Unionville
Unionville, TN · Education
WKRN News 2
Tennessee high schools closing at alarming rates
The Tennessean
wcyb.com
lipscombmedia.com
mtsunews.com
mtsunews.com
Chalkbeat
Christian school wins Tennessee court case challenging religious charter ban
Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat’s valuable education coverage at the top of your feeds by clicking here and checking the box next to our name. Knox County Schools cannot block a Christian charter school application on religious grounds despite a Tennessee law banning religious charter schools, according to a federal court ruling on Friday. The narrow decision applies only to Knox County Schools and the Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville, which sued the school district last year over its application of the state law. It does not strike down Tennessee’s religious charter school ban or guarantee that Wilberforce’s application will be approved. The ruling comes amid a growing national conservative push to greenlight taxpayer-funded religious schools . Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti declined to defend the 2002 law earlier this year after publicly calling it “likely” unconstitutional , leaving Knox County Schools to face a lawsuit challenging a state law it was required to enforce. Tennessee lawmakers also loosened the state’s restrictions on religious charter schools this year, allowing religious organizations to operate charter schools as long as the schools themselves remain nonreligious. Wilberforce, however, aims to open an explicitly