Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds has unveiled a new calculation for giving A-F letter grades to the state’s 1,700 public schools. The overhaul is her first major initiative since coming to the job in July under Gov. Bill Lee’s administration. Photo courtesy of Tennessee Department of Education
After months of asking Tennesseans how the state should judge its public schools when giving them their first A-F letter grades, Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds mostly ignored the feedback.
In her first major initiative since taking the helm of the state education department in July, Reynolds chose a school grading system that elevates the importance of proficiency — whether students are meeting certain academic standards on state tests — over the progress that schools make toward meeting those standards over the course of a year.
It’s also significantly different from what Tennesseans have asked state officials for since Reynolds announced in August that an overhaul in the state’s grading system was coming. The overwhelming feedback at 10 town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments was for keeping the calculation focused on growth, as it has been the last five years.
Reynolds’ plan is similar to the model backed by ExcelinEd, the education advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and where Reynolds previously served as policy director.
It will still include improvement as a factor, as required by a 2016 Tennessee law, but achievement will get more weight than under the original formula — and there won’t be a way for schools to meet the achievement criteria by meeting certain improvement goals, according to a presentation to the state Board of Education.
“This version is recalibrating that balance point and is going to say more about where the kids are in those schools right now,” said David Laird, assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in the education department. “It is less of a referendum on maybe what the school’s impact has been, but it’s more clearly articulating their challenges right now.”
The department also announced that the grades will be released in mid-December, a month later than previously planned. State officials say they need more time to verify data going into the grades.
This is the first time the state will issue its letter grades since the 2016 law requiring them took effect. Previous attempts were called off because of testing glitches and the pandemic.
There are several other changes to the calculation.
The formula will factor in test scores for science and social studies, although not as much as for math and English language arts, which were the focus of the original model.
Gone is data related to chronic absenteeism. A new factor will be how well schools are helping their lowest-performing quartile of students to improve. For high schools, college and career readiness will be included, based on measures such as ACT scores, post-secondary credits, or industry credentials.
The debate about growth vs. proficiency was the biggest concern for school leaders who have been waiting and planning for grades for five years.
Focusing on proficiency likely will mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities.
Beyond the stigma of getting a D or an F, officials representing those schools eventually may face hearings before the state Board of Education or audits of their spending and academic programming.
Several board members worried that teachers could flee schools graded D or F, exacerbating the challenges faced by schools in high-poverty areas, where students face extra challenges before they even walk into a classroom.
“It’s a struggle for me to think about saying everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when some folks have a closet full of boots, and some have none,” said Darrell Cobbins, who represents Memphis on the board.
Many education advocates worried the state could return to an era when schools with many affluent students coasted to the top ratings, while doing little to show they were helping students improve. Meanwhile, schools in high-poverty areas will have little chance to earn an A or B, they told Chalkbeat.
“Measuring only absolute proficiency for 50% of a school’s grade will most certainly disadvantage our highest-poverty schools,” said Erin O’Hara Block, a school board member for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, who served on the working group giving input to the state.
“I’m not sure what this system is supposed to motivate for schools, nor how it will truly inform parents on differences in what various schools can offer to their children,” she said.
Reynolds said the letter grades are a tool to provide families and school communities with information they can use to make decisions, not necessarily to incentivize schools to improve.
“We want to tell the truth about whether or not our kids are actually achieving,” she said.
But Gini Pupo-Walker, director of the Education Trust in Tennessee, is hopeful the grades will somehow be tied to extra resources to help struggling schools.
“We look forward to learning more about how the state plans to support schools that receive D’s and F’s,” she said, “and ensure schools are paying attention to the success of all students.”
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
A 2016 Tennessee law required the state to assign each public school a letter grade, A to F, based mostly on student test results. The intent was to give parents and communities an easy way to assess the quality of education at each school.
Nothing about it has been simple, though. Since the law took effect, the state hasn’t issued any grades, mostly because of testing glitches and the pandemic.
And now there’s a new complication: As the state prepares to finally issue its first grades in November, the education department and its new leader are revamping the grading formula. The changes likely will mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities.
The rollout will be a jolt to many Tennessee public school leaders, who have been waiting and planning for these grades for five years, thinking they understood what the criteria would be. And beyond the stigma, the grades could have real consequences: Officials representing schools that get D’s or F’s eventually may face hearings or audits of their spending and academic programming.
“It almost seems like we’re trying to change rules after the game’s already been played,” said Brian Curry, a school board member in Germantown, during an August town hall in Memphis to discuss potential changes with state officials.
At the crux of the state’s late change is a long-running debate over proficiency vs. growth — whether students should be judged based more on whether they meet certain academic standards, or on how much progress they make toward those standards. Where the state lands in that debate is especially important for schools where students face extra challenges even before they walk into a classroom.
But many public school leaders believe there’s a larger political motive behind the sudden drive by Gov. Bill Lee’s administration to change the rules: advancing his school choice agenda.
Under a 2019 voucher law pushed by Lee, Tennessee now provides taxpayer money to help some families send their children to private schools. But the program has fewer than 2,000 students enrolled in the three counties where it operates, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap. Lee wants to expand enrollment and eventually take the option statewide.
“Think about it,” he continued. “If you have an A or B school in your community, that may not motivate parents to want to pull their kids out of public schools to use a voucher.”
Several other district leaders brought up the same concern to state officials at town halls hosted by the department in August and September to get public feedback about revising the grading formula. But state officials flatly deny there’s a connection between the voucher law and changes to the grading formula.
The grading law “was passed to promote transparency, and families should be able to know and to understand how their students’ schools are performing,” a department spokesman said in a statement to Chalkbeat.
Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds said the goal of the new formula is to generate grades that signify meaningful differences in school performance in a way that make sense to Tennesseans, whether they reflect proficiency, growth, or other criteria that are ultimately chosen.
“Whether you are a student, parent, teacher, policymaker, or an interested community member, school letter grades will empower all Tennesseans with the information they need to support K-12 public education and our local schools,” she said.
