High Quality Schools Tag

May 27, 2020 What We Are Learning

What We’re Learning: Updated Data Underscore Unique Features and Challenges for Each MNPS District

Although many of us are quick to associate school leadership with teachers, principals, and superintendents, it is important to remember that many of the key decisions made on behalf of Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) and our community are made by our city’s nine school board members. 

2020 brings another school board election cycle for Nashville – this time for districts 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. As such, there’s no time like the present for all local voters to re-familiarize themselves both with the responsibilities of the MNPS school board and with the schools and students served in each of these nine districts. 

To aid in this pursuit, the Scarlett Family Foundation is excited to release an updated version of our District Data Pages, a collection of profiles featuring achievement, student culture, and teacher data for each MNPS school board district. 

Review the updated District Data Pages here.

These updated pages, consisting of data from the 2018-19 school year, reveal to us a few notable themes.

Total student enrollment has changed dramatically, but only in certain districts.

The most significant decreases in total enrollment can be found in District 1 (North Nashville), which saw a drop of 1,002 students from 2016-17 to 2018-19, and in District 5 (Central & East Nashville), which saw a loss of nearly 4,000 students from 2016-17 to 2018-19. During the same time, District 6 (South Nashville) experienced a boom in student enrollment, growing from 10,765 students in 2016-17 to 13,771 in 2018-19.

The MNPS student body has become increasingly diverse.

When our 2016-17 District Data Pages were assembled, only District 2 (South Nashville)’s student population was so diverse that it had no racial or ethnic majority. The 2018-19 data show that the same can now be said for District 4 (Central & East Nashville). Only in Districts 1, 5 and 8 does any single racial or ethnic demographic group make up 50% or more of the entire student population.

More Nashville students are attending charter schools.

This trend is particularly evident in Central & East Nashville (District 5), where the percentage of students attending public charter schools increased from 38% in the 2016-17 school year to 59% in the 2018-19 school year. This is the only MNPS school board district in which a majority of students attending public schools are attending public charter schools. Northwest Nashville (District 1) saw its own notable increase, jumping from 24% of students attending charter schools in 2016-17 to 32% in 2018-19. Charter school enrollment also grew in Districts 2 (South Nashville) and 6 (South Nashville).  There are no charter schools in Districts 8 or 9 (both Southwest Nashville). 

Every district struggles to get its high school students “College Ready”.

With only 22% of all MNPS students hitting the “College Ready” benchmark (a score of 21 or above on the ACT exam,) achievement in this category is a struggle for every school board district. Not a single district can say the majority of its high school seniors achieved “College Ready” status in 2018-19. Districts 8 (Southwest Nashville) and 9 (Southwest Nashville) saw the highest number of students reaching college readiness, at 44% and 43% respectively. In District 5 (Central & East Nashville,) measures of college readiness range widely, with 47% of students at LEAD Academy high school meeting this mark, while only 9% of its Pearl-Cohn students do the same. 

How does this data connect to the school board?

If the collected information in these district pages prove anything, it’s that each of Nashville’s nine school board districts is unique. In addition to making key decisions around subjects such as budget, curriculum, school calendar, director accountability, school openings and closings, and more, it is crucial that an MNPS board member serve as a voice for the students and families of their unique district. 

In Nashville, school board members are elected by the public; and good data empower parents, advocates, local leaders and community members to cast a confident and informed vote when that vote is required. Though school board districts cannot be fully understood through facts and figures alone, we hope that the at-a-glance information found in these data pages will be helpful to those who seek to better understand the students and school communities in their district before visiting the polls in August.

Nashville residents can find contact information for their school board member here.

The election for school board seats in Districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 will take place on August 6, 2020. 

Find more information on voter registration in Davidson County here.
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July 16, 2019 What We Are Learning

The N/A Epidemic in Nashville High Schools

At the Scarlett Family Foundation, we work towards the goal of one day seeing 100% of our high school graduates prepared for college or career. But in Metro Nashville in 2019, reality is very far from that goal. The numbers tell us that too few high school graduates hit the mark of college and career ready – and in some schools, the number is too low to even report.

In our MNPS Cluster Profiles, we dove deep into local data to understand how Nashville students are faring academically, and to evaluate whether or not our system of public education has adequately prepared them for success at the next level.

We explained how a student’s experience can vary dramatically according to where they live – and we discovered that most of Nashville’s highest performing schools are concentrated in just a few neighborhoods. We placed a spotlight on the unacceptable reality that three out of four students graduating from Nashville public high schools are not considered ready for college or career.

And as we unpacked data from across all twelve MNPS clusters, we found another disturbing trend: the N/A.

Usually, when we look at the performance data for an MNPS school, we would expect to see numbers – actual digits – in the spots reserved for Math and English proficiency rates. Instead, for 10 out of the 12 MNPS high schools, we see only N/A, or “not available”.

