Fri
Aug 5 2011
07:14 am
Blount Co. charter school application denied
By: R. Neal

The Maryville Daily Times reports that the Blount Co. School Board has denied Innovation Education Partnership Inc.'s charter school application.

The board cited deficiencies in the plan and expressed concerns about creating a "separate but unequal" school system that would take $1 million out of the Blount Co. school system's budget without addressing any particular pressing need.

continued...

The board also noted that the application appears to be pieced-together boilerplate from a variety of published sources, suggesting that it isn't very well thought out.

In fact, the charter school's point man Tab Burkhalter, a local tax lawyer who also serves on the Blount Co. Commission, is quoted in the article as admitting that "We've faced several challenges, because we don’t have a location or any idea about our makeup. It's hard to get a realistic qualitative model without those areas."

Of the charter school corporation's seven founding members identified in a recent Blount Today article, only one has any education experience. She owns Little Scholars Christian Academy, Inc.

The lobbyist who is guiding the petitioners through the process says it is normal for the first application to be rejected and this just gives them an opportunity to fine tune it. He is quoted as saying that "Almost all of them were approved on second vote or on appeal to the state Board of Education."

Actually, when the charter school application first surfaced in Alcoa we contacted Rich Haglund, Tennessee Dept. of Education's Director of Charter Schools, who told us that school boards typically deny most charter applications and that TDOE usually upholds denials on appeal. Of the 32 appeals they had received, TDOE upheld 27 and overruled five, but only one of the five had opened a charter school at the time we spoke.

Under the new regime in Nashville, however, it's possible this will change. With new laws that lift caps, ease restrictions and streamline charter school applications, it's likely that local school boards will be flooded with new applications and that TDOE will be more politically inclined to approve them.

This is all part of the conservative movement to privatize public education for ideological purity and corporate profit. One wonders what an approved charter is worth on the open market to a corporate charter school operator, especially in Tennessee's current political environment. This particular application would generate more than $1 million in guaranteed taxpayer funded annual revenues.

The Blount Co. application is turning out to be a test case of the New Rules and one that public education advocates might want to follow.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Charter school still being shopped around Blount County

• What problem would a charter school solve in Alcoa?

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Tamara Shepherd's picture

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Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Fri, 2011/08/05 - 8:26am.

I see that the Maryville Times cited board members' concern for applicants' inattention to the need for bus transportation.

KNS said yesterday that applicants failed to address supplying free and reduced meals, as well.

Can you say "skimming?"

Also, I note that these applicants--and a majority of charter schools, really--plan to serve just 180 students.

If Tennessee could afford to operate schools for so few students, surely we would have already been doing so within our traditional schools?!

Per the state's BEP Blue Book, a school serving fewer than 225 students isn't even afforded state funding for a princpal or a school-level secretary.

A school serving fewer than 265 students isn't afforded a librarian. A school serving fewer than 350 students isn't afforded a PE teacher. A school serving fewer than 500 students isn't afforded a guidance counselor. A school serving fewer than 525 students isn't afforded an art teacher or a music instructor.

Wherever possible, elementary schools this small "borrow" staff (but not principals and secretaries) from other equally small schools in the district, but where that isn't possible, the district just has to provide these staff at mostly local expense.

Although states are to provide the lion's share of funding for K-12 public education, what happens in practice with these schools attempting to serve so few students is that local government winds up covering a disproportionate volume of their expenses.

Given that K-12 education expense already comprises the bulk of municipalities' budgets, such inefficiencies resulting from these extremely small schools only worsens the burden on local budgets.

R. Neal's picture

The Blount Co. charter school

Submitted by R. Neal on Fri, 2011/08/05 - 8:30am.

The Blount Co. charter school proposes to use uncertified teachers for health, phys ed, and art, saying that's one way they will be more efficient.

Tamara Shepherd's picture

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Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Fri, 2011/08/05 - 8:32am.

Also, isn't it the case that charter school applicants have just 15 days to adress any flaws in their applications and reapply? I think so.

Given that the flaws in this application pertain to some pretty basic stuff--like location, transportation, and meals--it sounds like these folks have very little time to address some particulars that should have been addressed in their earliest planning?

I'm wondering if they aren't dead in the water, already?

R. Neal's picture

After that they have 10 days

Submitted by R. Neal on Fri, 2011/08/05 - 8:42am.

After that they have 10 days to appeal to the state dept. of education.

New state laws make it nearly impossible to claim financial impact on the local school system as a reason for denial. That was apparently one of the concerns expressed by Blount Co. school board.

It sounds like there are plenty of other problems with the proposal, though, in which case the state would likely uphold the denial which has been the past norm.

Unless, as I mentioned, the new political climate comes in to play.

Tamara Shepherd's picture

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Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Fri, 2011/08/05 - 8:45am.

The Blount Co. charter school proposes to use uncertified teachers for health, phys ed, and art, saying that's one way they will be more efficient.

The issue isn't how much these staff are paid, it's what entity is paying them at all.

It's not "more efficient" if every other elementary school in the county is getting state funding to cover salaries for these staff positions, but this one charter school, which doesn't qualify for any state funding by virtue of serving just 180 studnts, has to either 1) borrow these staff from another county school, or 2) ask local government to cover the salaries for these staff at their school.

And again, this charter school can't "borrow" its principal and its secretary from any other local school.

Given that there's no help coming from the state, costs for those two positions would have to be borne exclusively by local government.

(No comment on their plan to use uncertified personnel, except to say "grrr....")

Tamara Shepherd's picture

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Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Fri, 2011/08/05 - 8:55am.

Another cost consideration I've been mulling this summer is the longterm implication of a presumably growing number of charter schools leasing, rather than owning, their space.

Inefficiencies of scale notwithstanding, what happens twenty and thirty years down the road when these charter school entities have "nothing to show for their (lease) money?"

Aren't we looking at a scenario similar to every public school in a given district paying for its space forevermore, as in never retiring its debt?

Why have we not seen this issue discussed???

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