Charter schools unwelcome in Tennessee suburbs
Print This ArticleBy CHRISTOPHER BUTLER
If you live in Shelby County and want your child to attend a charter school, he or she may qualify – but only if you live within the Memphis city limits.
For other Shelby County residents, charter school is not an option.
That is because school board members with the Shelby County School System, which operates separately from the Memphis City School System, have so far decreed that charter schools may not operate there.
Representatives from different proposed charter schools have three times applied for permission to operate in that county’s school system – but each attempt ended in failure. Charter schools are public, yet they operate independent of the local school board. Nonprofit organizations operate charter schools, outside the control of