State law requires that Tennessee’s model for grading schools take into account student performance and improvement, as demonstrated on annual state tests, and it allows inclusion of other reliable indicators of student achievement. The statute directed the education department to come up with a formula to turn those results into a single letter grade for each school, to be published online on the State Report Card.
When developing the calculation under former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, the department stressed achievement and growth in math and English language arts. And it created two pathways for schools to demonstrate achievement.
One way was based on what the state calls “pure achievement,” meaning that a certain percentage of a school’s students demonstrated a required level of proficiency, skill, or knowledge. By this metric, a school that started the school year with a high proficiency rate was likely to receive an A even if it had not improved student learning during the school year.
The other way rewarded schools that met certain goals to move their students toward proficiency from one year to the next. The idea was that all schools, especially those serving low-income students or that have historically performed poorly, should have an opportunity to get an A as long as they make strong progress toward the state’s achievement goals.
So even the achievement part of the grading formula could be fulfilled with strong growth. In this way, Tennessee was an early adopter of a growth-heavy model when developing its accountability system.
“All means all!” became the mantra of then-Education Commissioner Candice McQueen as she worked with education stakeholders for nearly a year to design a system to incentivize improvement for allstudents — whether they are considered low, average, or high achievers — as well as for all schools, regardless of their demographic makeup.
Tennessee had modest success with that approach, even though the actual letter grades were never issued. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, students were showing incremental growth in math and reading based on some of the nation’s highest proficiency standards.
But state lawmakers have become increasingly impatient with the pace of improvement, especially in reading. About a third of the state’s students meet grade-level standards on the English language arts test, which requires students to demonstrate the ability to read closely.
“At the end of the day, I want to know: Can you add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and can you read, regardless of how much you have grown from one year to the other?” said Rep. Mark Cochran, an Englewood Republican, during one legislative hearing about the state’s emphasis on growth.
Meanwhile, the legislature has sought to provide more options for families dissatisfied with the performance of traditional public schools by introducing private school vouchers and allowing charter schools to open statewide.
Now as Tennessee revamps its school grading system, Lee’s administration is poised to shift weight in the equation from growth to pure achievement. Reynolds wants the state to do that by eliminating the growth pathway for demonstrating achievement. Growth would still be a component of the overall grade, as dictated by state law, but a much smaller part.
“I want to be very clear that when we’re talking about academic achievement, we’re talking about academic achievement,” Reynolds, the new education commissioner, said at an Oct. 12 meeting of education stakeholders.
Reynolds, who was sworn in to her post in July, launched the reevaluation of the grading system about a month later as her first major initiative. She invited Tennesseans to weigh in on how the state should measure a school’s academic success. At the time, state officials said all options were on the table.
At town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments from Tennesseans, state officials heard a common theme: Keep some kind of growth option as part of the achievement calculation. Measuring student performance with a single letter grade requires nuance, many educators said, and the growth-based model allows that.
A formula that’s weighted too heavily toward pure achievement, they warned, would produce grades that essentially mirror the economic profiles of the schools — with high-income communities getting the A’s and B’s — and families wouldn’t be able to use the grades to differentiate the performance of one high-poverty school from another.
“Given the strong correlation between achievement and poverty, I think it’s really difficult to talk about just achievement in isolation. We really need to balance this with growth,” said Madeline Price, policy director for the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, at an Oct. 5 meeting of the stakeholders group.
“All schools, especially low-income and traditionally low performing schools, should have a very real opportunity to receive an A” if they significantly improve student performance, the leaders of Tennessee’s school superintendent organization wrote in a letter to Reynolds.
Meaghan Turnbow, who coordinates programs for English language learners in fast-growing Rutherford County Schools, south of Nashville, noted pitfalls in a model that emphasizes proficiency over growth.
“We have students come to our district from all over the world with various education levels and English levels,” she wrote in a public comment. “Year to year they grow, but it may be several years before they are considered meeting or exceeding expectations.”
But soon after asking for public feedback, Tennessee’s new education chief signaled that she wanted to narrow the way the state judges student performance.
During an Aug. 29 town hall in Chattanooga, Reynolds acknowledged that the education department, before scuttling plans to issue grades in the fall of 2022 under former Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, had run the numbers but didn’t like what it saw. For instance, she said, a school with 80 percent of its students reading on grade level might have received a B, but so might a school that had only 15 percent of students reading on grade level, while also demonstrating high growth.
“Is having a campus that has only 15 percent reading proficiency really a B school, if those kids cannot read?” Reynolds asked.
“We should celebrate growth,” she continued. “We should also celebrate achievement, because at the end of the day, kids can grow. But if they never get on grade level, they don’t have much of a future, particularly when it comes to reading and math.”
The A-F grading system, as required by the state, was billed as a simple, common-sense tool to help parents understand how their child’s school is doing and compare schools.
But changes the department is making could add a new layer of complexity for school communities.
When Tennessee developed its accountability plan in 2017, it opted for a single system to satisfy both the state law and a 2015 federal accountability law called the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. That way, “we’re not sending different messages to parents and the general public,” said Winstead, the Maryville schools director who served on the state task force that developed the plan.
ESSA doesn’t require A-F grades, but it directs the state to use its own criteria to identify schools that are academically in the bottom 5 percent, plus other schools showing low performance or significant disparities across groups of students who are Black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, or English learners, or have learning disabilities. Such schools become eligible for additional federal funding.
Because of the link between the two laws, the schools that would earn the lowest grades under Tennessee’s current formula are the same ones that would get federal support to help them improve. And educators would work with a common set of goals, priorities, and incentives.
Under Reynolds, the Tennessee education department appears ready to decouple the state’s A-F system from its federal compliance plan. The change would result in Tennessee having two accountability systems, potentially producing conflicting assessments of how a school is doing.
For example, if the new state formula places less emphasis on certain student groups than the federal system does, a school that has big racial or economic disparities in student performance could still earn high grades from Tennessee based on overall proficiency rates. Meanwhile, a school with low proficiency rates would get a D or an F, even though it may serve certain groups of students better than an A or B school.
Mary Batiwalla, former assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in Tennessee, says what’s going on here has parallels in Texas, where Reynolds used to be chief deputy commissioner. Officials there changed their grading criteria this year to apply to schools retroactively. However, after some school districts sued that state over the changes, Texas delayed the release of its grades.
