Once a leader of Texas charter school YES Prep and familiar with people at its helm, Chris Barbic says he’s shocked the charter school network he once founded would ditch the Memphis school he wanted them to run.
But that’s what happened Tuesday, with the Houston-based group telling Barbic and the Tennessee Achievement School District superintendent that changing political climate and ASD model have led them to change their mind on taking over a Memphis middle school for the fall 2015 school year.
“This is difficult no matter who it is. It’s a little even more surprising knowing how well I know some of the leaders, and then in some ways not surprising at all because I know who some of the leaders are,” Barbic told Pith.
“It certainly adds a little bit to the drama of this, unfortunately. The main thing we’re concerned with right now is we’ve got to make sure the 80 to 100 families that were zoned to go to sixth grade Airways (Middle School) next year, that we’re making sure they’ve got really good high-quality options,” he added.
The charter organization’s leaders told Chalkbeat Wednesday that inadequate community support in Memphis, political shifts against the ASD and structural changes in the district’s model were their reasons for leaving. Attempts to reach YES Prep for comment were unsuccessful Wednesday afternoon.
Barbic founded YES Prep in 1998 before taking a job with Tennessee in 2011 as superintendent of the ASD, a statewide district of lowest performing schools in need of turnaround.
The ASD leader has come under fire amid resistance from Memphis and Nashville school districts reluctant to give up their schools to Barbic’s agency, which has largely handed the schools over to vetted charter school operators. So far, four charter school management groups have pulled out of the ASD in the last year, reports Chalkbeat, although the organizations exited earlier in the process. A recent state audit also found the department lacked oversight over grants and certain payments and critics say test scores of students in the ASD haven’t improved fast enough.
"I think it's another problem in the overall issue of the ASD," said Rep. Bo Mitchell, D-Nashville. "The ASD, after the comptroller's audit, shows that they don't have their house in order and they're wanting to expand and bring more children into this. And by YES Prep pulling out, that's also given a clear indication that other people even in their industry think they don't have their house in order."
Update (6:12 p.m.): YES Prep’s Memphis director Bill Durbin said the decision to pull out of Bluff City came after realizing what the school can offer is off kilter with what the Memphis community wants. YES Prep had wanted two schools with the capacity to eventually hold more than 900 students each, but only was assigned only one small school in December, he said. And while YES Prep is built on a phased-in approach to grow by one grade level every year, the community wants full school takeovers, he added.
“For the last year, we’ve had a team on the ground doing all that due diligence to be prepared to run schools this fall. In doing all that due diligence we obviously came to the realization that a bunch of factors have changed in the past few years that don’t lead us to believe we can deliver on the promise that we made when we were approved two years ago,” said Durbin.
