Public Schools Win Big in Nashville School Board Races

Hoping to gain control of local school policy, the charter school industry, Stand for Children, and private donors pumped over a million dollars into school board races in Nashville this summer.  But all the robo calls, attack ad mailers, paid canvassers, and local media could not alter citizens' commitment to improving their public schools, rather than turning them over for charter conversion.

Will Pinkston, Jill Speering, Amy Frogge, and Christine Bugg all won their races against charter school advocates.  Congratulations to supporters of public schools.  And goodbye for now to the privateers, charter zealots, and corporate ed reformers.  No doubt they will be back--there is too much money to be made if the charter industry can stack the deck in favor of privatization. 

School Board Member Lays Out Cost of Charter Expansion

Recently the school board of Metro Nashville rejected three new charter applications.  Will Pinkston was one of those thoughtful and responsible school board members who voted with his constituents' interests in mind, rather than with the segregating ideologies of corporate education reform schoolers.

Here is Pinkston's recent op-ed in the Tennessean, which lays out his rationale for supporting public school children over corporate interests:

Recently, outgoing Mayor Karl Dean penned an op-ed in the Tennessean applauding the successes of a student and a charter school, KIPP Nashville.

I share his enthusiasm in congratulating the family and the school.

Now, let's discuss the 76,000 students and 5,500 teachers in Metro Nashville Public School Students (MNPS) who aren't in charter schools, but also deserve our support. MNPS is ranked 54th out of 67 urban school systems in America in per-pupil funding.

Due in part to inadequate state funding, we trail school systems in Atlanta, Charlotte and Louisville, among others.

Meanwhile, multiple studies — including an independent audit commissioned by the mayor and Metro Council — found that the unchecked proliferation of publicly funded, privately run charter schools is having a negative fiscal impact on existing schools at a time when the school system is turning around academically.

The MNPS charter pipeline — the number of charter seats not yet created but scheduled to come into existence under previously approved applications — now stands at 8,157 seats. That doesn't include the 8,112 seats that already exist in Nashville's 27 charter schools.

Put differently: The city's charter sector will double over the next few years, even if the Nashville School Board takes no further action.

And as state and local funding is redirected from MNPS to charters, our under-resourced existing schools will be further strained. Based in part on this negative fiscal impact, and the glut of yet-to-be-filled seats in the pipeline, the school board in August voted to slow down charter growth by denying two new applications from charter operator KIPP.

The operator now is threatening to appeal the decision to the State Board of Education to try to force the schools into existence.

The school board took a fiscally conservative position. With 8,157 seats currently in the charter pipeline — including more than 1,000 yet-to-be-filed seats belonging to KIPP — that's a total future annual cash outlay of $77.5 million.

What KIPP wants to do — expand the pipeline to more than 9,000 seats — would take our future annual cash outlays up to $85.5 million. None of this includes the $73 million in annual cash outlays for charter seats that already exist.

Even if the school board takes no further action, the annual cost of charter schools soon will exceed the combined price tag of the new Nashville Sounds baseball stadium and the new downtown riverfront amphitheater.

The only difference is the stadium and amphitheater are, for the most part, one-time capital expenses. When it comes to these thousands upon thousands of yet-to-be-filled charter seats, the ever-expanding bill will come due every year.

Any reasonable person must conclude that charter growth in Nashville is out of control. Moody's Investors Service, which rates the health of municipal finances, warned that charter schools pose "growing risks" for urban school systems.

Public opinion surveys show Nashville taxpayers are OK with having some charters. But they believe unchecked growth has gone too far and threatens to undermine improvement elsewhere in the school system. And they're right.

Family demand should be a bigger factor in these discussions. Most charters actually have minimal waiting lists. Meanwhile, our pre-kindergarten programs, magnet schools, Montessori schools and other schools and programs have thousands of kids stuck on waiting lists.

If we keep diverting large amounts of new revenue to charters, MNPS will never be able to work down those long waiting lists. And if we continue unchecked charter growth, we're not just undermining existing schools and programs due to the negative fiscal impact — we're denying student demand where it actually exists.

When it comes to students on pre-K waiting lists, students who need early grade reading intervention, English learners who need structured interventions: Charter advocates want us to tell them, "Get in line behind KIPP. You'll get yours, but only after KIPP gets theirs."

Personally, I don't think that's fair. Nashville's students and families deserve a balanced approach to expanding educational opportunities.

Will Pinkston represents South Nashville on the Metro Board of Public Education.

Offering Real Choices or Just Segregated Charter Schools: Let's Look at the Wait Lists

Nashville is one of two cities in Tennessee that is on the billionaires' hit list for school privatization.
 
