After the June 27 Metro school board meeting came to a close and two LEAD charter school applications were denied unanimously by eight school board members, a small group of charter school supporters gathered in the back of the room to talk shop.
Among them were Wendy Tucker, the co-head of Project Renaissance — an education initiative started by Karl Dean that’s best known by its strong support of charter schools — and Jon Rybka, the chief executive officer for RePublic Schools, a charter network known for its strict policies and charismatic former leader Ravi Gupta.
Along with following district recommendations to deny LEAD two more schools in Nashville, the board couldn’t come to an agreement on a resolution brought by board member Mary Pierce on supporting charter schools.
Inspired by charter school parents who she says complained that board members didn’t support their children, Pierce asked the board to specifically outline in a special resolution that they would advocate for all students in the district. When anti-charter board members seemingly avoided attending a previous meeting where she brought the resolution, Pierce pushed it to the June 27 meeting. But the delay didn’t work: Four voted for it, and four either abstained or didn’t vote for it.
As Tucker and Rybka chatted, he mentioned a new initiative, but told the group they’d have to be careful not to attach the word “charter” to it. It was a telling moment: On one hand, parents should be pissed that the board didn’t expressly support charter schools, but on the other hand, some of the schools’ purveyors know even uttering the word changes the dynamic surrounding an issue.
There was a time when the voices uttering the words “charter school” didn’t speak in hushed tones or try to skirt the politics, referring to charters as “high-quality options.” In 2012, Gupta was adamant about the power of strict charter schools, even as some opposed them on face value.
“We’re very, very intense,” Gupta told the Scene in 2012. “We look at the achievement gap as a crisis, and we respond with a strong sense of urgency. It’s jarring to some parents and students.”
It’s clear that the movement is changing when charter operators are trying to coach supporters against using “charter school” in their language, and that’s partially because board members like Will Pinkston and Amy Frogge have continuously fought against the schools — noting their deficiencies at every chance and treating them like a scourge against traditional schools. (Pinkston did serve on the board of a RePublic school when the operator first came to Nashville.) But the whispers could also be partially based in the recent flight of charter school heads and a couple high-profile dings against operators in the area.
In early 2016, RePublic was hit with a lawsuit claiming it spammed parents with text messages asking them to enroll their kids in the school. By the end of the year, Gupta announced his resignation, saying he planned to move back to New York, but he gave little explanation of why he was leaving. This year, the suit expanded into a class-action that calls for each of the 8,000 people who received the texts to receive either $500 per text or $1,500 per person.
RePublic was also the subject of a Metro Nashville Public Schools memo in February that outlined some issues between Teach For America and RePublic and — without expressly naming Gupta — said TFA had “concerns in 2015 with RePublic Schools” and attributed them to conflicts with a former school leader.
In February, charter operator Rocketship’s Nashville Northeast Elementary School was found by the Tennessee Department of Education to be deficient in providing services to English language learners and students with disabilities. Shortly after, the operator’s regional director, Shaka Mitchell, who like Gupta was known for his charismatic but intense personality, resigned from the network.
Rocketship did not respond to specific questions about why Mitchell resigned, but said the network’s chief growth officer Cheye Calvo was serving as interim regional director in Mitchell’s absence.
There was also a lack of enthusiasm for candidates who supported charter schools in the 2016 school board election. Miranda Christy, who serves on the board of RePublic, lost to former teacher Christiane Buggs, who has been skeptical of charter schools but not adamantly opposed. Jackson Miller, who tended to say he supported “high-quality options” over saying outright that he supported charter schools, lost in a campaign to unseat Pinkston. (Miller recently was charged with contempt of court over allegedly not paying more than $19,000 in past child support.) Jill Speering easily beat out Jane Grimes Meneely, a founding board member of Nashville Classical Charter School. And Frogge, who’s been a vocal anti-charter school board member, beat out Thom Druffel, a charter school supporter, by more than 2,000 votes. It seemed a clear message that Nashville voters didn’t want board members who pushed charter schools.
And the Tennessee chapter of Democrats for Education Reform, one of the most vocal advocates for charters, has been largely dormant for a few years.
But even with faces disappearing from their regular lineup, charter school operators and their advocates continue to fill board meetings, bringing in parents who say they like their charter schools more than district schools and then stay after to chat about strategy. In mid-June, LEAD loaded up a public board session with speakers who sang the charter operator’s praises. Being handed this kind of defeat, though, has supporters flustered.
In the huddle following the June 27 meeting, Tucker was incredulous at the outcome. A few minutes earlier, she had noted to reporters that she better not say much about the resolution or vote, but her frustration spilled out.
“All I can say is I can’t imagine being a charter school parent right now,” she said.