Texas lawmakers are also in the midst of a special session on vouchers to debate whether students should be able to use public dollars to attend private schools. Batiwalla worries that officials in both states are hijacking the grading systems for political aims, not to incentivize school communities to improve.
“If you want to do vouchers, do vouchers,” said Batiwalla, an outspoken critic of Reynolds’ efforts. “Don’t take away this policy tool that has the potential to drive improvement from the rest of the public schools.”
Other tweaks are likely when Tennessee releases its new equation in the days or weeks ahead, just before giving schools their first set of grades.
The department has heard calls to include social studies and science scores in the calculation, as well as data related to third-grade reading, participation in tutoring programs, and postsecondary indicators like dual enrollment and career and technical education offerings, just to name a few. There’s also a growing consensus around ditching student absenteeism data, which is a factor in the current equation.
But most educators have their eye on the growth vs. proficiency debate. They worry that greater emphasis on proficiency will motivate schools to focus on improving “bubble kids” — those scoring just under proficiency — instead of working to improve students at all levels of achievement.
“You’re incentivizing bad choices that serve just a few kids instead of all kids,” Winstead said.
Winstead’s suburban school system should be fine. Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville, is one of the state’s highest-achieving districts and stands to benefit if Tennessee’s revamped grading formula puts more weight on proficiency. But Winstead philosophically disagrees with the approach that the state appears to be taking.
“This is going to demoralize a lot of school communities,” he said, “teachers, kids, and parents — folks who have done incredible things to move kids forward.”
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Peabody Elementary School is closed until next fall due to issues with mold and to allow time for other building upgrades, Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials told families last week.
Relocating for the rest of the school year “is the best and least disruptive option as we restore this historic gem,” MSCS wrote in a letter to families, which was shared with the press.
Pre-kindergarten students from Peabody will continue going to W.H. Brewster Elementary, about three miles away.
Peabody Elementary will get some renovations in addition to the mold remediation, MSCS told school families Friday. When students return for the 2024-25 school year, the century-old building will have upgraded floors, ceiling tiles, duct work, and lighting, plus repaired brick and windows.
Upgrades could be coming to Middle College High, too, officials said. Constructed in 1930, the building is home to a sought-after optional program in partnership with neighboring Christian Brothers University.
This marks the second consecutive year that some MSCS students have had to relocate midyear due to issues with aging buildings.
Last fall, students at Cummings K-8 Optional School had to relocate after the school’s library ceiling partially collapsed just days into the new school year. The structure that houses the library was built in 1930. The building has since received some additional upgrades, but has yet to reopen. Students remain relocated at LaRose Elementary School.
More school building upgrades will be on the way as district leaders work with a new committee of elected officials and leaders in the nonprofit sector to develop a comprehensive plan to address facility needs.
Last month, board members approved funds for a new assessment that will provide updated data about each building. Interim Superintendent Toni Williams called the project a “massive undertaking.”
Chalkbeat Tennessee Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee contributed. Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Paul Young at his HQ opening (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Downtown Memphis Commission leader Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor, a position that gives him no formal authority over Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS), but could allow him to revive the relationship between city and district if he follows through on his campaign plans.
Such a change would come at a pivotal time, bringing additional dollars to the district as it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance projects and seeks to develop a facility plan that better supports academic improvement.
“We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that,” Young told Chalkbeat in September.
Those funds would support capital investments and upgrades to MSCS buildings, Young said, a proposal that aligns with the interests of the MSCS school board and interim Superintendent Toni Williams. A 14-person committee of government officials and nonprofit sector leaders is set to convene later this fall to develop the new facilities plan.
Young will take office on January 1st. The success of his plans would depend on support from the Memphis City Council, whose makeup will be settled after runoff elections in November. And the MSCS school board will need to carry the torch for the district’s infrastructure plans through the expected leadership transition this spring, when Williams’ tenure ends and a permanent superintendent takes over.
Young’s proposals distinguished him from several other frontrunners in the race, which he won with 28 percent of the vote Thursday, according to unofficial results from the Shelby County Election Commission. (There are no runoffs in Memphis mayoral elections.)
Others who got more than 20 percent of the vote include Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner (23 percent), former Memphis Mayor and school Superintendent Willie Herenton (22 percent), and attorney and former Shelby County Commission Chair Van Turner (21 percent).
Among them, only Turner proposed that the city fund MSCS through annual appropriations, the same way the county currently does.
Here are the responses Young submitted on September 1st:
I am committed to providing a strong foundation for our youth through quality education and investing in youth development. This means equitable access to resources, teacher support, and innovative learning environments that empower every student to succeed. I believe in engaging directly with educators, parents, and community members to collaborate on and champion effective policies that address the unique challenges our students and young people face.
My mayoral administration will draw insights from a diverse range of stakeholders including educators, students, parents, and community advocates. Through open dialogue and collaboration, we will craft informed policies to continue to do better by our young people. Progress will be measured through data-driven indicators such as improved graduation rates, literacy and test scores, and increased community engagement. Transparency and accountability will guide us toward achieving our educational goals.
Many Memphis students and families confront barriers like poverty, gun violence, and over-policing that hinder learning. By offering comprehensive support services such as mental health programs, after-school initiatives, and community-centered efforts, we will create safer environments where learning can thrive. Collaborating with local organizations and promoting restorative justice practices will contribute to holistic development and improved educational outcomes for our youth.
I believe that the city can support MSCS through capital investments, and also through improving and upgrading facilities’ infrastructure. The city can also support through after school enrichment and extracurricular programs. We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that.
We would continue to support early childhood efforts and seek to grow the number of spaces available for young people in our community. Our efforts would be informed by MSCS and our partners.
I think that MSCS should have a strong collaborative working relationship on the types of programming that is taught to children in our community. The city should support investment in facilities, infrastructure, and extracurricular activities. The relationship between the mayor and the superintendent should be a strong partnership where they advocate for Memphis children together at every level.