Here are the corporate foundation whales that are funding efforts to put "harbormasters" in every city on the hit list to promote segregated No Excuses corporate welfare schools as the billionaires' choice for parents in poor neighborhoods.

A corporate outfit called Education Cities is fronting the resources of the Big Four of corporate welfare education reform (Gates, Broad, Walton, and Dell), and they are all engaged in a last ditch struggle to impose the corporate segregation model of reform schools in urban areas across the US.

In Nashville, an informed school board and groups of savvy parents are standing up to the all-out frontal assault and backroom dealings by privatization advocates and their political stooges and hedge fund operators. 

The privatizers have their own mayoral candidate, incumbent governor, a state legislature owned by ALEC, and at least one US senator, Lamar Alexander, who was in town last week to promote the only choice of the corporate choosers--charter chain gang schools.

The corporate education reformers' argument to support their assault on public education is based on providing "choice" to parents in high-poverty, low-scoring schools.  The only choice they offer, however, is the No Excuses lockdown corporate model that most parents reject outright, in favor of a chance to enroll their children in public schools where social capital is high and resources are plentiful.

How do we know that parents prefer magnet schools and other well-resourced and diverse public schools?  Below is the list of Nashville charters, and below that list are the actual numbers on the 2015-16 Wait List for pre-school through grade 12 for all Metro schools, including the charters.  

The Wait List is arranged by Elementary, Middle, and High schools. Notice, for instance, differences in the numbers on charter wait lists as compared to the magnet schools in Nashville, which are designed to attract an economic and racial cross-section, rather than the kind of intense segregated situations we find in the only-choice No Excuses charters.

For just one example, KIPP High School has 21 on its wait list, while M. L. King Magnet HS has 336.  

Tell me which schools Nashville citizens would choose if they had real choices?  What would they prefer, more magnet schools or the one-size fits nobody single false choice of the charter hell schools.

Nashville Says No to More KIPPs

On Tuesday the Nashville Metro School Board voted to deny two new KIPP corporate reform schools in Nashville.  

Some school board members noted the type of punishing pedagogy that KIPP imposes, which no middle class parent would ever allow, and others noted the financial drain on the public system that pays almost $10,000 per student per year to KIPP, Inc.

This courageous act represents a turning point in the proliferation of the abusive segregated miseducation that goes on in the No Excuses charter reform schools.  

Thank you, Metro school board, for leading the way.

Story from the Tennessean:

The Metro school board denied KIPP Nashville further operations in the district after a split vote Tuesday.

Both schools up for consideration were rejected during a called special meeting in a 5-4 vote. Board members Tyese Hunter, Sharon Gentry, Mary Pierce and Elissa Kim dissented.

The consideration of the two applications was part of a continuation of a debate that caused a standstill among board members last week. Gentry, the board chairwoman, was absent from the Aug. 11 meeting.

Both KIPP Nashville schools were recommended for approval by the district's charter review committees after a second submission process. The committee that recommended the charter the second time came under fire by board member Will Pinkston.

Board member Jo Ann Brannon, however, defended the process this week but voted against the two recommendations, serving as the swing vote that denied the two schools. She said the board needs to come up with a plan for charters in the district before approving additional operators.

That could prove easier now that a major point of contention has been solved by Interim Director of Schools Chris Henson. During the meeting, Henson, who also is the district's finance officer, provided a breakdown of the fiscal impact of the two charter schools on the district.

According to the fiscal analysis, the two schools won't create a negative balance for the district's operating budget, but are an investment.

While board members Jill Speering and Amy Frogge voted against the schools based on perceived practices of the schools, Pinkston said it was the fiscal impact he was most worried about. He added there are open seats KIPP Nashville still has to fill at its existing schools. . .

Nashville School Board Votes 5-3 Against Approving More KIPPs

Please encourage Metro School Board members to support public education and to deny more corporate welfare schools.  Further Board action to deny is needed before August 21!

My comments at the Tennessean today to the article announcing the vote.

Approving more corporate welfare charter schools in Nashville is a losing proposition from many angles. First, there is the financial burden created for the remaining public schools each time a student takes thousands of dollars in state funding with her or him to enter one of the total compliance charters that no middle class parent would ever allow her own children to attend.

Which brings up the second reason charters are a losing propositions. The No Excuses charters are dehumanizing environments where children are treated more like prisoners than pupils, and where short-term teachers (average tenure is 2 years) are pressured to treat children in ways they often come to regret. These corporate franchises provide lockdown learning environments where children and teachers, alike, are expected to perform like robots, rather than growing persons who deserve a diverse curriculum and diverse interactions.

