American Classical Education Faces Misinformation And Dishonest Opposition In Quest To Open Tennessee Charter Schools

Amidst Inaccurate Mainstream Media Reporting And Left-Leaning Politically Motivated Pushback, American Classical Education Pushes To Give Tennessee Parents More School Choice For Their Children.

Image Credit: americanclassicalschools.com

The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –

As many parents in Tennessee took notice of children being liberated from government-run schools across the country and from the leftist agendas being forced by the Department of Education, they began to ask for their elected representatives to give them and their children greater access to school choice.

Way back in 2018, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee’s 10-point ‘contract with Tennessee’ dubbed “Ten for Tenn” included in its second entry:  Rethink Public Education with Major Vocational Reforms, Real School Choice, and Civics Education.  

By January 2022, it looked as though Governor Lee might make good on his campaign promise when he announced his intention to support the process for the launch of roughly 50 charter schools across the Volunteer State.

All seemed to be going according to plan until a hidden camera video was leaked to Tennessee’s liberal media outlets that allegedly showed Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn speaking at a private event.

Arnn called into question the way public school teachers are trained in universities and criticized the educational bureaucracies that claim expertise but tend to produce teachers without crucial subject knowledge and questioned the value of education degrees.  

Tennessee’s liberal media outlets jumped at the chance for scandalous headlines and cherry-picked Arnn’s comments out of context, soliciting outrage from many teachers in Tennessee and subsequent pandering rhetoric by some of Tennessee’s elected officials.

The Tennessee House Education Committee chair, Representative Mark White stated in July that Hillsdale will not be part of the solution to Tennessee’s educational problems and that their hopes to open charter schools in the state have been “shattered.”

However, Arnn’s comments were backed up by an analysis by a liberal-leaning National News outlet, CBS News, back in 2011 which found that education is the “easiest college major” and that students who enter with the lowest standardized-test scores finish with the highest grades.

According to CBS News, the opposite is true for STEM majors like science and math.

The Tennessee Education Association (TEA) issued statements condemning Arnn’s comments and their chief lobbyist, Jim Wyre, wrote in blog post, “We’ll keep fighting and we won’t rest until the entire charter industry is on the run.”

Some Tennessee school boards followed the TEA’s lead in condemning Arnn and his comments. 

The Hamilton County School Board sent a letter condemning Arnn’s comments signed by the majority of the school board members with school board members James Walker (District 9), Rhonda Thurman (District 1) and Joe Smith (District 3) refusing to sign.

The widespread mainstream media coverage of Arnn’s comments was used as an excuse for the liberal-dominated school boards of Madison, Montgomery and Rutherford counties to reject the charter school applications of American Classical Education (ACE), affiliated with Hillsdale, that’s endeavoring to open three new charter schools in Tennessee.

Rutherford County’s District Officials said in their review of ACE’s application: “Members of the (district’s) review committee have expressed serious concerns about Dr. Arnn’s comments regarding teacher qualifications and education, as it brings into question the applicant’s ability or interest in recruiting licensed teachers.”

“Diversity of thought” was also listed as an issue.  The review committee had issues with the fact that the American Classical Academy’s application mentioned a “philosophical and moral alignment” and cited ACE’s “indisputable ties with Hillsdale College, a self-described conservative, Christian institution.”

The Rutherford County Review Committee voted six to one against the ACE’s charter school. 

The Jackson-Madison school board voted eight-to-zero, with one member absent, to deny the application and repudiate Arnn, noting that “it does not believe it is in the best interests of the students to be exposed to a charter school with such close ties to Hillsdale College.”

Daughter of Arnn, Kathleen O’Toole, who is the head of Hillsdale’s K–12 Education initiatives, said critics have grossly exaggerated the control the college exerts over its affiliated charter schools.

“All we do is advise them. We don’t hire and fire. They’re totally separate organizations from us,” she told the National Review. “And they’re totally free to follow our advice or not follow our advice if they want to. It’s their show, we’re just there as a provider of resources to help them be successful.”

O’Toole also stated that Hillsdale doesn’t make any money from ACE or its schools either.  She stated that Hillsdale itself makes the out-of-pocket investment. 

“It’s a competitive process to work with us. When we work with a school, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and an incredible amount of time on it. And we do it because we want to help them be great. There’s nothing financially for us, and that’s true of every school we work with,” O’Toole said.

In Tennessee, ACE was established by Hillsdale after Lee requested that it help set up 50 charter schools across the state. While ACE was launched at the behest of the college, the company is independent of it.

After the school boards denied the applications for ACE’s first three charter schools in July, the company appealed those decisions to Tennessee’s nine-member Public Charter School Commission. 

Lee signed off on the creation of the Public Charter School Commission in 2019.  Its members were selected by Lee and confirmed by the state GOP supermajority legislature. 

Tammy Sharp, a Rutherford County school board member, who voted “yes” on a charter school in her district, published an op-ed on TennesseeConservativeNews.com on June 21st that dismissed the idea that ACE is compromised by its Hillsdale connection.

“It is CRITICAL that you know that the ACE Charters ARE NOT funded by Hillsdale. They also are NOT a Christian school. They have their own money to build or buy a building that our local taxpayers don’t have to fund to start a charter school in this area. This is an additional choice for our parents.  The only affiliation with Hillsdale is the curriculum.,” she wrote.

Former Tennessee State Senator and current ACE board member Dolores Gresham reports that since the commission hearings have been underway, mainstream media outlets have spread misinformation about ACE’s involvement with Hillsdale or lack thereof.

The Associated Press reported that ACE didn’t show up to the original Rutherford County school board meeting on July 18 to defend the application for the Hillsdale-affiliated school, citing text messages sent by commission staffers. However, Gresham states the AP’s framing of the situation is inaccurate.

Gresham said, “American Classical Education was never formally invited to speak before the Rutherford County school board. ACE was only notified two days before the hearing that the board chair would potentially consider allowing the charter applicants to speak at the referenced school board meeting.  A personal family emergency, which was communicated to the board chair in advance of the meeting, prevented ACE’s executive director from attending.”

Gresham reports that many ACE supporters, including both parents and teachers were in the audience, however, noting that ACE was present for both of the other votes before the Jackson-Madison and Clarksville-Montgomery school boards and “at neither of them were they given any opportunity to speak.”

Democratic political candidates and anti-school choice activists mischaracterize the charter schools as private Christian schools, in an attempt to discredit and diminish their appeal to parents and the public. 

Twelve people showed up at the Rutherford hearing, all of which spoke in favor of school choice. ACE CEO Joel Schellhammer stated that those people’s comments, combined with survey results from the Rutherford community gave them more confidence that there was great demand for a charter school in the area.

Parents in support of ACE state that they hope the commission will judge the appeals on their merits and not be swayed by political bias.

About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative  ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career.  Most recently, he served as Deputy Director for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others.  He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History.  Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com