The Tennessee General Assembly is advancing a bill that would allow Gov. Bill Lee to keep some schools in the failed Achievement School District by moving their management to Lee’s Super Charter Commission.
Chalkbeat has more:
When Tennessee started taking over low-performing schools and matching most with charter operators in 2012, the plan was to return the schools to their home districts when they improved in an estimated five years.
Now Gov. Bill Lee is proposing other options for schools that have remained in the state’s turnaround program for nearly 10 years — most notably to let some of the higher-performing ones move from one state-run district to another.
Under legislation introduced this week, Lee proposed letting some charter schools bypass their original district when leaving Tennessee’s Achievement School District, also known as the ASD. Instead, they could apply to move directly to the state’s new charter school commission, which the governor helped to create.
Unfortunately, this expansion of privatization was predicted:
Remember when education advocates warned that Lee’s charter commission would grow, expand, and take over more schools and we were told that we were just being silly? Well, here’s how that seems to be turning out:
If the ASD bill passes, the commission’s role will expand, and its portfolio of charter schools is likely to grow. (The entity currently oversees three schools in Nashville and one in Memphis.) For now, the commission’s authority is limited as an appellate authorizer of charter organizations deemed to be high quality but rejected by local school boards.
Virtually Shut Down
While many school systems offered some form of virtual instruction during the last year due to the pandemic, that option will not be available going forward thanks to a new rule adopted by the State Board of Education.
The Tennessean reports:
Tennessee schools will not be able to teach students both in-person and remotely next school year under a new rule approved by the State Board of Education earlier this month.
Students who want to keep learning remotely or virtually from home will have to enroll in virtual schools instead of enrolling in their zoned school or school of choice.
Though all Tennessee school districts were offering in-person instruction by March, nearly 1 in 4 students started the school year learning remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This could open the door for private operators of virtual schools to fill the void for districts no longer able to offer this option.
No Vaccine For You!
Peter Greene reports on a Florida private school (voucher eligible, of course) that is threatening to terminate employees who receive the COVID-19 vaccine:
Centner Academy (Miami's premiere private school for the leaders of tomorrow) has informed parents by letter that the staff and teachers are not to get vaccinated for Covid-19.
The letter indicates that "we ask any employee who has not yet taken the experimental COVID-19 injection, to wait until the end of the school year." That sounds almost mild, until a few sentences later we arrive at "It is our policy, to the extent possible, not to employ anyone who has taken the experimental COVID-19 injection until further information is known."
You will have recognized the anti-covid-vax talking point that the vaccines are experimental. The school throws in some additional debunked talking points about the vaccine.
For example, tens of thousands of women all over the world have been reporting adverse reproductive issues from being in close proximity with those who have received one of COVID-19 injections e.g., irregular menses, bleeding, miscarriages, post menopausal hemorrhaging, and amenorrhea.
Well, no. That is not a thing that's been happening. But staff that are vaccinated will have to stay away from the students.
Privatizers Pay for Education News
In Tennessee, school privatization advocates are among the top funders of the education beat at Nashville Public Radio:
Nashville Public Radio thanks the Thorne Family Charitable Fund, the Scarlett Foundation, the HCA Healthcare Foundation, the Joe C. Davis Foundation and the Andrew Allen Foundation for their generous support of our education beat.
It’s great that the education beat has some solid financial support. What’s noteworthy, though, is that two of the five sponsors of education news are also hard core privatization advocates.