Hillsdale College’s charter schools appeal to the state to overturn rejections in three Tennessee counties

Three charter school proposals affiliated with Hillsdale College have now appealed their rejections by local Tennessee school boards.

Both Rutherford and Clarksville-Montgomery County schools voted down applications from American Classical Academy within weeks of NewsChannel5 airing a video of Hillsdale president Larry Arnn denigrating public school teachers. In an appearance with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee in Franklin, Arnn had said that teachers “come from the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

In its appeals, American Classical Academy has downplayed its link to Hillsdale and accused school boards of politicizing the process.

“We ask the Commission to do what the Board did not: keep politics out of the process, conduct a rigorous application review,” American Classical Academy said in a statement appealing the Rutherford County decision.

Last week, American Classical Academy said the same thing in appealing its rejection by the Jackson-Madison County school board. The Montgomery County appeal doesn’t mention “politics.”

The state’s new Public Charter School Commission has the power to overturn rejections by local school boards. The panel is appointed by Lee, who stands by his request for Hillsdale to establish 100 new charter schools in Tennessee using the Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum.

The newly released teaching materials emphasize American exceptionalism and are being published in response to efforts like the 1619 Project that attempt to offer students a more unvarnished telling of the nation’s founding.