Which brings us to the third reason charters are a losing proposition. Most of the these corporate chain gang schools are entirely segregated, which presents a huge political problem for those who endorse public expenditure for schools that are MORE segregated than the public schools they are intended to replace. This fact has been documented by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. When running for political office, who wants to campaign on the notion of supporting schools that are more segregated?

Fourthly, there is the discrimination against English language learners, special needs children, and low test scorers in these charters. Again, research has shown that No Excuses schools like KIPP have fewer of the low-performing or high problem students that can drag down test scores and damage the brand name.

In the end, these charter companies represent a "broken window" ideology aimed to subdue the disadvantaged, and in doing so they create corporate opportunities to amass great wealth with public money. That is why hedge funds are so deeply involved in nurturing their growth.

Jim Horn, PhD
Nashville, TN 37205

Will Nashville School Board Put More Poor Children on the Charter Chain Gang?

A compelling question is coming in early December for the members of the Metro Nashville School Board:  Will you assert the ethical responsibility that you are charged with by your positions as custodians of children's educational welfare, or will you double down on supporting a morally bankrupt school caste system, whereby children of the poor are separated and confined in total compliance corporate testing camps that no parent on the school board would ever allow for their own children?

Will you read this book and see how well-positioned you are for making the new Nashville another Wake County, NC?  Review here.  I think you have a group of citizens who are willing to try.

East Nashville United to Jesse Register: Start Over!

from Andy Spears at TN Education Report:

In response to MNPS Director of Schools Jesse Register’s proposal to redesign schools in East Nashville into an “All-Choice” zone with more charters and schools turned over to the struggling Achievement School District, a group of parents in East Nashville calling itself East Nashville United is now asking for a review of a consultant’s report on Metro Schools.

ENU has previously called on Register to start over with any plan for East Nashville schools and more recently has asked for more time in order to allow for broader community input before a plan goes into place.

Register’s announcement of changes in East Nashville comes amid a report detailing the increased costs charter schools impose on MNPS and reports out of Memphis that rather than turn more schools in that district’s Innovation Zone, the Director of Schools there is seeking to “double down” on what’s working: District management of schools with increased investment, support, and flexibility. . . .

New Group Forms PAC to Fight Charter Takeover in Nashville

From the Tennessean:

Parents in East Nashville are moving quickly to fight Director of Schools Jesse Register’s far-reaching plan to close low-performing schools, hand others to charter operators and let families in that area choose where their children will attend.

Their request: Start over.

Since Register unveiled his intentions last week, parents and other East Nashville residents have organized a political action committee, East Nashville United, which they say has mobilized parents and teachers at all schools in the Maplewood and Stratford high school clusters.

“We ask that Dr. Register tear up his plan and start from scratch,” said Christine Pulle, a parent in Inglewood and spokesperson for the group. She said a “campaign” is required for that to happen.

“What we demand is a community-driven plan created by listening and responding to the needs of our diverse schools and neighborhoods.”

East Nashville United, which announced its PAC formation on Monday, arrived via social media last week. Organizers hope to meet with Register as well as Mayor Karl Dean, a charter school backer, who in a column in The Tennessean on Sunday called the plan “courageous and highly promising.”

Here is the website for East Nashville United:

http://eastnashvilleunited.org/#1

What's It Worth to Jesse Register to Corporatize Nashville's Public Schools?

In June a corporate reform school outfit called STRIVE, which is headed by a former TFA cult member, had its application rejected unanimously by Metro's school board.  With the help of CorpEd crony superintendent, Jesse Register, that all changed last week.  From Joey Garrison at the Tennessean:

. . . .STRIVE, a middle school, is cleared to open next fall, joining five other new charters already approved.

Board members Elissa Kim, Michael Hayes, Jo Ann Brannon, Anna Shepherd and Chairwoman Cheryl Mayes voted for the school. Pinkston, Amy Frogge and Jill Speering voted against it.

Pinkston attacked Register’s leadership on the issue. He read a litany of concerns the administration cited with STRIVE’s application before its original rejection in June, shortcomings school officials said STRIVE has since addressed.

Pinkston also noted that last fall Register and Alan Coverstone, who oversees charters for Metro Nashville Public Schools, helped draft the very set of charter priorities that STRIVE — which he called a “recalcitrant operator” — ignored. He wondered aloud what had changed between then and today:

“I suspect what it was. But I’m not going to cast aspersions today. I’ll wait for another day.”

Frogge and Speering questioned the precedent of setting aside priorities the board had passed via resolution. Frogge went further, contending that by “disregarding” them, the administration had disrespected the board.

“I’ll just add on a personal note, really, this entire process has felt very dishonest to me,” Frogge said. “I’ve lost trust in our administrators.” . . . .

