Amid Media Onslaught, Tennessee Parents Double Down On Efforts To Establish No-Politics Public Schools

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The Federalist

After a smear campaign ensnared efforts to bring three new no-politics, high-achievement public schools to Tennessee in September, the families denied yet another year of the education they seek for their children aren’t retreating. They’ve just filed notices they wish to open five classical charter schools in Tennessee that use curricula designed by Hillsdale College.

“All of the schools are overcrowded, the county schools can’t build out fast enough,” noted Michelle Garcia, a Rutherford County mother of two who serves on the nonprofit board attempting to open the schools, American Classical Education (ACE). “Between that and the learning loss of Covid, having this public classical charter option is very attractive.”

Garcia said that not only did school lockdowns and subsequent rolling quarantines of healthy children deeply damage Tennessee parents’ confidence in conventional schools, but many local parents also want the high-quality curriculum and pursuit of virtue championed in classical schools.

An October poll found 56 percent of Tennesseans would not send their child to their ZIP code-assigned public school if they felt they could afford another one. Fifty-nine percent of the heavily Democrat-leaning poll respondents in the overwhelmingly Republican state agreed Tennessee should offer more public school options.