After riding high on a promise to bring 50 charter schools to Tennessee, the relationship between the president of Michigan's Hillsdale College and Gov. Bill Lee has cooled over the past several months.
FILE - Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee delivers his inaugural address after taking the oath of office in War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. After riding high on a promise to bring 50 charter schools to Tennessee, Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn's budding relationship with Gov. Lee has significantly cooled over the past several months.
Since Arnn's comments, three Hillsdale-affiliated charter school applications in Tennessee have been rejected by school boards in Jackson-Madison, Clarksville-Montgomery and Rutherford counties. A spokesperson for Hillsdale College declined to comment on the rejected applications and did not respond to a request to interview Arnn.It's unknown when or if the additional 47 charter schools promised will ever materialize.
Starting in 2010, Hillsdale began setting up charter schools — publicly funded but privately run — across the country. Hillsdale says it does not operate or manage schools, but instead offers two types of support by licensing their curriculum for free and providing training and other resources to so-called member schools. The program had more than 20 member schools by the end of 2021 and more than 30 schools using its curriculum, with major presences in Florida, Colorado and Michigan.
“I’m even more saddened and disappointed in our governor who sat there and did not defend our teachers,” Sullivan County school board member Mary Rouse, who was elected to the seat in a heavily Republican region, said at a meeting earlier this month. “Shame on you, Gov. Lee. Shame on you.”Republican Rep. Mark White, chairman of the state’s powerful House Education Commission, was equally blunt.
Arnn also weighed in last week with an editorial defending his commitment to teaching, saying he's made similar remarks throughout his career.“Dumb can mean ‘unintelligent,’ which I did not mean. Dumb also means ‘ill-conceived’ or ‘misdirected,’ which is, sadly, a fitting description for many education schools today,” Arnn wrote.
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