By Judd Legum & Rebecca Crosby | Charleston, South Carolina | Activists from the South Carolina section of Moms for Liberty are starting their own public charter school.
The new school, to be known as the Ashley River Classical Academy, will be completely taxpayer-funded, but is structured in a way that essentially avoids any state oversight or accountability. The institution will use the 1776 Curriculum, created by Hillsdale College, a politically conservative organization with close ties to former president Donald Trump.
Adam Laats, a historian at New York’s Binghamton University, described the 1776 Curriculum as “the red MAGA hat in text form”.
Three of Ashley River Classical Academy’s seven committee members, including chair Tara Wood, treasurer Janine Nagrodsky, and head of the education committee, Nicole McCarthy, are Charleston Moms for Liberty chapter leaders.
“A considerable portion of the Charleston County School District’s resources is spent on third-party professionals who are trying to sexualize our youngsters through inappropriate books and classes,” according to Wood in a 2022 article. Wood’s background, according to Ashley River Classical Academy’s charter application, is not in education but in “real estate and facility development”. The school’s 2024-2025 academic year will begin, and board members’ children will be admitted in advance.
In South Carolina, the state’s Public Charter District or the regional school board where the school is based generally approve and supervise charter schools. These entities sponsor the school’s application, allowing them to open and monitor their performance. The sponsor is obligated to revoke the charter if it fails to meet the needs of the students.
The Public Charter District planned to close a number of South Carolina charter schools that were “abysmal failures” in 2017. The schools were “founded by people who clearly didn’t have the business acumen or the academic heft to run a school” or “private companies more interested in turning a profit than educating children.”
However, those charter schools continued to exist. In order to allow colleges and universities to also serve as charter sponsors, a provision was added to the South Carolina charter law. It was included to allow South Carolina State University “to open its own charter school.”
But, in 2017, a small Christian institution, Erskine College, declared itself a charter school sponsor. Erskine College or another institution must “register,” “there are no standards or oversight from the state,” to become a charter school sponsor. Soon, Erskine College was able to support the schools the state intended to shut down.
The Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP) Church governs Erskine College. In recent years, fundamentalist attitudes have been adopted by both Erskine College and ARP. Anyone applying to work at Erskine today must submit a form confirming that their religious beliefs are in line with the ARP Church. “They must also affirm” abortion is a sin, that ‘in all instances, one should seek to preserve the life of the unborn child,’ that homosexuality is a sin and monogamous marriage is ‘God’s intended design for humanity.'”
The extreme policies, according to the Index Journal, have “alienated faculty and students and has resulted in a drop in alumni giving. As a Christian academic community where students integrate knowledge and faith, the school’s goal is to glorify God.” Total enrollment has dropped from over 1,000 in 2008 to about 850 today.
In response, Erskine College is in severe financial need, running a deficit, and quickly using its modest endowment to pay the bills. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) has threatened the accreditation of Erskine College due to money problems.
The SACSCOC announced in December that Erskine College had been “refused” confirmation of its accreditation as a result of its “failing” management of its financial resources in a responsible manner. In less than a year, SACSCOC may decide that Erskine College’s accreditation is revoked due to the deficiencies.
Erskine College has a compelling financial incentive to sponsor South Carolina charter schools since, as a sponsor, it receives “2 percent of the school’s state appropriations.” Erskine currently sponsors 28 charter schools, generating millions of dollars in revenue.
Erskine College is sponsoring Ashley River Classical Academy, one of seven charter schools in the university’s “pipeline.” Erskine College will be the only judge as to whether the school founded by Moms for Liberty activists is fulfilling its obligations to students, even though Ashley River Classical Academy is being funded by state taxpayers.
Alexandria Spry has been appointed as the school’s first head, according to Ashley River Classical Academy. Previously, Spry co-founded a charter school in Jacksonville, Classical Academy East, Florida, using the curriculum from 1776. For the 2022-2023 school year, when Spry served as Head of School, Jacksonville Classical Academy East received a grade of “F” from the Florida Department of Education. The school, under
This Thursday, Spry is scheduled to address a meeting of the Charleston Moms for Liberty chapter. A representative from the South Carolina chapter of Gays Against Groomers (GAG), an anti-trans group, and a member of the neighborhood school board who “allegedly threatened violence against a transgender teacher” will also appear at the same meeting. GAG advocates, among other things, for the ban on LGBTQ books from public libraries. “The school is not a political project,” Spry told the Post and Courier. “We are only attempting to give the best education possible.”
A request for comment, sent to the email address listed on Ashley River Classical Academy’s website, bounced back as undeliverable.