A high quality school is one where there are various approaches to educating children where they are. We must meet the individual needs of children while not holding them back. This work must take place in and out of the classroom, and schools can and should offer holistic services to help support the whole child and their unique needs. Crosstown High, East High School, White Station are a few schools that come to mind.
I went to East High School — Ms. Foster was my geometry teacher there and she made the subject matter fun and interesting to me. She pushed me further than I thought I could go. As far as leadership, she showed me we can always be better, we can always do more. I learned from her that intellectual curiosity can make work seem like fun, and I try to bring that spirit to everyone on the team with me.
Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
A leader of the group of lawmakers exploring whether Tennessee can feasibly reject nearly $1.9 billion in federal education funding says that the panel’s work will begin in early November, and that its findings — not politics — will guide its recommendations.
“There is no predetermined outcome for this working group, or for what the information we gather is going to show,” Sen. Jon Lundberg, a co-chair of the panel, said Wednesday.
“We want to look at what federal education money we get, where it goes, what we’re required to do to get those funds, and ultimately what’s the return on the investment,” the Bristol Republican told Chalkbeat. “I think this will give us a good overview.”
Lundberg, who also chairs the Senate Education Committee, was responding to criticism from Democrats that Republicans are seeking to undermine public education, cater to charter and private school interests, and advance the political aspirations of House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Crossville Republican and likely candidate for governor in 2026.
Most of the federal money the state receives supports low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Tennessee school districts that are most reliant on U.S. dollars tend to be rural, and have more low-income and disabled students, less capacity for local revenue, and lower test scores in English language arts, according to a recent report from the Sycamore Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
Lundberg expects to release the panel’s meeting schedule later this week. But at this point, its members have more questions than answers, including what such a shift in funding would mean for kids. If the January 9th deadline doesn’t allow for a comprehensive review, he and co-chair Debra Moody, who also chairs a House education committee, plan to ask for more time.
“This is too big an ask to not be thorough,” he said.
If the committee finds ways for the state to feasibly wean itself from federal education money that Tennesseans help generate through their taxes, Lundberg expects legislation to come out of its work. But he acknowledged that state revenue collections have lagged in recent months, potentially making it harder to cut the cord.
“Revenues are a valid concern, but that’s not our charge at this point,” he said. “We just want to do a deep dive on where we stand.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson warned lawmakers in August that Tennessee likely will need to begin curbing state spending. But on Wednesday, he endorsed the panel’s task.
“I think it’s premature to say whether there will be budget constraints,” said the Hixson Republican. “Evaluating our programs and our funding is always a healthy exercise.”
Even if officials decide the state can afford to pass on federal funds, JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, questions whether it could effectively manage resources designed to support underserved communities and ensure equal access to education.
He cites the Achievement School District as one example of poor oversight for a state-run program intended to serve students attending low-performing schools. The turnaround district took over dozens of neighborhood schools beginning in 2012, mostly in Memphis, and turned many of them over to charter operators. But it has had few successes to show for its decade of work.
Lundberg said that example shouldn’t stop the state from investigating the possibility.
“Do I trust the state more than the federal government? Absolutely,” Lundberg said. “I think that government that operates closest to the people is the best government.”
Advocates for historically underserved student populations say federal oversight is needed to ensure that the state and local districts adequately provide for every student and school.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats pointed out that the federal government provided nearly $30 million last year to public schools in Cumberland County, which Sexton represents. That’s 44 percent of the East Tennessee district’s budget. Three school districts in Anderson County, where McNally lives, received $31 million in U.S. funds, which covered 32 percent of their budgets.
You can look up exactly how much federal education funding is on the line for every Tennessee county.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (left) and House Speaker Cameron Sexton (right) flank Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee at press conference on school safety on April 3, 2023. On Monday, the two legislative leaders announced the creation of a panel to study the feasibility of rejecting federal education funding. (Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)
When Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton floated the idea in February of the state rejecting U.S. education dollars to free schools from federal rules and regulations, most supporters of public education hoped it was nothing more than political posturing.
But on Monday, Sexton and his counterpart in the Senate, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, took the significant step of creating a legislative panel to conduct a comprehensive review of Sexton’s pitch.
The panel will look into the feasibility of doing without federal support for K-12 students and report back to legislative finance and education committees by January 9th. Currently, Tennessee receives up to $1.8 billion from the federal government for its schools, most of which supports low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities.
Federal funds typically make up about a tenth of a state’s K-12 budget.
No state has ever rejected federal funding for its students and schools. But Sexton has said that by rejecting the federal funds that Tennesseans help generate through their taxes, the state can eliminate the federal strings attached to those dollars, and make up the funding difference with state money.
McNally, in a statement Monday, cited the state’s “excellent financial position” while deeming Sexton’s proposal as “worthy subject of examination and study.”
Tennessee has been flush with cash in recent years, but its revenues have begun to flatten.
Last month, when the legislature approved $100 million in one-time funding during a special session on public safety, Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican who chairs his chamber’s finance committee, warned that Tennessee needs to tighten spending in the future. And last week, state Finance Commissioner Jim Bryson reported that state revenues for August — the first month of Tennessee’s fiscal year — were $39 million less than budget estimates.
Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, one of two Democrats named to the panel, said the trend should diminish any appetite to forgo federal cash.
“Most of us know how important federal funds are to our state budget, whether for our schools, roads, or health care,” Akbari told Chalkbeat. “My goal on this task force is to support the continued use of federal funding for K-12 education.”
“Besides,” she added, “Tennesseans pay federal taxes. Why should our tax dollars go to support schools in Georgia or California or New York, and not our own schools?”
Many Republicans, though, bristle at the federal oversight tied to receipt of federal education dollars.
Most notable are civil rights protections for students based on race, sex, and disability. Tennessee’s Republican-dominated government has challenged the spirit of those protections by passing laws in recent years to restrict classroom discussions and library books related to race, gender, and bias, as well as to prohibit transgender youth from playing girls sports and restrict which school bathrooms they can use.
“This working group will help provide a clearer picture of how much autonomy Tennessee truly has in educating our students,” Sexton said in a statement Monday.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Bill Lee said he looks forward to reviewing the panel’s findings. The governor “remains committed to working with the General Assembly to ensure all Tennessee students have access to a high-quality education, while pushing back on federal overreach,” said Elizabeth Johnson, Lee’s press secretary.