Nashville Limits Charters As Memphis Doubles Down

Nashville Metro has acknowledged the impending $23 million shortfall in next year's budget is due to the drain from corporate charter schools.  As a result, the school board has decided to cut its losses by restricting the spread of these segregated zero-tolerance chain gangs.  With the TN Department of Education staffed by TFA cultists and losers from the Gates Foundation, there is plenty of gnashing in Nashville this winter as bogus charter reports are generated to show that life cannot continue without the total compliance punishment boutiques.

We have to wonder when Memphis and Shelby County will notice the missing $212 million that the new apartheid corporate reform schools are collecting to contain and culturally sterilize the poorest children of Memphis who have no other choices.  

Stop Corporate Takeover of Local School Decision Making in TN

From a new grassroots groups in Nashville focused to stop corporate power grab in Nashville and Memphis schools:

Power grab on the Hill! CALL TO ACTION!!

Today we are seeing an outrageous power grab play out in the Tennessee legislature.  Legislation creating a process to circumvent the local school boards of Davidson and Shelby counties that allows charter school applicants to go directly to the state for charter approval was filed yesterday (Feb. 11) and is on the agenda for the House education subcommittee today.  This last minute addition of language creating a direct state level path to charter authorization is an obvious attempt to rush this legislation through the committee before the public has any opportunity to review or speak out about this bill.  Tennessee parents and taxpayers are being shut out of decisions affecting our schools and our children.  Tennesseans know that once this can of worms is opened and public input is silenced, by limiting the authority of locally elected officials in Nashville and Memphis, those advocating this power grab will push to expand it until more and more Tennessee counties find local control of the decision to open schools has vanished.  No county will be immune.

If you can, please attend the House Education Subcommittee meeting today at 3 pm in Legislative Plaza room 30.  It would be helpful to have folks there to show that we do NOT want such a huge policy decision pushed through without public input.  Also, whether you can attend today or not, please email all the members of House education subcommittee and telling them you do NOT want to see locally elected officials sidelined in favor of charter school decisions made by unelected, unaccountable persons outside your community.  Here are their email addresses, for an easy cut and paste:

Rep.Harry.Brooks@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.John.DeBerry@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.Joe.Pitts@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.Harold.Love@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.John.Forgety@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.Roger.Kane@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.Debra.Moody@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.Dawn.White@capitol.tn.gov,

Rep.Mark.White@capitol.tn.gov

Kevin Huffman Huffs and Puffs: Nashville School Board Stands Strong

Tennessee has been at the forefront of backwards thinking on education for the past 20 years, and it now has a governor and General Assembly that promises to push the state deeper into the past if possible. 

Bill Haslam, the quiet oil executive billionaire who serves as governor, continues a tradition begun during the Alexander Administration for using education as the whipping boy when the Business Roundtable gets riled up or when a public display of its raw power is required to bring things back along the the lines approved by the social antiquarians who run things politically in the State.

Today we saw such exercise of raw power by Haslam's dweeby Education Commissioner, Kevin Huffman, the former Mr. Michelle Rhee, who is also a former TFA lawyer. Haslam, standing behind some polished oak door somewhere at the Governor's quarters, handed out an order for Huffman to take back $3.4 million in education funds from Nashville Metro, whose school board had the audacity to question the creation of another segregated charter school in Nashville.  The Board, it seems, voted in the majority of deny the application of the Great Hearts Charter School. 

 The decision was ostensibly based on poor performance by the company seeking to run the school, a "cosmetic" transportation plan, and a projected low number of special ed and ELL students.   It must be noted, however, that such concerns have not stopped the Board from approving the same kind of segregated charters in Nashville in the past.  

The difference, it seems, is that this charter was planned for a middle class neighborhood, and Board members could read the writing on the wall.  As long as the charters, of the chain gang variety, were aimed for poor neighborhoods, it was a matter of school choice, but when the public schools in the leafy suburbs are threatened with privatization by out of state lowlifes out to drain public school funds, suddenly the whole charter concept became much clearer to middle class parents.  The best face I can put on the Board's actions: Better late than never.  

Maybe now the whole apartheid system of charter schools in Tennessee and elsewhere will become visible to people who did not seem to care when other people's children were being subjected to the apartheid schooling of low quality, with six-figure CEOs serving as principals.  

So own it, Metro School Board.  Stand tall, even now, so late in the game.  Continue to tell Kevin Huffman to go to hell.  Surely he will find a place for the t$3.4 million he is denying the children of Nashville, most likely down the road in Memphis, where apartheid is not such a big deal, especially when white suburbs can start up their own gated public school systems to protect their children from the privatizers.  

Story below is by Nate Rau from the Tennessean.

