In a stunning turn of events, the charter schools affiliated with ultra-conservative Hillsdale College withdrew their applications in three counties. The counties rejected them, but the state charter commission had the power to override the local school boards. The charters stirred controversy in the rural counties, and the president of Hillsdale College made matters worse by insulting teachers.
American Classical Education — a group set up to create a network of charter schools affiliated with Hillsdale College across Tennessee — has withdrawn its applications to open schools in Madison, Montgomery and Rutherford counties.
This follows months of controversy since Gov. Bill Lee announced a “partnership” with the ultraconservative Michigan college during his State of the State Address in January.
ACE’s application had been rejected in all three counties, and they faced a contentious appeal next week before the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, which could have overruled the local school boards.
“We made this decision because of the limited time to resolve the concerns raised by the commission staff and our concerns that the meeting structure and timing on Oct. 5 will not allow commissioners to hear directly from the community members whose interests lie at the heart of the commission’s work,” board chair Dolores Gresham wrote in a letter delivered Thursday to the commission….
Lee had praised Hillsdale’s “patriotic” approach to education and asked Hillsdale president Larry Arnn to open as many as 100 of the taxpayer-funded schools across the state.
But a NewsChannel 5 investigation had highlighted issues with Hillsdale’s curriculum, including a rewriting of the history of the civil rights movement.
Hidden-camera video also revealed Arnn making derogatory comments about public school teachers coming from “the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges.”
More recently, NewsChannel 5 Investigateshad uncovered video of a Hillsdale College professor, who teaches part of an online course about the civil rights movement, questioning the achievements of famous Black Americans.
Early on, Governor Lee asked Hillsdale to open 100 charters in Tennessee, and Hillsdale College scaled the number back to 50. At the moment, Hillsdale has none. Governor Lee underestimated the close ties between rural communities and their public schools. The people of Tennessee were unwilling to toss aside the teachers they know and the schools that are the hub of their communities.
Please open the link to read the rest of the story. Hillsdale might try again.
C
Diane Ravitch's blog 
yeeeeHaHaHaHa!
“the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges.” Sadly, this type of sneering and demeaning attitude toward teachers is nothing new. It’s been going on for a long time but I guess the difference now is that the sneering is coming from libertarian reactionary (a redundancy) billionaires who hate public schools and democracy. They want to destroy the real public schools and replace them with vouchers, charters, religious and other assorted private schools.
Conservative Christian religion and the Koch network have been aligned relative to public schools and other issues for some time. (And, Gates-funded Bellwether recommended ed reformers reach out to churches to advance their goals.)
Conservative religion is about keeping women as 2nd class citizens. Most teachers are women. It’s not at all surprising that Larry Arnn would disparage them. Women gained financial independence and access to administrative leadership roles via public school employment. Religious schools, by 2020 SCOTUS verdict, are exempt from civil rights employment law, making religious schools preferable to conservative men and the women they brainwash. Forty percent of Republican men feel that women’s gains have come at the expense of men. (Pew research)
sneering: it is exactly the right word
Conservative religious politics taken too far?
Recently in the news- Ryan Marie Houck – FBI arrest (btw- his kids are homeschooled).
“Governor Lee underestimated the close ties between rural communities and their public schools.”
The three counties in question are not rural counties. Rutherford County is now over 400,000. Montgomery County shows up a 230,000. Madison County is nearing 100,000. Each of these counties is home to a major college or university. Hillsdale was about to place its charters in competition with several fine public schools in each place. Each of these three counties has seen dramatic population growth in the last ten years. Rutherford County, just below Nashville, is home to the largest university campus in the state, Middle Tennessee State University, which has a student population of around 30,000, mostly non-residential students. Montgomery County is home to Austin Peay State University. Madison County is home to the city of Jackson, an expanding city where several small colleges are located.
In each of these counties there is strong conservative support for the modern Republican Party including Governor Lee. All three of these counties saw 41-42 % for Biden in 2020, whereas rural areas tended to support Trump by more healthy margins.
The history of the Tennessee attempt at privatization has been that these attempts have been aimed at urban areas, mainly Memphis and Nashville. The mantra has been that Republicans want to cure the ills of the failing schools there. It is difficult to make that argument in the three counties above since much of their population is recent, filled with school-age children, and at least some of the migration into these counties was deliberate location due to perception of good schools.
The decision to set up schools at these three places seems to me to be a calculated attempt to enter a market of customers satisfied with the public system. It seems to have failed, but school privatizers never seem to quit.
The following comment went into moderation. This is an attempt to see why.
Sorry if it is a repeat.
Governor Lee underestimated the close ties between rural communities and their public schools.”
The three counties in question are not rural counties. Rutherford County is now over 400,000. Montgomery County shows up a 230,000. Madison County is nearing 100,000. Each of these counties is home to a major college or university. Hillsdale was about to place its charters in competition with several fine public schools in each place. Each of these three counties has seen dramatic population growth in the last ten years. Rutherford County, just below Nashville, is home to the largest university campus in the state, Middle Tennessee State University, which has a student population of around 30,000, mostly non-residential students. Montgomery County is home to Austin Peay State University. Madison County is home to the city of Jackson, an expanding city where several small colleges are located.
In each of these counties there is strong conservative support for the modern Republican Party including Governor Lee. All three of these counties saw 41-42 % for Biden in 2020, whereas rural areas tended to support Trump by more healthy margins.
The history of the Tennessee attempt at privatization has been that these attempts have been aimed at urban areas, mainly Memphis and Nashville. The mantra has been that Republicans want to cure the ills of the failing schools there. It is difficult to make that argument in the three counties above since much of their population is recent, filled with school-age children, and at least some of the migration into these counties was deliberate location due to perception of good schools.
The decision to set up schools at these three places seems to me to be a calculated attempt to enter a market of customers satisfied with the public system. It seems to have failed, but school privatizers never seem to quit.
Roy,
Thanks for the clarification.
Diane
Apparently, my comment was unacceptable and is in moderation. Short version: These are suburban counties. Not rural counties. Their Republican support is slightly below what you might find in rural counties
Ahhh. Interesting.
To add: two of these counties, Rutherford and Montgomery, are suburbs of Nashville, contain major state universities, and tend to vote less solidly Republican
Let me say this about that: praise the Lord.
Teachers often reflect the community they live and work in.
Not all public school teachers are liberals even if they vote Democratic. Many are moderates and traditionally conservative, but few are MAGA RINOs, because MAGA RINO’s are mostly dangerously ignorant and stupid, and apparently think like the president of Hillsdale College since it takes the same kind of ignorant stupidity to judge millions of college educated, public school teachers as he did.
The president of Hillsdale College doesn’t even know what the word dumb means revealing how stupid and ignorant he is.
From Middle English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, ineffectual”), from Old English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, unable to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *dumb, from Proto-Germanic *dumbaz (“dull, dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”).
Stupid means: having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.
Ignorant means: lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.
Now, I’ve been writing a lot alleging that MAGA RINOs are dangerously dumber-than-dumb, and it turns out I was wrong to use two of those “d” words. In my defense, I liked the alliteration of three ‘d’ sounds together. Ignorant and stupid don’t sound as good, but…
MAGA RINOs including the president of Hillsdale College are dangerously ignorant and stupid, not dumber-than-dumb.