The speakers appointed the 10 members to the exploratory panel, five from each chamber:
• Sen. John Lundberg, R-Bristol (co-chair)
• Rep. Debra Moody, R-Covington (co-chair)
• Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis
• Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald
• Sen. Bill Powers, R-Clarksville
• Sen. Dawn White, R-Murfreesboro
• Rep. Ronnie Glynn, D-Clarksville
• Rep. Timothy Hill, R-Blountville
• Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge
• Rep. William Slater, R-Gallatin
In a September 22nd letter creating the joint working group, the speakers outlined four tasks:
• Identify the amount of federal funding the state, districts, and schools receive and the laws associated with accepting such funds
• Examine how the state, districts, and schools use or intend to use the funding, and whether there are conditions or requirements for accepting such funds
• Report on the feasibility of the state rejecting federal education funding
• Recommend a strategy on how to reject certain federal funding or how to eliminate unwanted restrictions placed on the state due to receiving the funding
Last month, the Sycamore Institute reported that Tennessee distributed $1.1 billion in federal funds to school districts across the state — or about 11 percent of total district revenues — in 2019-20. The nonpartisan think tank also calculated that each of Tennessee’s 142 school districts received between $314 and $2,500 per student in federal funds, accounting for 3 percent to 20 percent of each district’s total revenues.
The group’s report said school districts most reliant on federal dollars tend to be more rural, and have more low-income and disabled students, less capacity for local revenue, and lower test scores in English language arts.
Tennessee already ranks in the bottom fourth of states in spending per pupil, and eliminating a key funding source would have serious consequences, said Gini Pupo-Walker, executive director of The Education Trust in Tennessee.
“We would not only redirect Tennesseans’ federal tax dollars to other states in the country, but we would have to dip into our rainy day fund in order to maintain our current level of education funding, limiting our capacity to invest in our students in the future, particularly those most in need,” Pupo-Walker said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, which in February called Sexton’s proposal “political posturing,” said students need more — not fewer — resources to support academic recovery following the pandemic, as well as to address a crisis in youth mental health.
“Any elected leader in any state threatening to reject federal public education funds should have to answer to their local educators and parents in their community about the detrimental impact it would have on their community’s education system and their students’ futures,” the spokesperson said.
A statement from the Tennessee Disability Coalition said the group wants to work with the panel “as a resource in conveying the vital importance of federal education funding for students with disabilities.”
“As the past 50 years have shown us, these funds and associated regulations have dramatically improved outcomes for Tennessee students with disabilities and served to protect them from institutionalization, segregation, and marginalization,” the group said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a comment from the U.S. Department of Education.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
The Tennessee Education Association filed suit in Davidson County Chancery Court to challenge a new state law banning local school districts from automatically deducting association dues from teachers’ paychecks. The case has been dismissed. Credit: Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat
Tennessee’s largest teacher organization, which recently challenged two new state laws affecting educators, quietly dropped its lawsuit about payroll dues deduction, while its other lawsuit over classroom censorship moves ahead in federal court.
The Tennessee Education Association (TEA) asked a state court to dismiss its case challenging a 2023 law that prohibits local school districts from making payroll deductions for employees’ professional association dues.
A three-judge panel, which had let the payroll ban proceed while the case was being tried, granted TEA’s request for a dismissal last week.
The federal case is being spearheaded by the Free and Fair Litigation Group, a nonprofit firm created by two veteran prosecutors who led the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Donald Trump’s business dealings. The firm’s focus is on pursuing high-impact cases that bolster democracy.
“TEA’s challenge of the prohibited concepts law is unrelated to the payroll lawsuit. We believe we have a strong case and that federal court will rule in favor of Tennessee teachers,” TEA President Tanya Coats said Thursday.
TEA filed its first lawsuit after Gov. Bill Lee pushed through a new law linking the controversial ban on payroll dues collection to a popular provision aimed at raising teacher pay.
The lawsuit charged that Lee’s strategy violates the state constitution’s single-subject requirement for laws.
A new state court — with judges from Davidson, Fayette, and Hamilton counties — had temporarily blocked the law from taking effect on July 1st while attorneys for TEA and the state made their arguments in the case. But the panel lifted that order on July 28 after deciding the plaintiffs were unlikely to win based on the merits of their arguments. The judges said the bill’s caption of “being relative to wages” was broad enough to address payroll deductions too.
“TEA is still confident in the merits of our case and believes we would have ultimately received a favorable ruling,” Coats said in response. “But TEA decided not to pursue the lawsuit because it is unlikely that the court would rule on the case this school year.”
When the payroll ban passed the legislature in April, the teachers group began converting members to online dues payment. Most members have made the switch, according to Coats.
Whether the payroll changes will lead to a drop in TEA membership is uncertain.
The latest numbers from the National Education Association showed that Tennessee’s organization had 36,218 members in 2020-21, down 4 percent from the previous year.
But Coats, who is an educator from Knox County, suggested that TEA’s recent advocacy work for public school communities is having the opposite effect. If anything, she said, educator frustration with the new laws has “energized” support for the organization.
“TEA is signing up new members every day and converting the remaining members from payroll deduction,” she said. “The attempt from some state leaders to silence educators has only strengthened educators’ resolve to fight for their students and the profession they love.”
The state’s new dues law also affected Professional Educators of Tennessee, the state’s second largest teacher organization. That group mostly uses its own online system to collect dues, but also had payroll deductions set up with eight school districts.
JC Bowman, the group’s executive director, agreed with TEA that the legislature should have considered the matters of teacher pay and payroll deductions separately. But he worried that TEA’s legal challenge over the payroll issue could have put pay raises at risk.
“That part was concerning to us,” Bowman said Friday. “If that had happened, we would have interceded (in court) on behalf of our members.”
The law’s pay schedule sets Tennessee’s base salary for teachers at $42,000 for this school year; $44,500 for 2024-25; $47,000 for 2025-26; and $50,000 for 2026-27. A raise in the base pay also affects how more experienced teachers are paid.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Tennessee’s largest teacher organization has joined with five public school educators to legally challenge a two-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias in their classrooms.
