A school-choice policy expert says this week’s dust-up between the state and the Metro education board is part of a broader argument over who exactly charter schools exist to serve. Great Hearts Academies would be the first charter in Metro to take advantage of new laws letting them recruit more students who aren’t necessarily poor or in failing schools.
The story is hardly unique to Metro: an ambitious charter operator rides in from out of town, but not all of the locals prove easy to win over. In Great Hearts’ case, opponents have worried it wouldn’t do enough to bring in minorities or poor students at its proposed first school in West Nashville.
Echoing a Metro official’s language for rejecting Great Hearts two months ago, Vanderbilt Professor Claire Smrekar says there’s a kind of tug-of-war over academic quality and racial diversity.
“It’s fundamentally now: Does diversity matter in a system of public school choice? If so, why? And if it does matter, how does a school system monitor and measure and approve charter schools in a way that continues to promote those ideals.”
Smrekar figures Great Hearts’ diversity plan is now marked for extra scrutiny. She expects the school board will get friendlier for charters when winners from this month’s election are sworn in. But Smrekar doesn’t think all the hard questions will fade away.
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