The N/A is easy to ignore; but in fact, it can tell us a lot about the state of Nashville’s schools. Unfortunately, the news is not good.

 

Proficiency or N/A: What does it mean and why does it matter?

Tennessee tracks proficiency by counting the number of students who are “on track,” meaning they’ve learned the subject material in relation to the state’s learning standards for their grade level, or “mastered,” which means they have extensive understanding and expert ability of the subject. Proficiency in Math and English Language Arts is the most commonly used indicator of a school’s ability to effectively prepare students.

Sometimes, proficiency levels are very high (95% or more) or very low (5% or less). In these cases, the state suppresses— or does not publicly release— a school’s proficiency data in order to protect the identity of that school’s students. Instead of a percentage, the schools receive an “N/A” score for Math, English Language Arts, or both.

Consider the following example to understand why this practice exists: One high school has a senior class of 20 people, and only one student (or 5% of the class) scores “on track” or has “mastered” the material. The state contends that if this data is made publicly-available, a person who is familiar with the school, or its students, might easily discern which student is the high-performer— and which 19 students are not on track.

Although the N/A can also be used as a substitute for near-perfect proficiency rates, it’s unlikely that this is the reason it appears here. In our city, this abbreviation is attached only to schools we know to be the lowest performing. N/A stands not in the place of very high proficiency numbers, but of very low.

 

The Troubling N/A Epidemic in Nashville

According to the most recently available data, ten of MNPS’ twelve traditional high schools register “N/A” proficiency scores— student proficiency below five percent in English, Math or both subjects. For the 2017-2018 school year:

Three high schools (Stratford STEM, Whites Creek and Maplewood) have N/A listed for both Math and English. These three high schools represent 2,563 students— but fewer than 130 students in all of these schools combined scored proficient in either of the core subject areas.

At the other seven schools, representing almost 10,000 students in total, only one in ten (or fewer) students met English standards for their grade level. All of these schools also show an N/A for math skills.

There are only two traditional high schools that do not have an N/A for either Math or English Language Arts:  Hillwood and Hillsboro. However, proficiency levels for those schools are still low, and do not exceed 23% in either subject at either school.

 

Combatting the N/A Epidemic

Nashville’s N/A crisis has reached epidemic proportions. The lack of core subject proficiency across our traditional high school population is bound to impact the health of our city as a whole. Without a solid understanding of Math and English Language Arts, how can we expect students to succeed in higher education, or in the workforce? These are Nashville’s children, and its future economic talent pool. How can we continue to thrive as a city if fewer than 5% of our high school students are reaching academic proficiency?

The story behind N/A is that thousands of our high school students are moving through grade levels, from freshman to senior year, without ever having grasped the core competencies of math and English. N/A means that each year, our high school graduates are entering the workforce or college ill-prepared for the challenges that await them.

Most significantly, N/A means our city has failed to provide these students with the quality education they have a right to receive.

On behalf of the thousands of Nashville students who are slipping through the cracks, we urge you to join us in taking urgent action:

  • Share the data. Nashville needs more of its residents to understand the challenges our public education system faces, and to get involved. The N/A epidemic affects us all – no matter if you live on the Westside, Northside, Eastside or Southside. Every single child in Nashville deserves access to a high-quality public school.
  • Raise your voice. Demand that school board members and district leadership create a triage plan to help the students who are in schools today. We are witnessing a public education system in crisis, beginning with early childhood education and continuing through to adulthood. We must act now.
  • Volunteer your time. To establish a firm foundation for their academic futures, children need to be reading at grade level by the end of third grade. Become a mentor to a student, or read 20 minutes a day to a child who needs it. Today, only 25% of Nashville’s third graders have mastered or are on track in English Language Arts.
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June 19, 2019 What We Are Learning

What does school choice mean for Nashville families?

In Nashville, a child’s path to a high-quality school may extend far beyond his or her neighborhood block. That’s because, in Davidson county, families have the ability to take charge of their own education pathway through the school choice process. Access to school choice helps to ensure that families can choose the best possible fit for their children’s unique needs; and Nashville parents do have a wide array of school type options from which to choose.

Families in Davidson County can choose to educate their children in traditional public schools, public charter schools, optional and magnet schools, homeschool, or in dozens of nearby private schools.

But school choice only serves families if they are fully aware of their options, and understand how to access or pay for them. And even if parents are knowledgeable about their options, they may face barriers that prevent them from successfully enrolling their children in their top-choice schools, challenges like a limited number of open seats, transportation costs, or private school tuition.

If we want to ensure that all Nashville students receive an excellent education, we need more high-quality schools, regardless of type, existing in all neighborhoods. True school choice only exists when there are many good schools from which parents can choose, along with clear, widely available information about those options.

