Only days ago, the Network for Public Education released a report on the growth of Christian nationalist charter schools. It is titled “A Sharp Turn Right: A New Breed of Charter Schools Delivers the Conservative Agenda.” Many of these charters are affiliated with the far-right Hillsdale College, and call themselves classical academies. Their goal is to indoctrinate their students into extremist political views and to teach a rose-colored version of American history.
In Texas, a charter of this stripe is applying to the State Board of Education for the fourth time, hoping that new conservative members of the board will grant them a charter.
Edward McKinley of the Houston Chronicle reports:
Last summer, the Texas State Board of Education denied for the third time an application from Heritage Classical Academy to start a charter school in Northwest Houston. Heritage will try again next week, and although very little has changed about its application, its chances of success are now much higher.
Classical charter schools, like Heritage, have been on the rise nationwide and in Texas as parents seek an alternative to “woke” lessons and themes in public schools, namely the promotion of diversity and inclusion, viewing America’s history through a more critical lens, and discussion of LGBTQ topics in classrooms. And earlier this year, the Texas Legislature advanced several bills to bring more Christianity into public schools, part of a related national movement.
Heritage Academy is pitched as a return to an old-school type of education, involving training in rhetoric and public speaking, learning Greek or Latin and reading foundational texts.
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has already approved Heritage, as he did the preceding three years. But before the school can open, the State Board of Education is allowed an opportunity to veto it. Next week state board members will interview officials from Heritage on Wednesday before a planned Friday vote.
Heritage is affiliated with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian university that refuses federal assistance so that it doesn’t have to comply with Title IX or other federal regulations, through its Barney Charter School Initiative.
The program provides curricula and assistance to help launch classical charter schools around the country. Its “1776 Curriculum” teaches that America is morally exceptional to other countries and offers lessons on American history through a conservative bent, including descriptions of the New Deal as bad public policy and of affirmative action as “counter to the lofty ideals of the Founders.”
The school was voted-down initially in 2020 for including books on its curriculum for primary grades that some board members criticized as containing racist themes. Aicha Davis, a Democrat from Dallas who serves on the state board, last year described Heritage as “extreme” and “one of the most controversial applicants that we’ve had because of the curriculum and ideas they wanted to push.”
The academy’s board president and main financial backer is Stuart Saunders, a wealthy Houston lawyer and banker. Saunders has complained of Critical Race Theory and inappropriate sexual content in public schools, including at his son’s school, which he said inspired him to found Heritage. He has pledged $1 million from his foundation to the school, if approved.
After the state board denied the school for the second time, Saunders and his family donated more than $250,000 to a political action committee called Texans for Educational Freedom. That PAC then donated more than $500,000 to local school board races and other candidates who have promoted conservative themes in the schools.
The group donated in four State Board of Education races, including well over $100,000 total in successful bids to unseat state board members Sue Melton Malone and Jay Johnson, Republicans who voted with Democrats in opposition to Heritage. Board members questioned Saunders about this during a public hearing last year.
“Whereas that’s undoubtedly legal, it really appears to be unethical. It appears like you’re trying to remake this board after last summer when you were denied this charter school for the second time,” former board member Matt Robinson, R-Friendswood, said during last year’s board meeting.
Last year, Heritage’s lobbying efforts backfired and became a factor in the board’s decision to reject the charter, although Saunders told state board members he didn’t know Texans for Educational Freedom would donate to state board races.
This year the story could be different.
Robinson is now gone from the state board, as his home was drawn-out of his district by the Legislature. So are Melton Malone and Johnson. All three have been replaced by more Republicans who are thought to be more friendly to charter schools.
Each of the new members campaigned on fighting Critical Race Theory in classrooms, and they are known to be friendlier to “school choice” policies. Their presence on the state board already led to a flip-flop earlier this year on the board’s position on private school vouchers….
Texans for Educational Freedom then reported spending nearly $200,000 to support the campaign of Republican LJ Francis last year, a massive amount for a state board race.
Francis won his race by 1,665 votes, or 0.4 percent of the total, flipping his board seat from blue to red and putting yet another charter-friendly face on the board. Francis joined Gov. Greg Abbott at a speaking event at a San Antonio private school to promote the governor’s school voucher plan. Francis did not respond to a request for comment.
Heritage said in this year’s application to the Texas Education Agency, which was approved by Commissioner Mike Morath, that it expects to serve 1,056 students at capacity, primarily nonwhite students. Its goal is to bring classical education, including “instruction in moral virtues” to “the most disadvantaged students of Northwest Houston.”
A recent analysis from the Network for Public Education found classical schools nationwide are disproportionately wealthy and white, with just 17 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch.
Board members have also questioned Heritage’s connection with Hillsdale College, which doesn’t fund or govern schools directly, but provides curriculum and consulting.
Hillsdale has a long history of cozy relationships with the political right. For instance, Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — who reportedly lobbied to overturn the 2020 presidential election — is a former vice president at the college.
With the four new state board members installed, Heritage’s plan to provide a conservative curriculum that dovetails neatly with an understanding of the United States as a fundamentally Christian nation could be a selling point, rather than a bug.
Texas Republicans have promoted policies introducing more Christianity into public schools, whether it be through more prayer, displaying the Ten Commandments in each classroom or allowing chaplains to serve as school counselors. This is part of a nationwide trend spurred on by a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year weakening the legal case against it.
Texas operates under the theory that if students always have the Ten Commandments in their classrooms, have ample opportunity to pray during the school day, and read the Bible as often as possible, that will cure the social ills of the state: no more murders, no more suicides, no more abortions, no more adultery, no more rapes, no more crime. You get the picture. Meanwhile the state has removed all gun control. Gun buyers don’t need a permit and they can carry their weapon in public. More of that all-time religion will fix things.
If not, the people of Texas should throw these self-aggrandizing frauds out on their ears.
