The Charter School Nightmare
By Tiffany Boyd
Tiffany Boyd has been a monthly contributor to The Murfreesboro Pulse since August, 2021.
I have been a charter school opponent for quite some time. They are a perfect example of taxation without representation. Their boards are appointed, not elected, and yet they are public schools.
To clarify, tax dollars fund these schools but private businesses benefit from the lucrative business deals. There is much less oversight with charters than traditional public schools. Charlotte Iserbyt warned that parents would be desperate for any answer to the dismal public-school situation, and they would subsequently fall for the charter school model with their appointed boards. This would be the catalyst for the even larger scam, known as “school choice.”
Since charters are public schools, they are required to follow the same guidelines as traditional public schools. These schools data-mine children, seek to identify “at-risk” students, are medicalized, receive federal funding and implement “social emotional learning” methods. Taxpayers are now funding another avenue of education propagating the very same agenda as public schools, only with far less accountability.
Prior to the 2024 school board elections in Rutherford County, Tennessee, I had conversations with more than one candidate and elected official. I warned them that the charter scam would be detrimental to their county and that the bigger picture with these charters was that they would cost the county far more money than they were being told. I provided them with a plethora of documentation regarding fraud, embezzlement and misappropriation of funding in charter networks across the nation. Many fell for the lie that these charters would provide their county with “free” schools. They bought it, hook, line and sinker.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, and now the taxpayers in Rutherford County will foot the bill for their school boards’ willful ignorance. Up to $15 million dollars, which will come out of the Rutherford County Schools budget, is the projected bill for three charter schools.
Rutherford Collegiate Prep is slated to educate 750 students, American Classical Academy will serve 340 and Springs Empower Academy is expected to have 250 students.
Exactly what will your money be funding? Here’s a brief overview of the three charters that will require the county to dig deep into their coffer. As a taxpayer, is this how you want more of your tax dollars allocated?
Rutherford Collegiate Prep is a charter school devoted to Social Emotional Learning (SEL). I encourage parents to read more about who is behind this charter and why parents should be concerned about this social experiment. I covered this topic in a previous article I penned for the Pulse titled Rutherford County’s Social Experiment. Social Emotional Learning is one of the number-one avenues of data harvesting in our nation’s schools, and this particular school is embedding the protocol throughout its curriculum.
American Classical Academy is what many refer to as the “Hillsdale Charter School.” These are Barney Initiative charter schools that have accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding. They will be utilizing the “response to intervention”-tiered framework (RTI), and identifying at-risk students. The Tennessee Department of Education developed and implemented its RTI2 system to determine students’ designation for a “specific learning disability,” or as an at-risk or gifted student.
“Tennessee’s RTI2 framework will be followed with fidelity to provide the general education curriculum utilizing suggested strategies and practices at each tier. Highly trained classroom teachers will work with support staff to reach their full academic and personal growth potential,” according to American Classical Academy’s charter school application. “Of particular concern with at-risk students is the high correlation of underperformance to chronic absenteeism. Knowing this, care will be given to track and address attendance issues as well as other social/emotional components of the student’s life. At-risk students will participate in all state mandated testing using accommodations in keeping with state policy and as deemed appropriate.”
Parents should note that schools can now bill Medicaid without parental consent, using codes that students are being given. There has also been a huge crackdown on chronic absenteeism and truancy across the state, leading to at-risk designations. This is their desperate attempt in Tennessee and across the nation to keep students in the classroom seats so that they do not lose funding.
According to American Classical Academy’s application on tn.gov, they will also be collecting data on students and implementing Social Emotional Learning.
Springs Empower Academy, according to its application form, is devoted to equity. “Springs believes that public education is the most important social justice institution.”
Professional development will include topics such as culturally responsive strategies, instruction restorative practices, and developing culturally responsive classrooms.
“Restorative practices are used to strengthen relationships between individuals as well as develop social connections and communities. . . . Staff development will also focus on school culture including classroom community, Social and Emotional Learning, and staff and student well-being.”
It also appears they will be relying heavily on the digitization of curriculum by distributing Chromebooks at a 1:1 ratio. The digitization of curriculum is a grave concern and one I focused on last month in the article The Digital War on Our Children.
Third-party vendors with which schools have partnered have access to student data. FERPA allows this data to be collected without parental consent. There is also an interoperable, longitudinal database that makes it easy for vast amounts of data to be shared. Who are the third-party vendors that Empower Springs has contracted with, and who will they be disseminating this data to? Parents should be concerned about the digitization of curriculum and the data that is being harvested.
There are also multiple references to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, highlighting their research. There is a strong emphasis at this particular school on creating a personalized learning path. This isn’t surprising, since the push is to create individualized learning paths as early as elementary school across the nation in order to pigeonhole students into career pathways which will create a customized global workforce.
I wrote previously that: A student’s course of study will be dictated by this data. The data will be used by schools and the Department of Labor to determine career pathways that are in demand, and a student’s coursework will be formatted to include only what is needed for that career. This effectively strips away a student’s future choices and career opportunities.
In the end, how much will charter schools wind up costing Rutherford County? Do taxpayers really want to fund another avenue of education that will have less oversight and less accountability with these schools’ appointed boards? It is time to ask your school board members some hard questions. Did they do their research? Did they read the charter school applications in their entirety? Did they research the charter school operating companies? Did they research everyone on each school’s appointed boards?
“It is easy to be generous with other people’s money.” —Latin Proverb