Their lawsuit, which was filed late Tuesday in a federal court in Nashville by lawyers for the Tennessee Education Association, maintains the language in the 2021 law is unconstitutionally vague and that the state’s enforcement plan is subjective.
The complaint also charges that Tennessee’s so-called “prohibited concepts” law interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in the state’s academic standards. Those standards outline state-approved learning goals, which dictate other decisions around curriculum and testing.
The lawsuit is the first legal challenge to the controversial state law that was among the first of its kind in the nation. The law passed amid a conservative backlash to America’s reckoning over racism after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis and subsequent anti-racist protests.
Rep. John Ragan of Oak Ridge, one of the Republican sponsors of the legislation, argued the law was needed to protect K-12 students from being “indoctrinated” with social concepts that he and other lawmakers considered misguided and divisive, such as critical race theory. That academic framework, which surveys of teachers suggest are not being taught in K-12 schools, is more commonly found in higher education, to examine how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.
Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature overwhelmingly passed the legislation in the final days of the 2021 session, just days after the bill’s introduction. Gov. Bill Lee quickly signed it into law, and later that year, the state education department set rules for enforcement. If found in violation, teachers can be stripped of their licenses and school districts can lose state funding.
Only a small number of complaints have been filed and no penalties levied during the law’s first two years on the books. But Ragan has introduced new legislation that would widen eligibility for who can file a complaint.
The lawsuit seeks to overturn the law and asks for a court order against its enforcement. The complaint claims the statute fails to give Tennessee educators a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct and teachings are prohibited.
“Teachers are in this gray area where we don’t know what we can and can’t do or say in our classrooms,” said Kathryn Vaughn, a veteran teacher in Tipton County, near Memphis, and one of five educators who are plaintiffs in the case.
“The rollout of the law — from guidance to training — has been almost nonexistent,” Vaughn added. “That’s put educators in an impossible position.”
The lawsuit also charges the law encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement and violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids any state from “depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
“Laws need to be clear,” said Tanya Coats, president of the teachers group known as TEA, which is leading the litigation.
She said educators have spent “countless hours” trying to understand the law and the 14 concepts banned from the classroom — including that the United States is “fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist;” or that an individual, by virtue of their race or sex, “bears responsibility” for past actions committed by other members of the same race or sex.
TEA says the ambiguity of those concepts has had a chilling effect in schools — from how teachers answer a student’s question to what materials they can read in class. To avoid the risk of time-consuming complaints and potential penalties from the state, school leaders have made changes to instruction and school activities. But ultimately, it’s students who suffer, Coats said.
“This law interferes with Tennessee teachers’ job to provide a fact-based, well-rounded education to their students,” Coats said in a news release.
The 52-page lawsuit gives specific examples of how the ban is affecting what nearly a million public school students are learning — and not learning — daily across Tennessee.
“In Tipton County, for example, one school has replaced an annual field trip to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis with a trip to a baseball game,” the suit says. “In Shelby County, a choir director fears that his decades-long practice of teaching his students to sing and understand the history behind spirituals sung by enslaved people will be perceived as ‘divisive’ or otherwise violative of the Ban.” Other districts have removed books from their curriculum as a result of the law.
The governor’s office typically does not comment on pending litigation, but Lee’s press secretary, Jade Byers, provided this statement on Wednesday in response to the lawsuit: “The governor signed the legislation because every parent deserves transparency into their child’s education, and Tennessee students should be taught history and civics with facts, not divisive political commentary.”
Tennessee was among the first states to pass a law limiting the depth of classroom discussions about inequality and concepts such as white privilege.
In March, Tennessee’s education department reported that few complaints had been filed with local school districts based on the law. And the department had received only a few appeals of local decisions.
One was from the parent of a student enrolled in a private school in Davidson County. Because the law does not apply to private schools, the department found that the parent did not have standing to file an appeal under the law.
Another complaint was filed by a Blount County parent over the book “Dragonwings,” a novel told from the perspective of a Chinese immigrant boy in the early 20th century. The state denied the appeal based on the results of its investigation.
However, Blount County Schools still removed the book from its sixth grade curriculum. And the lawsuit described the emotional toll of the proceedings on a 45-year teaching veteran who was “entangled in months of administrative proceedings, with her job on the line, because of a single parent’s complaint about an award-winning work of young adult literature that the Tennessee Department of Education approved and the local elected school board adopted as part of the district’s curriculum.”
The department also declined to investigate a complaint from Williamson County, south of Nashville, filed soon after the law was enacted. Robin Steenman, chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, alleged the literacy curriculum “Wit and Wisdom,” used by Williamson County Schools in 2020-21, has a “heavily biased agenda” that makes children “hate their country, each other and/or themselves.”
A spokesman said the department was only authorized to investigate claims beginning with the 2021-22 school year and encouraged Steenman to work with Williamson County Schools to resolve her concerns.
Department officials did not immediately respond Wednesday when asked whether the state has received more appeals in recent months.
Meanwhile, critics of the law worry about new legislative efforts to broaden its application.
Under the state’s current rules, only students, parents, or employees within a district or charter school can file complaints involving their school. Ragan’s bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald, would allow any resident within a public school zone to file a complaint.
But critics argue such a change would open the door to conservative groups, like Moms for Liberty, to flood their local school boards with complaints about instruction, books, or materials they believe violate the law, even if they do not have direct contact with the teacher or school in question.
The prohibited concepts law is separate from 2022 Tennessee law that, based on appeals of local school board decisions, empowers a state panel to ban school library books statewide if deemed “inappropriate for the age or maturity levels” of students.
Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds takes her oath of office as Tennessee’s new education commissioner, effective July 1, from Gov. Bill Lee. Beside her are her husband, David, and son Luke. Courtesy of the State of Tennessee
Three weeks into her job as Tennessee’s education chief, Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds says her charge from Gov. Bill Lee is to implement existing major policy changes — from how reading is taught to the continued rollout of private school vouchers — not to craft new initiatives.
