It’s tough helping students enroll in college and getting them to stay there — even under normal circumstances. Add a pandemic to the mix on top of decades of education inequality, and expanding higher education access has become that much harder for student advocates.
Nashville Education Leaders Reject More Charter Schools
The Metro Nashville school board is again saying no to more charter schools. Local school officials opted against adding more than 3,000 new charter seats in the district during a vote Tuesday evening.
Tennessee Lawmakers Scale Back Charter School Approval Plan
Listen / Tennessee lawmakers advanced a measure Wednesday that would give the state more of a role in approving charter schools, after scaling it back to preserve a role for local schools to give input. The proposal — part of Gov. Bill Lee’s education package — has been getting pushback from both parties. But the […]
Gov. Bill Lee Calls For Overhauling Charter School Approval Process
Listen / Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee says he wants to make it easier for the state to establish charter schools. He announced the plan Monday night during his State of the State address. It would allow a sponsor to go directly to a state-run authorizer for approval, instead of a local school district.
Nashville Charter School Chided Over College Acceptance Requirement
Listen / Metro education officials are reminding one of the largest charter schools in Nashville it can’t make college acceptance a high school graduation requirement.
Why Some Officials Have Questioned Martha O’Bryan’s New Charter School In East Nashville
The Martha O’Bryan Center is known throughout Nashville for its work with low-income residents and has been embedded in East Nashville’s James Cayce homes for decades. As Cayce is being overhauled into mixed-income housing, the nonprofit is about to move one of its charter schools into that complex. But the new school building has received […]
Martha O’Bryan Center Builds School In Nashville’s Cayce Homes, But Some Residents Feel Forgotten
Listen / Editor’s note: This story was reported in partnership with Nate Rau of the Tennessean. The Martha O’Bryan Center surprised the East Nashville public housing project that it has served for 70 years in June 2017, when it decided to shutter its longtime preschool and day care program for low-income children.
MNPS Recommends Denying Another Charter School, Revealing Tougher District Stance
Listen / Metro Nashville Public Schools administrators are recommending that the board deny the only charter school application that has come in this year. In a report sent to board members this week, district officials criticized the proposal from the nonprofit ReThink Forward, saying it wasn’t specific enough and the financial model was incomplete.
Charters Spotlight Their Results Compared To Other Metro Schools
Listen / Nashville’s charter schools are highlighting their performance related to the rest of the district. Charters represent a vast majority of the city’s schools that achieved top growth scores for student improvement.
As Deadline Passes, Metro Schools Still Refuses To Release Student Data For Charters
State education officials say they’re “disappointed” that school districts in Nashville and Memphis won’t budge. Both systems had until Monday to turn over data that would help charter schools overseen by the state recruit new students. The districts missed the deadline, even though they may lose education funding as a consequence.
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