Metro Board To Let State Run KIPP Schools

The Metro School Board will let the state run two charter schools that had been rejected locally but then approved on appeal last month.

On a split vote of 4-4, the panel voted last night to have the Tennessee Board of Education run two schools that will be operated by KIPP Nashville. Board member Anna Shepherd missed the meeting.

The discussion on KIPP
quickly went beyond the vote itself, and toward the merits of the state managing schools in the Nashville district. Board Chair Sharon Dixon Gentry voted against the district managing the charter, saying the state needed to respect the judgment of the local board.

“We are we here?” Gentry asked. “Why have the board in the mix if what we say ends up not mattering?”

In 2013, the board was fined $3.4 million for refusing to allow Great Hearts Academy to open. Since then, the legislature passed a law giving the state board of education the power to authorize charter schools even after they’ve been rejected by a local school board.