In an effort to help fill that gap, we have put together a short primer on School Choice Options in Nashville.

Public Traditional Schools

Metro Nashville Public Schools is divided into 12 clusters, or zones— with all traditional public elementary and middle schools feeding into one high school per zone.

Families in Davidson County are zoned to a traditional public school according to their home address, and will follow an assigned pathway from elementary to middle to high school. Traditional public schools are free to attend, and students are guaranteed a seat in their zoned neighborhood school. Parents can find their zoned school option through the MNPS online tool, ZoneFinder.

The Scarlett Family Foundation recently released Cluster Profiles to trace the experience of students who follow their assigned zoned pathway for all years of their education. When we look at cluster-level data, we find that student access to quality public education looks drastically different depending on where a student lives.

Public Option Schools

In Nashville, we have a variety of public schools available to our students beyond traditional schools, including public charter schools, optional schools, magnet schools, and alternative schools. All of these options are tuition-free public schools. To help families sort through these options and make an informed decision about what best fits their student’s needs, MNPS offers an online tool, School Match, that provides information on the variety of schools and programs offered within the district, as well as step-by-step instructions to apply.

Charter Schools

In addition to traditional zoned neighborhood schools, families in Nashville also have access to tuition-free public charter schools. Charter schools are independently run public schools that are granted increased flexibility in exchange for greater accountability around student growth and achievement. Sometimes, a public charter school will receive more applications than it has open seats. In these cases, students are accepted based on a lottery system. But four of Nashville’s public charter schools actually function as zoned public school options for their neighborhoods, meaning all students with a home address in these zones will be admitted if they wish to attend.

To help parents see and understand their options, we created Charter School Profiles that feature key metrics for each school. With this information, parents can compare the performance of Nashville’s charter schools to other options in the city.

Optional Schools

In additional to zoned traditional and public charter schools, Nashville families also have the option to enroll their children in a public school that is not in their assigned zone through the district’s optional school transfer application. This allows students to access programs and offerings at different public schools throughout the city.

But not every optional school is open to every student. Some have academic eligibility requirements, and many have a limited number of available seats.

Academic Magnet Schools

Academic magnet schoolsare tuition-free public schools that offer specialized courses. In Nashville, these schools range from Head Magnet Middle School of Science and Math to Glendale Spanish Immersion School.

Some have additional academic requirements to enroll, like Hume-Fogg High School, Martin Luther King, Jr School (7-12) and Meigs Middle. These three schools are among the highest performing schools in the district, but are only accessible to students who have met specific academic criteria.

Other Public Options

MNPS offers several other optional schools, ranging from Stanford Montessori Elementary School to the Nashville School of the Arts. These schools provide students and families the opportunity to take advantage of a variety of curricula, regardless of where they live.

Another optional school, Nashville Big Picture High School, provides students learning opportunities in the form of internships, workshops, and community volunteering. Middle College High School allows students to take classes on a college campus and earn post-secondary credit throughout their junior and senior years.

MNPS is also home to the first public online school in the state of Tennessee, MNPS Virtual School. As an optional school within MNPS, Virtual School is free and open to all residents of Davidson County, and is available to students interested in learning from home or outside of the traditional school setting, on a full or part-time basis.

In order to serve the children in Davidson county who have special needs, MNPS also has a number of schools dedicated to providing specialized staff, assistance and programming to these students. Additionally, Alternative Learning Centers provide an education option for students who would otherwise be excluded from public education due to expulsion from school.

Private

In addition to public school options, Nashville is home to dozens of private schools. Parents who desire a private education for their children must decide how to pay the tuition, a cost that varies significantly school-to-school. There are a handful of religious schools in the area with tuition costs between $5,000 and $9,000 per student per year, but the costs of most private schools in Nashville reach much higher— often ranging from $12,000 to $20,000 or more per year. There may also be application fees, technology fees, school trip costs, or supply purchases on top of that. But many private schools do offer need-based financial aid and tuition assistance to attract a diverse group of students.

The principal types of private schools located in or near Nashville are:

  • Independent religious schools – not affiliated with a specific church, but offering families a faith-centered education option.
  • Parochial schools – supported by a specific church or denomination. These schools commonly offer tuition subsidies for church members, and reduced tuition for families enrolling more than one student. Because of these considerations, parochial schools are often on the more affordable end of the private school spectrum.
  • Montessori schools – based on the Montessori method of education, which focuses heavily on child-led, activity-based learning.
  • Independent private schools – have no religious affiliation. Nashville is home to girls-only, boys-only, and co-educational independent private schools.