Updated 12:36 p.m.

The money that state officials are planning to withhold from Metro Nashville Public Schools is from a pool of funds that pays for many services related to students, according to a statement released by the school system just after noon today.

The roughly $3.4 million in non-classroom administrative funds that state officials plan to withhold is part of a pool that includes student transportation, utilities and maintenance for 5,000 classrooms and more than 80,000 students, according to the statement.

None of those items is connected to the charter school approval process and “we are very disappointed” in the state’s action, the statement read.

The school system does not have a plan on how to deal with an October cut of more than $3 million from its budget; however, budget changes must be approved by the school board, according to the statement.

Updated 11 a.m.

Newly elected school board member Amy Frogge voted against Great Hearts. She called the Board of Education’s decision to withhold $3.4 million from Metro public schools “shameful.”

“Apparently a few people at the top are angry with five of us for voting against Great Hearts and they’ve decided to take it out on 80,000 children,” said Frogge. “This will not hurt me or the board. It will hurt the less fortunate.”

Frogge, an attorney, said she believed the board’s vote last week against Great Hearts was legal.

The state gave Metro an "unclear mandate” about the charter school, she said. On the one hand, it asked Metro to approve the school. On the other hand, it also issued three contingencies for Great Hearts approval, one being diversity, she said.

“I felt the contingencies should be met before approval,” she said. “The state raised the diversity issue. My question was, 'How are they going to comply?'”

Frogge said she would be researching the legality of the board’s decision to withhold money from a local school board.

“It’s my understanding they can’t legally withhold money,” Frogge said.

Update 8:55 a.m.

The Tennessee Department of Education plans to give the $3.4 million it is withholding from Metro Nashville public schools to other school districts, according to a statement released this morning.

The money is being withheld “as a consequence of the district’s refusal to follow state law,” the release said. The department is punishing the Metro school board because of the board’s refusal to approve the controversial Great Hearts Academies charter school even after directed to do so by the State Board of Education.

The money represents administrative non-classroom funds and will be withheld from Metro’s October allocation from the state’s Basic Education Program funding program.

“We were all hopeful that Metro Nashville’s school board would obey the law and avoid this situation,” said Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman. “It is our job to enforce state law, and we have no choice but to take this action.”

When the Metro board voted last month to defer a decision on Great Hearts even after the state board directive, state official first indicated funds could be withheld as punishment, but then backed off that idea after Gov. Bill Haslem said he thought the conflict could be settled without monetary sanctions.

The Metro school board had several chances to comply with state law, Speaker of the House Beth Harwell said in the statement. “The Metro Nashville school board had two chances to follow the law, and twice it chose to not do so. This is the consequence,” she added.

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey agreed, saying he supported the decision to uphold the law.

“The Metro Nashville school board's brazen defiance of state law limited options for thousands of Nashville parents and their children," Ramsey said in the statement. "The rule of law is not optional in Tennessee. Those who break it must be held accountable."

Updated 8:30 a.m.

The Tennessee Department of Education formally announced its decision this morning to withhold about $3.4M from the Metro Nashville school board because of the board’s refusal to approve the controversial Great Hearts Academies charter school.

The state is withholding a portion of the school system’s October administrative funds, according to a statement released by the department of education at about 8:30 a.m. today.

We were all hopeful that Metro Nashville’s school board would obey the law and avoid this situation,” said Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman. “It is our job to enforce state law, and we have no choice but to take this action.”

The department intends to reallocate the funds to other districts in Tennessee using the state funding formula.

REPORTED EARLIER

The Tennessee Department of Education is expected to announce as early as today that it will withhold more than $3 million in education funds from Metro Nashville Public Schools in response to the board’s decision last week to reject the Great Hearts Academy charter school application.

The withheld money will come from the Basic Education Program formula, which the department uses to send state dollars to local public schools. The Nashville school board voted 5-4 last week toreject Great Hearts’ application, despite a directive from the state board that the application must be approved.

Great Hearts subsequently said it was withdrawing its application, but the department has elected to take action against MNPS.

“I certainly understand why,’’ Speaker of the House Beth Harwell said, calling the board’s decision a violation of the state law. “Our number one concern is (the board’s vote) harms children.

“This is a way to send a very clear message” to the school system.

The withheld funds are earmarked for school district administrative costs and will not have an impact on classrooms, according to multiple sources.

Department of Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman said in August that such a move by the state was possible, after the school board deferred a vote on the Great Hearts application.

Great Hearts has been at the center of controversy in Nashville this year. Though the charter chain had the support of leaders such as Huffman, Harwell and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, among others, it was criticized by some school board members and community residents for lacking a recruitment plan that would encourage diversity among its students.