She feels prepared for that role, having overseen state-level education policy work in Texas for nearly a decade, including six years as its No. 2 administrator. She also has years of policy and political experience at the federal level, and most recently led policy work for the advocacy group ExcelinEd, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“Implementation is kind of my sweet spot,” Reynolds said. “When I was chief deputy commissioner in Texas, that’s what I did.”
Since her official start on July 1, Reynolds’ schedule has been packed with meetings with staff, lawmakers, government officials, and education stakeholders.
Among the latter is JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee, who described Reynolds as “straightforward and direct.”
“She made it clear that she is here to serve students and educators in Tennessee. … I think she will do well here if she will stay above the political fray,” said Bowman, who was a frequent critic of Reynolds’ predecessor, Penny Schwinn.
This week, the new commissioner travels to Memphis, home to the state’s largest school district, for introductions with local officials and community leaders.
Last week, in her first media interview since Lee announced her hiring in May, Reynolds sat down with Chalkbeat to talk about her background, priorities, and leadership style. Since she’s on a learning curve in a new state, questions about policy specifics were off the table.
But she was open about her own K-12 experiences as a public school kid growing up in Harlingen, Texas, a heavily Hispanic community in the Rio Grande Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border.
She described how, as a Hispanic American and a female, she experienced discrimination. As a first-generation college graduate and the oldest of four children of working-class parents, she benefited from scholarships and financial aid. And, as a parent of three children, one of whom was diagnosed with a disability in elementary school, she tapped both public and private schools to find the best fit for her family.
Reynolds said she jumped at the chance to join the administration of Lee, a Republican businessman who pushed for sweeping changes to education in his first term and was easily reelected last year.
“Tennessee has always been the bellwether state of doing things that challenge the adults in the system to continue to do better,” she said. “I want to be part of that story.”
Below are highlights of Chalkbeat’s interview, which has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Getting to know you on a personal level, describe your own education experience. Did you go to public schools? Private schools? How did they shape you?
My only early experience in a private school was attending a Catholic school in pre-K. From kindergarten through 12th grade, I went to public schools in Harlingen.
From an early age, my mom drilled into me that “you got to go to college.” So I was always in a competition to be at the top of my class. I was going to be an astronaut, by God!
I loved math but, when I took trigonometry in high school and it wasn’t connecting, my teacher was like, “You know, you’re a girl. You really don’t need to be doing this. You probably should just drop my class.” So I did.
I was shy and I couldn’t wait to get out of Harlingen. I was blessed with a great school counselor. When I told her I wanted to go to college, she said, “OK, here’s what you need to do.”
I got a merit scholarship to attend Southwestern University, where people in the financial aid office became my best friends and I was able to cover tuition increases through a combination of work-study and Pell grants. By then, I wanted to become an accountant. But after taking a political science class with a truly dynamic professor, I changed my mind. I wanted to save the world.
Your selection was announced by the governor’s office on the same day that Schwinn’s impending departure was announced. How did you come to this job?
A lot of the work I did for the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd) was not only to advocate for its policy agenda but to work across the country with other advocates and supporters and philanthropy. I was on the proverbial “list” of people across the country who might be interested in being a state-level deputy or chief. And I’ve paid my dues. I had thought maybe I might lead the Texas Education Agency someday. But I wasn’t actively looking. I’d been at ExcelinEd almost seven years and loved my job.
This spring, the governor’s office here called and wanted to talk about Tennessee’s chief position and I said, ‘Of course I’ll talk.’ What a great opportunity to meet Gov. Lee, who had a great relationship with Gov. Bush. (During the week of April 11) I came to Nashville and met with (Chief Operating Officer) Brandon Gibson and then interviewed with the governor the next day.
When I walked into his office, everybody was so awesome. Gov. Lee looked at me and said, “Why do you want to be commissioner of education in Tennessee?” I basically said, “Who wouldn’t want to be commissioner here?” Tennessee has always been the bellwether state of doing things that challenge the adults in the system to continue to do better. It’s still strong in accountability and assessment. There’s great work passed in this administration and previous administrations. And then, just the fact that the governor really cares about education, that it’s a priority.
Tennessee is just a good place to be. I want to be part of that story and the continued success of this state with kids. At this agency, we don’t touch kids every day, but we help influence what happens in the classroom because of the supports and resources that we provide.
When I walked out of the governor’s office, I said to myself, ‘I want to work for that man and I’m going to be really disappointed if I don’t get the offer.’
About a week and a half later, I got the offer.
What did you and Gov. Lee talk about in your interview? Why do you think he picked you?
Bottom line, this job was going to be about implementation and execution of the agenda passed through the legislature and through his leadership and (Penny Schwinn’s) leadership at the agency. A lot has already been done. Now the hard work is the implementation piece and that is kind of my sweet spot.
When I was chief deputy commissioner in Texas, that’s what I did: Making sure resources are there, thinking about the right resources, bringing folks in to support those implementation efforts — all the pieces of the puzzle that need to come together to ensure that kids and educators get what they need to be successful.
But sometimes implementation also requires you to say no to some things or to certain vendors.
Because of your policy work with ExcelinEd, with its focus on school choice and privatization, many stakeholders think your selection suggests that voucher expansion and advancing choice programs are Job One for you under this administration. How would you respond?
First of all, it’s not about privatization. Our No. 1 priority at ExcelinEd was to improve the system because we know that about 90 percent of our kids are in a public school system. Second priority is the options outside the system, which includes ESAs (education savings accounts, a kind of private school voucher), charter schools, open enrollment, public school choice, letting parents go where they want to go in the public school system. Third priority is reimagining the system, so really thinking about what other ways we can develop these comprehensive high schools. That’s how we think at ExcelinEd, and that’s why I think I was a good candidate for this job.
Yes, ESAs are part of the package, but it’s not the only package. There is no silver bullet when it comes to education. ESAs are great, but they’re not for everybody. It all depends on the parents and the families and what they want to do and what options they want to pursue.
It wasn’t that long ago that a Tennessee governor wouldn’t think of choosing an education commissioner who didn’t have teaching experience. But you don’t, nor do you have a teaching license. How will you have “street cred” with educators here, given that your background is primarily in policy and politics?
