In 2022, Tennessee saw major changes to how it pays for education and who gets to administer and regulate it. WPLN has been there every step of the way to keep the Middle Tennessee community in the loop. In case you need a refresher, here are some of the top developments in Tennessee education from this year:
A new school funding formula
This year, Tennessee’s legislature passed a new way of determining how much money to give to school districts. It is the most significant change to the formula in three decades. Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA, allots a base amount of money for every student, and extra dollars for those with certain needs. That means extra support for students living in poverty, English learners, students with disabilities and those living in rural districts. The old funding formula, known as BEP, had focused more on the needs of school districts.
Gov. Bill Lee championed the plan, and lauded it for increasing transparency in school funding.
“From this day forward, when we put dollars into education, I think we’re going to see exactly where they go and how they’re spent,” Lee said.
TISA, which takes effect next school year, also increased education spending by a billion dollars. But some education advocates say not enough of that money will flow to public schools, as the state pushes for more privatization. Tennessee ranks near the bottom of the country in per-pupil spending.
Hillsdale College charter schools
During his State of the State address this year, Gov. Lee announced plans to partner with Hillsdale College, a conservative, Michigan-based school.
The move was immediately met with skepticism by public education advocates concerned about the school’s 1776 curriculum, which they say whitewashes history and focuses on American exceptionalism.
But the heat turned up exponentially when NewsChannel 5 released video of Hillsdale President Larry Arnn disparaging teachers, saying, “Teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.” Gov. Lee was in attendance and did not dispute Arnn’s comments.
When the footage went public over the summer, Tennessee lawmakers across the political spectrum rebuked Arnn’s statements. It added extra scrutiny to Hillsdale–affiliated charter school applicants. Around this time, multiple proposed charter schools associated with Hillsdale had been rejected by local school boards for not meeting state standards.
Arnn’s comments put even more attention on their appeals to a state commission with the power to overturn those local rejections. Eventually, the Hillsdale-affiliated charters withdrew their appeals. But the state’s charter commission remained in the spotlight, as it reviewed other charters seeking to open without the support of the local school board.
Even some Republican state lawmakers, who voted to give the commission this authority, expressed concerns about the unelected commission’s power to override local decisions.
Looking ahead, Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools will likely reemerge in 2023. American Classical Education has submitted letters of intent to apply for charters in five school districts. Those include the same three areas where they applied in 2022 — Rutherford, Madison and Montgomery County. They also indicated interest in Maury and Robertson County. If approved, the schools could open as soon as the fall of 2024.
The charter commission
The Tennessee Public Charter School Commission has the authority to overturn local school boards’ decisions about charter schools, which receive public money but operate independently. The commission was formed by Gov. Lee in 2019 and started reviewing appeals in 2021.
In total, the charter commission reviewed 13 appeals this year and approved three to open, all in Davidson County. Commission members said their record proves they aren’t, as some had insinuated, a rubber stamp commission.
But Nashville’s school board chair Rachael Anne Elrod decried what she and others see as the selective nature of the commission’s decisions.
“Forcing MNPS to open and pay for unapproved charter schools continues to untenably increase our fixed costs and is a gross overreach that ignores the local public’s desires and the school board’s elected responsibilities,” Elrod said.
The commission will act as the school district for the charters it approved, which include KIPP elementary and middle schools as well as Tennessee Nature Academy.
Next year, more charter schools rejected by school boards will likely ask the commission to approve them. Those could include some familiar names, like the Hillsdale-affiliated charters, since there’s no limit on the number of times a charter can appeal, according to a commission spokesperson.
The textbook commission
Another commission that fell under the microscope this year: the state’s Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission. The legislature gave this panel, which usually reviews curriculum, new regulatory power over what materials are available in school library collections.
The new law requires that schools post their library catalogs online so that families can review them. That caused confusion at the start of this school year, as districts had different interpretations of what counts as “library collections.”
The state Department of Education later clarified that it includes things like the books individual teachers keep on their classroom shelves. Some teachers had to tell students they weren’t allowed to read a classroom book because they hadn’t finished cataloging all their titles.
The state’s textbook commission is now in the early stages of creating a process for challenging books that individuals want pulled from schools. They’re still finalizing guidance for districts on how to respond when a student, parent or employee ask for a title to be banned.
They’re also crafting a way to appeal local school board decisions on books, giving the commission a say on what students across the state are allowed to read.
So far, the commission has not heard any appeals or banned any books. But parents and leaders across the state have pushed to remove certain titles this year.
The school board in McMinn County voted to nix Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its eighth grade curriculum. In Williamson County, the book Walk Two Moons was cut from the curriculum. Some parents there, including Moms for Liberty, urged the district to go even further in removing texts. And in recent weeks, Wilson County Schools removed a pair of books from high school libraries, even though a review committee had suggested they remain but with limited access.
Next year, the textbook commission’s appeals process will open an avenue for parents, students and school employees to challenge the decisions made at the local level.
That’s as a national movement to restrict access to certain books grows. According to the nonprofit group PEN America, which advocates for free speech and expression, a major portion of books being removed or restricted include LGBTQ themes or main characters, or prominent characters of color. Authors of a recent PEN America report said, “It is having multifaceted, harmful impacts: on students who have a right to access a diverse range of stories and perspectives.”
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