The Arizona-based charter chain sought to open a new school in West Nashville in 2014. It was the first prospective charter operator to test the new state law that opened up charter school enrollment to all students. Previously charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately operated, were options for poor students and those zoned for a failing school.

In a news release, Great Hearts hinted that it may reapply to open a charter “when Tennessee’s laws and charter approval process more effectively provide for open enrollment, broad service to the community and impartial authorizers.”

Reporter Michael Cass contributed to this story. Contact Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 or nrau@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter @tnnaterau.

Nashville School Board Puts the Brakes on KIPP Expansion

Recently Mayor Karl Dean and the corporate fat cats who made him mayor shoved through a $16,000,000 giveaway to renovate the Nashville KIPP test prep factory.  We can only wonder now if that decision will be revisited after considering last year's results on state tests, even though this information was available to Dean's staff when the decision was made.  KIPP Nashville had the lowest value-added scores in social studies and science of any middle school in all of Metro Nashville.  The amazing power of non-stop test prep in math and reading!!

Thanks to the Gates Foundation and ALEC, the caps on charters in Tennessee are off, and expansion is now open to all socioeconomic groups.  This new law will doubtless have a further segregative effect on Tennessee schools, creating as it will high-end white progressive charters in the leafy suburbs to contrast the total compliance chain gangs of inner city Nashville and Memphis.  Jim Crow schooling all over again, corporate style.

Below is the piece from the Tennessean on the KIPP smackdown, with information on the lurking corporate schools now in line for some of the tax dollars intended for public education.  Nashville has gone from $4 million five years ago for charters to $25 million today to educate 3,000 charter kids.

Where's the outrage over this outrageous and transparent starving out of public education for corporate schools with no oversight!? Do we need Wall Street running our schools into the ground in the same fashion they have ruined the Economy?

Story by Nate Rau (thank god that the Tennessean has real reporter for education).

The local branch of a prominent national charter school chain was on the defensive Wednesday on the heels of the school board’s vote to reject its application to open a second middle school in Nashville.

KIPP Academy Executive Director Randy Dowell vowed to appeal the school board’s decision and defended the academic achievements at the charter organization’s current middle school, which opened in 2005.

School board member Mark North was critical of KIPP’s test results, pointing to the charter school’s regressed scores in science and social studies. The school board voted 5-1 on Tuesday to reject KIPP’s application, even though the school district’s charter review committee had recommended that it be approved.

“They were hurt by their own performance at their existing school,” North said, pointing out that KIPP’s value-added scores for eighth-grade science and social studies were the worst among middle schools in the entire school district.

KIPP Academy’s overall academic achievement received poor marks on the most recent state evaluation for the 2010-11 school year. KIPP, which educates students in grades 5-8, received a D grade in math, reading and social studies, and an F in science.

But Dowell said KIPP has seen improvements that outpace those at traditional public schools, according to year-over-year data compiled by the state Department of Education. KIPP received an A grade for improvement in math and B grades for improvement in reading and social studies. The school did receive a D grade for test improvements in science.

KIPP serves 325 students, 87 percent of whom receive free or reduced-price lunch.

“Our overall achievement scores were not where they needed to be last year, especially in science. We own this at KIPP, as our motto is ‘no excuses,’ ” Dowell said. “This year, we made adjustments to our academic program, such as administering weekly assessments and providing students with weekly remediation.”

Next move?

While KIPP officials vowed to appeal the school board’s decision, it was unclear on Wednesday what the future held for Arizona-based Great Hearts Academy, which sought to add five schools across Davidson County, including in affluent areas. Charter schools have historically catered to poor students at failing schools, but Great Hearts proposed to be the first school to take advantage of a 2011 change in state law that opened up enrollment in charter schools to all students, regardless of economic status.

Great Hearts officials did not respond to a request for comment on whether they would appeal the school board’s unanimous decision to reject their application. The charter review committee cited concerns over Great Hearts’ lack of a transportation plan. Great Hearts, which received the support of various local politicians, such as U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper and members of Metro Council, would only commit to providing transportation to special-needs students.

“The organizational plan partially meets criteria for approval because there is no specific plan for student recruitment and enrollment and the lack of a transportation plan,” the review committee’s report released on Tuesday stated. “Additionally, the location in West Nashville does not align with district priorities as outlined in the request for proposal.”

The eight rejected charter schools have until June 13 to submit appeals, which the school board will then vote on at its June 26 meeting. If an application is rejected a second time, then a potential operator may appeal to the state Board of Education.

