents were fed talking points to speak against the approval of Invictus because I believe that if they were provided an authentic opportunity to meet and learn more about our mission, they would have a different opinion on supporting us,” said Jones in a 2023 interview with the Tennessee Firefly.

Members of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission ultimately sided with Jones and overturned the district’s decision to deny Invictus.

Brenda Jones isn’t the first or last public charter school founder to face opposition in Nashville. The MNPS Board of Education hasn’t approved a new public charter school since 2021, and the state charter commission has overturned 8 out of the 10 district denials that have been appealed during that time.

That history has led some charter supporters to consider MNPS to essentially be a rubber stamp of denial for new charters, instead of an honest evaluator that makes decisions based on state guidelines.

In response, Governor Bill Lee’s administration is now proposing legislation that will be heard Tuesday in the House K-12 Subcommittee, to discourage other districts from adopting a similar charter posture. If approved by the General Assembly, the legislation will allow charter applicants the ability to apply directly to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission if they want to open a school in a district that has three charter denials overturned in three years.

That charter commission’s “direct authorization” would be in effect for the district for up to five years.

“Gov. Lee's proposal strengthens the public charter school approval process to ensure Tennessee parents continue to have high-quality choices when it comes to their child's education,” said Governor Lee’s Press Secretary Elizabeth Johnson in a statement to the Tennessee Firefly. “This bill supports fairness, transparency, and high standards for Tennessee's successful public charter school community, upholding local input while ensuring districts fulfill their responsibilities.”

Governor Bill Lee (center) with members of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission in 2021 (Photo by the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission)

Governor Lee has been a supporter of expanding charter schools in Tennessee, in part because of the academic performance the schools are producing. Researchers at Stanford University found Tennessee’s charter students gained an additional 34 days of learning in reading and 39 days in math compared to similar students at traditional public schools.

Most recently, nearly 70 percent of the state’s charter schools earned a Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) score of 4 (second highest) or 5 (highest) for growth compared to less than 40 percent of traditional public schools.

Under current law, proposed charters that are approved on appeal typically end up under the authorization of the charter commission.  Next fall the commission will oversee 24 schools across the state serving more than 8 thousand students. It’s expected that the same will be true of most if not all future charters directly authorized by the commission under the Governor’s legislation.

Commission Executive Director Tess Stovall told lawmakers in the House Education Committee last month that those “commission authorized schools have performed better on average than other public charter schools that are authorized by local school districts or the state’s Achievement School District (ASD).

“In school year 2023/2024, 92 percent of the commission’s public charter schools scored a (School) Letter Grade of a C or higher and that is in comparison to 73 percent of all other public charter schools,” said Stovall. “The commission outperformed as a district in both ELA (English language arts) and math in traditional public (charter) schools authorized under the county districts.”

That meeting may have also provided a preview of potential opposition the Governor’s charter bill could face in the coming weeks.

Senator Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, has been among the more supportive Democratic lawmakers for charter schools, but she questioned whether the state-run commission would be able to provide families the same level of service that school districts that authorize charters do.

“For me the appeal of a charter authorize with the LEA (school district) is that the parent has a face, a school board that they can go to, that they can appeal to whereas you all are kind of centralized in Nashville. I know you do have meetings across the state. What will that process look like when you expand because then you really will be potentially a relatively large school district as opposed to 17 schools,” asked Akbari.

Stovall responded that the commission already holds meetings in the communities where its schools are located, and she says expanding on that would be a consideration if the Governor’s legislation passes.

Overturning charter decisions less common outside of Nashville

It remains to be seen how many additional charters the commission would actually take authorization of if the Governor’s legislation passes, but supporters point out denial reversals are less common for school districts outside of Nashville.

Since it began operation in 2021, the charter commission has sided with the school district in 13 of 26 charter denial appeals, including nearly 60 percent in Memphis, and no school district other than MNPS has had three straight denials overturned. Stovall says commissioners will continue to evaluate charters on the state guidelines if applicants bypass school district approval and apply direction to the state board.

“We will approve a school that is high quality and that will remain the same regardless of kind of the pathway to get there,” said Stovall.

The Governor’s legislation would also allow public colleges and universities the ability to apply directly to the commission along with existing charter operators who want to replicate an existing academic model. Commissioners would additionally have new flexibility to renew charters every 5 years instead of every ten under the bill.