For-profit charter school operators watch TN
Companies lobby for change in law so they can run schools
Out-of-state companies that bring in millions in revenue by managing charter schools have their eyes set on Tennessee, an epicenter of education reform.
But they need a major change in state law to enter. It would mean convincing the legislature in a state whose most recent foray into for-profit education, a struggling virtual school, has turned off some lawmakers to the idea.
After steadily loosening the state law over publicly financed, privately operated charter schools in recent years, the Tennessee General Assembly is weighing another big step: allowing a charter school’s board of directors to hire a for-profit entity to run it.
Senate Education Committee chairwoman Dolores Gresham, R-Somerville, and Rep. John DeBerry, D-Memphis, have resurrected legislation to make that happen, one year after a similar proposal died.
House Education Committee chairman Harry Brooks, R-Knoxville, also backs the bill. The concept of for-profit charter management, DeBerry contends, is no different than a government hiring a private firm to provide custodial staff or a business tapping outside expertise.
“We’re constantly inventing and reinventing education in the state o