The school board approved just two applications at its Tuesday meeting. The high rejection rate comes at a time when charter schools are expanding rapidly in Nashville. Metro will commit $25 million to educate 3,000 students in the upcoming school year at charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately operated. Just five years ago, Metro spent $4 million to finance charter schools.

Nashville Classical Charter School and Intrepid Preparatory Charter School were the two applicants approved by the board. Nashville Classical will initially offer enrollment to 108 kindergarten students when it opens in East Nashville in 2013. Intrepid College Prep will offer enrollment to 120 fifth-graders when it opens in Antioch in 2013.

“My sense was that MNPS has worked really hard to hold charters to an increasingly high standard,” Intrepid College Prep founder Mia Howard said of the district’s approval process for charter operators.

Contact Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 or nrau@tennessean.com.

Nashville's Mayor Dean Commits Almost 10% of 4-Year School Improvement Budget to One KIPP

In Nashville, as in many metropolitan areas, capital improvement funds are short and the need is large.  Nashville Metro has identified needed school improvements that amount to $185 million. Mayor Dean has committed $16 million, or almost 10 percent of Nashville Metro’s 4-year school capital improvement budget, for a new segregated KIPP, Inc. corporate charter school, even as the Fisher, Gates, Broad, and Walton Foundations, along with other wealthy patrons, pour in hundreds of millions of dollars into this charter chain that has just over a hundred schools nationwide.  


Meanwhile, Nashville's public school teachers that serve the poor use garbage cans to collect water from leaky roofs and do their best in overcrowded and damaged classrooms.  At Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet, a high-performing integrated public school, kids eat lunch in the hallways and do not have a functioning gym. 


KIPP's urban penal pedagogy model has the backing of Wall Street and plutocrats that Diane Ravitch calls the Billionaire Boys’ Club, which translates to support by both Republican or Democratic politicians on both sides of the aisle of the corporate jet.  These folks like to tout the testing accomplishments of KIPP, while ignoring the fact that KIPP children are subjected to punishing behavioral techniques that no middle class parent would allow. 


These same supporters of KIPP ignore the fact that KIPP educates fewer special education students, fewer English language learners, and fewer students whose behaviors threaten the KIPP total compliance model.  KIPP also enjoys extra resources from the bottomless well of tax-sheltered dollars from venture philanthropists.  With these advantages plus 40 percent extra time in the classroom spent in test prep, their test scores are, indeed, high.  How could they not be?  


The sad fact is that the high test scores are then used by politicians and their patrons of the Business Roundtable to 1) demonize the public schools for having lower test scores, thus opening up the path to more charters, and 2) to pretend that zero tolerance and no excuses provide the educational solutions for children suffering the ravages of poverty.  Sadly, the citizens of Metro Nashville must now bear the financial and moral burden of this corporate charade.

By Julie Hubbard| The Tennessean
The vintage 1930s Highland Heights school used by KIPP Academy charter students will keep its facade, but the rest of the building will be torn down and replaced with new construction.
The plan for the East Nashville landmark is a compromise between city officials, who last year suggested razing the building, and neighbors and members of the school board and historic commission, who noisily objected.
The new plan will cost $16 million, city officials said Thursday.
The 350 KIPP students soon will move to another vacant school, Ewing Park near Dickerson Pike, for two years during construction. The new school will open in 2014.
“This is the best compromise,” said District 5 Metro Councilman Scott Davis, who represents that East Nashville area. “You keep our historical style there, and it’s also less expensive than remodeling that whole building.
“At the same time, it gives the kids a great place to go to school.”
Since 2005, when KIPP started leasing the building on Douglas Avenue, students have made giant academic gains inside a subpar building, Davis said. He said their performance could improve even more in a modern building.
Two years ago, Mayor Karl Dean asked the Metro school board to deed the building to the city in exchange for a $10 million pledge to renovate it. Public charter schools weren’t supported enough by the city, Dean said at the time.
High school on wayOnly a quarter of the building is functional for students of KIPP Academy, which now plans to add on a high school.
“The biggest thing is … we will have the entire middle school and entire college prep high school in one building,” said Randy Dowell, executive director of KIPP Academy Nashville. “It’s something we can’t do now because of the condition of the parts we don’t occupy.”
There’s no wiring for new technology, such as Smartboards. The radiator heating is half functional, plumbing fair to poor, basement moldy and attic infested with bats, a condition report revealed.
That’s why most of the building needs to come down, and costs are projected to be higher than the $10 million originally set aside by the city, said Dominique Gobbell Arrieta, project manager for the Gobbell Hays Partners architectural firm, hired to design the new school.
“We met with the historical commission and are very comfortable about that,” she said. “We will demolish the 1970s (addition) and old gym and build new onto the backside of the property.”
Construction will be awarded this fall for an 18-month build.