In 2019, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation to create Education Savings Accounts (ESA). The ESA program that will allow students and families in the state’s two-lowest performing school districts to access state funds that can then be put towards certain education-related expenses, including tuition at participating private schools. Tennessee’s ESA program, which will be in place no later than the 2021-2022 school year, will provide $7,300 of state funds per child to eligible families in Davidson County.

Homeschool

Parents may also decide to educate their children at home through homeschooling. Families interested in pursuing homeschooling have several paths to doing so, and should ensure that they are in line with Tennessee laws and requirements.

What’s next?

By giving Nashville families the autonomy to make their own schooling choices, our city increases the likelihood that students will be able to enroll in a best-fit school. However, school choice alone can only do so much; Nashville must have abundant high-quality school options if we want to ensure that every student is receiving an excellent education.

As our city works towards this goal, we must evaluate what is working in our schools and what is not. Clear information about the performance of available school options should drive a family’s school choice process. When this information is accurate, understandable, and shared widely, parents and local leaders alike can make sound decisions around education in Nashville.

Explore the local education landscape further by checking out our Nashville Education Facts webpage.


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June 10, 2019 What We Are Learning

Homework Hotline: Providing cost-free tutoring to Tennessee students

For most Middle Tennessee students, the school day doesn’t end when the final bell rings – it follows them home, where they’ll continue to build on their classroom learning through homework assignments. But in this setting, there is no teacher on hand to help if the student faces a stumbling block, and parents or guardians may not be able to provide the guidance needed.

Since 1990, Homework Hotline has provided a solution to this challenge by offering cost-free tutoring to Tennessee students. In the 2018-19 school year alone, Homework Hotline teachers completed 11,731 tutoring sessions with 6,314 unique students, parents or guardians, sessions that totaled 3,780 hours of tutoring – all of it completely free.

The Scarlett Family Foundation has supported Homework Hotline (HH) since 2008. Each school year, Homework Hotline pairs thousands of Tennessee students and their families with certified teachers who can guide them through even the most challenging homework problems.

HH teachers work with all K-12 students, regardless of learning style or educational background, and can do so by phone or through online chat. Teachers and students can even learn together via an online whiteboard, allowing teachers to coach their students step-by-step through the problem-solving process. Students can also share typed essays with HH teachers to receive real-time, savable feedback. By making use of phone or online communication, HH brings homework help right into a student’s home – eliminating the need for a student to travel to a tutoring center.

Homework Hotline also recognizes that Tennessee students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and with different abilities, and seeks to find ways to serve all populations. That’s why the organization employs teachers who speak English, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Farsi, and Swahili. Students who are hearing-impaired can also work with HH teachers through the online chat feature, or by texting photos of their homework to the teacher using the Image Share program.

Homework Hotline strives to be innovative in their offerings in order to ensure that all students can learn and understand their assignments. In 2018, 94% of students expressed understanding of a concept and 83% proved mastery when given a post-test. By providing free, accessible, high-quality homework help, Homework Hotline prepares Tennessee students for success.


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June 20, 2018 What We Are Learning

Nashville Newcomers Academy: Supporting Newcomer Students so They Can Succeed in School and Life

Almost 19 percent of Metro Nashville Public Schools’ student population qualifies as English Language Learners (ELLs). This means MNPS alone serves one-third of the states’ students who are learning English. With the right support, and intensive focus on their unique needs, these newcomer students can not only integrate socially— but also succeed in school and life.

So in 2016, the Foundation helped launch the Nashville Newcomers Academy (NNA), an innovative, first-of-its-kind partnership between MNPS and public charter school STEM Prep Academy to serve our newest young Americans with the most urgent needs.

Funding specifically supported placing additional highly-trained teachers in classrooms at the school to provide direct, intensive language instruction and co-facilitate the school’s inquiry-based college preparatory curriculum within general education classes. Through focused delivery of instruction and services, NNA is advancing immigrant and refugee students’ social-emotional well-being while promoting stability and empowerment within a small, safe classroom environment. Nearly 100 percent of NNA students have experienced interrupted formal education, and in some cases, no formal education.  To support social integration and preserve important cultural identities, students participate in daily advisories with diverse peers, trauma-informed group and individual sessions with the school’s counseling team, and are paired with an older peer to help them thrive socially as well as academically.

To be eligible to attend the Nashville Newcomer Academy, students must have lived in the United States for less than one year and scored the lowest possible level on the state’s English language assessment given to all students with non-English language backgrounds. The program annually serves over 100 students in grades 5-9.  NNA students represent over 20 different native countries from around the globe.

To date, in reading these students have grown four grade levels in one school year, beginning with no alphabet recognition to reading at a high third grade level.  NNA students’ attendance averages 95%.

The Academy also advances achievement of this population district-wide through a demonstration school model and provides professional development for educators at other schools serving high concentrations of newcomer students.

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