Meet the board
The Charleston County chapter of Moms for Liberty’s website states that the organization is “devoted to the survival of America by unifying, educating, and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”
After attending a meeting where an “education expert spoke about critical race theory [CRT],” Wood, who founded the chapter in August 2021, made the decision to start the group. “While Wood reportedly” does not think that critical race theory is being taught in schools,” she does think that its “tenets” are “trickling” down into K-12 curriculums. “In an interview with the Post and Courier, Wood said, “Anytime you make the narrative ‘White man bad, black man good’ that’s CRT and that’s horrible.” (CRT is a complex legal theory that is not taught in K-12 schools.)
Wood has been “talking to the Trump campaign about meeting with the former president” and “has already met with Trump’s state director.” Last April, Wood introduced Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) at an event in South Carolina.
Wood reportedly has a friendship with right-wing influencer Corey Allen. According to the Post and Courier, Wood has been seen on multiple occasions with Allen, who helped organize a rally that Proud Boys attended and was “on the steps of the U.S. Capitol livestreaming the January 6 insurrection.”
Since then, Wood and Allen have accompanied each other at Moms for Liberty fundraising events and gatherings. On Facebook, Wood thanked Allen for attending a fundraising event in a comment, saying, “Thank you again for being there, Corey.”
Nagrodsky has also promoted Allen’s posts on social media. Nagrodsky posts anti-trans memes and conspiracy theories about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. On January 1, Nagrodsky reposted a Facebook post stating, “Well, I’m off to knock down the pyramids because Egyptians had slaves 5,000 years ago. Wish me luck!”
The Board of Directors also includes Joel Schellhammer, who received his Bachelor’s Degree from Hillsdale College and was hired in February 2022 as CEO of “a new charter school management organization associated with Hillsdale College. Elizabeth Crocker, a former member of Erskine College’s Teacher Education Committee, and an adjunct professor at Erskine College, is an additional board member.
Inside Hillsdale’s “patriotic” education
The 1776 Curriculum, which Hillsdale claims “seeks to tell the entire grand narrative of the American story,” promotes a biased and often inaccurate version of American history.
For example, the 1776 Curriculum claims America’s Founding Fathers “expressed regret and fear of divine retribution” about slavery. In fact, Thomas Jefferson reportedly had a relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and wrote about his theory that “black people and white people have biological differences.” James Madison chose to leave his slaves to his wife, who “sold them off to pay debts” rather than release them in his will. George Washington aggressively pursued runaway “slaves” after giving instructions to not free his slaves after his death until after his wife passed as well. None of this is mentioned in the 1776 Curriculum.
According to a lesson from the 1776 Curriculum, “around 3 percent, or about 350,000, were brought to the North American continent,” and that the “rest of all Africans were taken to other colonies in the Caribbean and South America,” downplaying the history of slavery in America and instead focusing on slavery in other parts of the world.
The Founders claimed that by claiming that all men are created equal in the Declaration of Independence, the Founders meant that men and women share equally in human dignity and in possession of natural rights or freedoms. However, the 1776 Curriculum contains false information about the history of women’s rights in America.
Women at the time were unable to cast ballots, had limited property rights, or make money for themselves if they were married. The 1776 Curriculum is also circumspect about the cause of the Civil War, arguing many Southerners were motivated by “states’ rights” instead of “preserving the institution of slavery.”
According to a November report by the Collegian, Hillsdale College’s student newspaper, “the Hillsdale K-12 Education program currently has 23 member schools, 14 candidate member schools, and 69 curriculum schools across 33 states.” But some Hillsdale-affiliated schools have had performance issues.
According to a report by WFTS Tampa Bay, in the 2021-2022 school year, “three of Hillsdale’s member charter schools in Florida earned an overall ‘C’ by Florida’s Department of Education.” Other Hillsdale-affiliated schools have “complained of interference in individual school management and high fees charged by Barney Charter School Initiative, Hillsdale’s support arm.”
In some states, Hillsdale has had difficulty finding support or sponsors for new charter schools. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) announced in 2022 that “50 Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools would be opened,” but the video that showed Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn and Lee at an event was met with opposition. In the video, Arnn says that teachers “are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges.” Arnn later tried to walk back the comments, stating that he did not “mean ‘unintelligent'” but instead meant “ill-conceived” or “misdirected.”
Arnn, whose yearly compensation is reportedly over $1 million, objects to teaching about race and sexuality in schools. In an email obtained by News Channel 5 Nashville, Arnn said that “highly-charged subjects like racism and sexuality” should not be taught in the classroom, but instead teachers should focus on “classes of substance.”
In 2020, Arnn was named the leader of Trump’s 1776 Commission, which was created to advance a “patriotic education.” Hillsdale’s 1776 Curriculum was released “six months after President Joe Biden dissolved the commission,” although Hillsdale denies any “formal connection” between the two.
