Currently, state law requires that charter schools be owned and operated by non-profit entities. Image courtesy Tennessee Charter School Association
An effort to lift the ban on for-profit companies running charter schools in Tennessee has been resurrected in a legislative Hail Mary. The change in law has been tacked onto a bill of minor tweaks to charter school regulations.
The Senate Education Committee has rejected a for-profit charter school bill not once, but twice this year. So this week Sen. Dolores Gresham (R-Somerville) – the committee chair – added it to the much broader proposal, and voila.
“It was the will of the committee,” Gresham said when asked why she was ramming the legislation through. “They voted for it.”
But several lawmakers felt like they were in a pickle.
Sen. Joey Hensley of Hohenwald previously voted to keep for-profit charters out of the state.
“Sometimes you just change your opinion about things,” he said. “And when they’re lumped in with the other things, basically it wasn’t worth voting against the whole bill.”
The for-profit push comes from Michigan. National Heritage Academies hired a lobbyist to pave the way for their company to run charter schools in Tennessee.
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