Is Anyone Paying Attention?
Rebuttal of the Connection's article on charter schools
Last week I penned an article about the “fox in the hen house.” That theme seems to have been dropped in my lap once again. The Connection comes to my mailbox once a week. Yes, we still have a local paper and I still read it. (I’m old) Mostly it comes because my boys end up on the sports’ page about once a season when they can be bothered to cover cross country or wrestling. The front page story this week covered the denial of the charter school application which I discussed in a previous article.
This article was accurate, but contained omissions and disingenuous wording. Most corporate media these days seems to do that. Before I unpack this article, does anyone even know what a Classical Academy or a Classical Education is? Having spent 15 years homeschooling, I know these terms are a norm in our circle, but I’m going to assume that they are not in yours.
A classical education follows the “trivium.” This pattern of schooling follows the child’s natural intellectual development. The first years are called the “grammar stage.” These years are when the child is young and curious about everything in their world. If you have had a toddler, you know this to be true. This is roughly grades 1-4. At this stage children are excellent at memorizing facts and want to know about EVERYTHING. This is the stage where the child learns the rules of phonics, spelling, math facts, vocabulary, stories in history, memorizes poems, and learns about plants, animals, and the human body. This stage is all about facts. When the child enters the middle grades, this is the “logic stage.” Middle school aged children are now ready to discuss the why. This is where cause and effect and relationships between fields of study emerge and make sense. The final stage of the trivium is the “rhetoric stage.” This is for high school aged students. Below quote is from here.
The student of rhetoric applies the rules of logic learned in middle school to the foundational information learned in the early grades and expresses his conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language. Students also begin to specialize in whatever branch of knowledge attracts them; these are the years for art camps, college courses, foreign travel, apprenticeships, and other forms of specialized training.
In the trivium, students cover the same four time periods of history starting with the ancient world through Rome, Rome through the Reformation, Early American History, and Reconstruction through current events. Each time these histories are studied it is at a deeper level than the time before. A classical education includes Latin, science, math, history, literature, logic, and in a Christian Classical Education, Bible. Thomas Jefferson had a classical education. https://classicalacademicpress.com/pages/what-is-classical-education Another link to information on classical education.
This is not an all inclusive definition, but gives the basic idea of what classical education is. Ultimately, it is what all education was before compulsory schooling began in the mid 1800’s.
Let’s now take a look at the article in the Connection. “In anticipation of the American Classical Academy Robertson’s charter school application, the district began organizing a review process in December. Beyond a number of district personnel, review committee members also included a school principal, a City of Springfield employee, and the district’s attorney.” The school principal IS a district employee as is the district’s attorney. So the review committee had ONE member that was not employed by the district. ONE. There were no parents of low performing schools. There were no homeschool parents. Imagine the money the district could get if it could get those homeschooled kids back in school. Butts in seats mean state and federal dollars to the district. The article’s wording was true, but disingenuous.
One of the reasons this committee rejected the proposal was that the school did not meet the standards set by the TN state law. What they don’t mention is which standards were not met. I’m going to go ahead and assume that the classical school is NOT teaching Social Emotional Learning. Looking at the curriculum, it does not seem to include the state’s requirement for health education.
This is the state standards for health education. Notice the “reproductive health care.” That is missing from the Hillsdale curriculum, as is “Tennessee Economics.” The charter school wants the students to read Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, (a comprehensive, 500 +page book on economics recognized by Milton Freidman and written by a black man), whereas RobCo schools is utilizing an online Economics program by SAVVAS Learning Center. When they tell you the standards don’t align, it does NOT mean that the education is subpar.
This quote is from the presentation that the committee gave, and was quoted in the paper. It seems that they believe the children of Robertson County are not bright enough to cover this material. At least that is how I am interpreting this statement. Here is a screenshot of the book list for 11th grade. This list isn’t good enough for RobCo, but football is the 4th block class for the team at Heritage. This list doesn’t teach to the TCAP. The test is the “holy grail” of education after all.
Another quote from the article, “no charter school board members having any previous K-12 experience.” Let’s start with the fact that all of those board members have been to school. I know, big leap, but I’m sure they went to school. The review committee had several members that were NOT involved in K-12 education.
Tourism coordinator and CPA is ok to review a charter school, but the board for the charter school can’t have your average parents or community members. I am in the process of finding out who was on the board for the charter school. Maybe a charter school does not want someone versed in K-12 education. Maybe that charter school needs someone who has been involved in a classical education, not boxed into the public school model.
Other issues the review committee found with the proposed budget were required annual donations of $150,000 raised primarily by families. This equals to $441 per student in year one, which the committee deemed excessive.
On Facebook, I posted an informal poll.
This is a very small sample, but here is what I learned. The DC field trip for 8th graders at Heritage is $2k. The trip is “optional,” but if you want to talk about excessive cost, let’s start there. There are many parents that would pay $441 a year for their child to have what is essentially a private school education. The committee decided for you that $441 is too much money a year. A charter school is not required or compulsory. This would be a “choice.” We all know that public school isn’t “free.” We pay for it in our taxes, fees, field trips, fund raisers, parties, etc. There are parents shelling out less than $100 a year and many spending more than $300.
In addition, daily transportation will not be provided in the first year of school, as parents would be expected to transport students to and from school, including extracurricular activities.
If they had left that quote at “to and from school,” I might not be nearly as up in arms as I am. First, have you seen the car rider line at Woodall? Highway 76 is backed up before and after school. Heritage High School has a similar issue. The line wraps around the building. Parents are ALREADY driving their kids to school. We have a bus driver shortage and a behavior problem on the bus. Parents are already taking their kids to school and picking them up. When they added the “including extracurricular activities,” it made me wonder if any of the committee members actually had a child in sports. While we homeschool, my children run cross country for Heritage, I coach for Heritage, my boys wrestle for Heritage, I drive to ALL sporting events. There are no busses for the these teams. There is not a van. The district is not transporting kids to and from games, races, or meets. If there is a bus taken, it comes from the account of that particular team. I have driven to Hendersonville, LaFayette, Clarksville, Mt. Juliet, Franklin, Lebanon, Cross Plains, Bowling Green KY, Chattanooga, and Nashville. We are already driving our children to these things. We have taken a bus three times in the five years I have been coaching, and each time the cross country team has paid for the bus and the driver out of the monies that the team has raised. That was the most ridiculous reason to deny the application.
Charter schools fail state tests all over the nation. My children would fail the state tests. We don’t teach the same curriculum at the same times that the state does. If the state requires TN state history in the 4th grade, and the charter or homeschool doesn’t teach TN state history at all or in the 8th grade, the student will fail. A private or a charter school may not be teaching the SEL and their students would not be familiar with the terminology presented on a state test. They will fail that test. I ask you this though, how are the public schools doing on basic education? Is your child reading books such as this?
Nope. Here is what Robertson County is using.
Here is the real kicker…..the charter school has all of their books listed for you to look at. I have to have a log in and have a password to look at the textbooks for RobCo.
Personally, I love teachers. I am one. What I don’t love is government bureaucracy telling me what is good for me and my children. Committees made up of elitists telling us that our kids aren’t smart enough to learn things, they know best, and only the “experts” should make decisions for education are not good for our community. I don’t love media that only covers one side of an issue or not at all. In the coming weeks, I will be reaching out to the charter school to get their side of the story.
Classical education is what I am a HUGE proponent of, not necessarily charter or private schools. Actual books, first hand source material, the physical paper ones you hold in your hands, are what I advocate. These are different from the conglomeration of information found in the online course materials.
This article is free to all because this topic is important and I want everyone who has children in the system or grandchildren in the system to be able to read and share.