As a parent of public school kids, I’m as close to the classroom as you’re going to get because I’m a consumer of the public school system. To say that my experience is irrelevant, I don’t think it’s very fair. But in that vein, I also want to listen and learn. Earlier today, for instance, I met with folks at the Tennessee Education Association (the state’s largest teacher group).
I’ve got to come at it with empathy and support. Have I done their job every day? No, I haven’t. But we’re all in this together. I’m going to listen. I’m going to engage and implement in a way that is fair and where the decision-making is transparent.
The department has had a number of significant departures in recent months, including Chief Academic Officer Lisa Coons and Deputy Commissioner Eve Carney, who was a veteran manager responsible for many of the state’s biggest education programs and initiatives. How are you building out your cabinet and filling out gaps in leadership? Will you look inside or outside of the state?
I’m looking for the best qualified folks, but my preference is to find people in Tennessee. We just hired Kristy Brown from Jackson as our chief academic officer. We need to fill the role of chief program officer, and I’d love to find a Tennessean for that. I don’t feel the need to look outside of the state because I think there’s a lot of qualified people here. Tennessee is where reform really percolated and expanded and continues to live.
Have you and your family officially moved from Texas to Tennessee, or do you plan to?
I’m here and I’m moving soon into a place in East Nashville. My husband is staying in Austin with our youngest son, who’s a rising junior, until he finishes high school. Our son wants to look at colleges here, so I’m super excited.
I don’t know if I’ll go back to Austin to live. We’ll see.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Humes Middle School is one of five charter schools in the Achievement School District seeking to return to Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Credit: Caroline Bauman
Several of Memphis’ lowest performing schools face an uncertain future — and possible closure — as their charter agreements with Tennessee’s turnaround district near expiration.
Five of them, including MLK College Prep High School, are seeking approval to return to Memphis-Shelby County Schools as charter schools after a decade in the state-run Achievement School District. But MSCS officials have recommended denying their charter applications, along with bids from four proposed new charter schools.
If the MSCS board votes to accept the district’s recommendations and deny the charters when it meets Tuesday, it would leave some 2,000 students with high academic needs in limbo, unsure of where they’ll attend classes in the 2024-25 school year.
Another web of decisions would determine what happens next to those students, and to the schools. So far, neither the district nor the board has articulated a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the fallout of the ASD’s collapse.
“We should have talked about this two years ago, since we all knew it was coming,” said Bobby White, head of the charter company that runs MLK College Prep.
MSCS officials have said they talk to operators and tailor individual decisions because “each school in the ASD is unique.”
The board could defy the district recommendations and approve the charters, as it has done before. But the district argues that it’s not in its interest to bring poorly performing charter schools back into the district. This year, all five applicants bear the same low-performing “priority” designation that primed them for state takeover a decade ago.
“We want high quality seats for our students,” said Brittany Monda, MSCS’ assistant superintendent of charter schools.
When the state assigned its lowest-performing public schools — most of them in Memphis — to the Achievement School District, the idea was that charter operators would take them over, turn them around, and eventually return the schools to the home districts in better shape.
But the plan didn’t work. Many of the schools languished or continued to perform poorly under the charter operators. That means that despite 10 years of state oversight, most do not meet state and local performance standards used by local officials to evaluate charter applications.
Data presented by MSCS indicates that despite some gains over the years, each of the five schools has fewer than 12 percent of students on track in reading and math.
State law allows Tennessee school boards to close charter schools in their own portfolios that have priority designations, and that could happen in Memphis if the MSCS board accepts the ASD schools and they don’t make significant academic gains. Memphis policy favors new charter schools that would give other options to students who go to a low-performing school.
It’s no surprise that MSCS is wary of assuming responsibility for more schools. District leaders have been trying over the past decade to align school capacity with shifts in enrollment, and to figure out how to improve the condition of decaying school buildings. Facility plans have been continually revised in recent years, but have never been fully executed.
Consolidating schools that are operating under capacity would offer better learning environments for students, officials say, and cut down on a costly list of building repair projects.
Interim Superintendent Toni Williams is poised to deliver a new facilities plan next month. The ASD charter schools — operating in buildings MSCS still owns — could be part of this plan.
White, the leader of MLK College Prep’s charter operator, Frayser Community Schools, has said that if the MSCS board approves the charter school, he would end the charter agreement early, when it’s time for students at MLK College Prep to move into the new building.
But if the school isn’t approved as a charter, the district will have to choose between operating it or letting it close. If it closes, students currently zoned to MLK College Prep would have to be reassigned to Trezevant or other schools until a new high school is built.
Stephanie Love, a school board member and longtime advocate for students in the ASD, peppered district officials with questions about school closures and consolidations during a committee meeting last week.
She pointed out that the district makes decisions to close and consolidate traditional schools based on academic performance, enrollment, and school building needs — criteria similar to the ones it uses to evaluate charter schools.
Many ASD schools have closed already without any MSCS school board vote.
If the five ASD schools seeking charter approvals eventually return to the district as traditional schools, they could become part of MSCS’ own turnaround model, called the Innovation Zone, or iZone. The model takes advantage of centralized resources and pays teachers more for working a longer day.
A handful of former ASD schools joined the iZone last year, as traditional MSCS schools, and another will join this school year. Monda, the charter office leader, said the returned schools have shown “promising results,” but did provide any data. (Charter schools cannot be part of the iZone.)
Tuesday’s board vote on the five ASD schools — and the four new applicants — won’t be the end of the story for any of them.
White, the ASD charter operator, said that if the board turns down his applications, he doesn’t plan to appeal. He said he wants to support the district’s plan for Memphis students. But he said there should have been a more comprehensive plan for the schools serving the Memphis and Tennessee students who have struggled the most academically.
“Our contracts say our time is up after the 10th year,” he said. “And I’m hoping that we have an opportunity after this round … to really dig in on what’s going to happen to … all the other schools coming back in the years to follow.”
Another set of ASD schools serving about 2,000 more students have charters set to expire in coming school years.
Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