The new facility aims to have wrap-around traffic and separate entrances for the middle and high schools. A curtain or wall in the new cafeteria would separate the middle and high schools but could be opened up for a large community space.
The 91,000-square-foot, three-level school will include a walking path, community meeting space and a parklike feel.
“We are going forward with a capital budget request of right over $6 million, since we already have the $10 million approved,” said Director of Metro General Services Nancy Whittemore.
Traditional Metro public schools, with an estimated $185 million in repair needs, may get help this budget season as well.
During a budget work session with Metro public school officials and Dean this month, he said Stratford High desperately needed help, as did Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet, which has no gym.
“He has indicated in budget hearings there hasn’t been a real capital outlay budget for a while,” said Senior Education Adviser Wendy Tucker. “He’s aware of the conditions and expressed his concerns.”

Nashville's Mayor Karl Dean, a KIPPster with a Public Purse

After the Brown v Board of Education decision in 1954, Southern governors and mayors spent large sums of cash to fix up ramshackle black schools in an attempt to placate African-American communities and, thus, seek to avoid the white nightmare of court-ordered desegregation.  Now a half century later, Mayor Karl Dean of Nashville is doing something similar, but this time the effort not only serves segregationists but also the corporations in need of a compliant and positivized work force that is to include a few black and brown faces that can be counted upon to keep their mouths shut.

Mayor Dean has committed almost 10 percent of Nashville Metro’s 4-year school building budget for a new segregated KIPP, Inc. corporate charter school, which lays claim to the exemplary urban penal pedagogy model that has the backing of all the oligarchs of the Billionaire Boys’ Club, regardless of whether they keep Republican or Democratic politicians in their stables. 

Meanwhile, Nashville's public schools that serve the poor and the brown use garbage cans to collect water from leaky roofs and cram their kids into overcrowded and damaged classrooms.  At Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet, a high-performing integrated public school, kids eat lunch in the hallways and do not have a functioning gym.

Never mind that KIPP has unlimited funds at its disposal and more on the way, thanks to bottom feeders like hedge funder, Whitney Tilson, who beats the Wall Street bushes daily for new philanthro-capitalists looking for big tax breaks and a sure-fire way to behaviorally neuter and culturally sterilize minority schoolchildren.  Meanwhile, KIPP, Inc. spares no expense to shuttle children around to Ivy League schools under the pretense that a significant percentage of these kids will someday actually attend college at Ivy League schools. 

Nor does KIPP, Inc. spare any expense when it comes to the Disney Orlando Seligman-inspired high-rolling retreats for KIPP staff, which a former KIPP teacher describes as reminiscent of the Nuremburg rallies during the heydays of the Third Reich.

The photo at left is from John Partipilo of the Tennessean, and it features three of Nashville's white KIPP missionaries: Jake Ramsey (former campus recruiter for TFA), Meredith McCoy (TFA alum), and Nikki Miller (TFA alum).  KIPP loves TFA alums, er, Corps members, for they have been successfully assimilated into the Family and have learned to teach on poor people's kids.  Now they are ready to use their methods to uphold the KIPP brand.

How long will Nashville parents and grandparents allow their schools to be taken over by missionaries from the Billionaire Boys' Club?  And allow the Mayor to ignore the needs of public schools, while favoring his high-rolling cronies from Wall Street's corporate foundations? 

Here is a list of whales (national partners) from the KIPP website, and this list is just for the ones who want to be named publicly:

$60,000,000 and Above:

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$25,000,000-39,999,999:

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$10,000,000-24,999,999:

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$5,000,000-9,999,999:

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$1,000,000-4,999,999:

Anonymous

Laura and John Arnold Family Foundation

Reed Hastings and Patty Quillin

Marcus Foundation

Miles Family Foundation

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$500,000-999,999:

Thomas and Susan Dunn
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

$100,000-499,999:

Abrams Foundation
All Stars Helping Kids
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
CityBridge Foundation
Credit Suisse
John and Laura Fisher
Robert and Elizabeth Fisher
William and Sakurako Fisher
Goldman Sachs Foundation
Goldsbury Foundation
Kinder Foundation
Koret Foundation
Leon Lowenstein Foundation
The Louis Calder Foundation
Hee-Jung and John Moon
Stephen Jr. and Susan Mandel
National Geographic Education Foundation
Prudential Foundation
Arthur Rock
SAP America, Inc.
Paul Singer
State Farm Companies Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

$50,000 -$ 99,999:

David Goldberg and Sheryl Sandberg
The Jay Pritzker Foundation
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
NewSchools Venture Fund
NFL Charities
Peter B. and Adeline W. Ruffin Foundation
Select Equity Group Inc.