The sunset on Tennessee's charter school law was extended this year by their legislature. The Tennessee law is very restrictive on who can attend a charter school and where the school will be geographically located. Even with more enrollment freedom in the new law, Tennessee still doesn't permit all students to choose charter schools, if they wish.
Even with these restrictions, three charter schools have opened in Nashville: LEAD Academy, Smithson-Craighead, and KIPP Academy. Previous statutory limitations prevented these charter schools from serving the number of students who actually wanted to attend, however. Talk about giving meaning to the saying that "students should haven't to win a lottery in order to attend the school of their choice." Imagine the hundreds of students in Nashville who have been stuck in underperforming schools simply because they didn't win the lottery or didn't meet the state policymaker's restrictive criteria.
Sounds like it's time for the state Legislature to start focusing on the academic needs of their students! When reform such as this provides evidence that it's working--it should be replicated as soon as possible.
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