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I've seen a lot of posts talking about how poor or "troubled" public schools are in Nashville, and many times I've seen people say that some of the elementary schools are good but the middle schools aren't. So I have a few questions
Can a few of you elaborate on that please? What makes the middle schools so much more challenged that the elementary schools?
My wife and I are continuing to look at the Green Hills neighborhood as a place to live, our son will be a 10 year old when we move to Nashville. Now, I'm very much on the outside looking in, but I find it somewhat hard to believe that a fairly affluent neighborhood like Green Hills has public schools that are THAT bad. And I doubt that every family from that neighborhood sends their kids to private schools! Most of the private schools in Nashville that we've seen are $17,000 a year per kid!
Can a few of you please elaborate specifically on the schools in the Green Hills neighborhood? Specifically JT Meade Middle School?
And finally, do you feel that, in general, the public schools in Nashville are moving in a particular direction? i.e. are they getting better or worse? And if so, why?
I thank all of you in advance. This forum has been a tremendous help. I'm very much looking forward to moving to Nashville. I love the city of Nashville so much.
I'm a musician and I'll be working at the clubs on Lower Broadway downtown, and I cannot drive due to a condition with my eyes. So unfortunately, for us, the "live in Franklin or Brentwood and send your kid to a private school there" thing isn't really an option for us.
I've seen a lot of posts talking about how poor or "troubled" public schools are in Nashville, and many times I've seen people say that some of the elementary schools are good but the middle schools aren't. So I have a few questions
Can a few of you elaborate on that please? What makes the middle schools so much more challenged that the elementary schools?
My wife and I are continuing to look at the Green Hills neighborhood as a place to live, our son will be a 10 year old when we move to Nashville. Now, I'm very much on the outside looking in, but I find it somewhat hard to believe that a fairly affluent neighborhood like Green Hills has public schools that are THAT bad. And I doubt that every family from that neighborhood sends their kids to private schools! Most of the private schools in Nashville that we've seen are $17,000 a year per kid!
Can a few of you please elaborate specifically on the schools in the Green Hills neighborhood? Specifically JT Meade Middle School?
And finally, do you feel that, in general, the public schools in Nashville are moving in a particular direction? i.e. are they getting better or worse? And if so, why?
I thank all of you in advance. This forum has been a tremendous help. I'm very much looking forward to moving to Nashville. I love the city of Nashville so much.
I'm a musician and I'll be working at the clubs on Lower Broadway downtown, and I cannot drive due to a condition with my eyes. So unfortunately, for us, the "live in Franklin or Brentwood and send your kid to a private school there" thing isn't really an option for us.
Here's to give you a flavor of what to expect.
If you live in Green Hills, chances are your child will be zoned for Percy Priest Elementary (maybe Julia Green). The CRT grades average all A's. They have a much lower percentage of students below proficiency standards when compared to state standards, and there are very little suspensions occuring here. See the data in the link below:
JT Moore Middle is the middle school in Green Hills your children might go to. It is much more economically diverse than its elementary counterparts. It's suspensions are much higher than an average middle school, its CRT grades average a C+, and they have a much higher percentage of students testing below state average proficiency standards. And in my opinion, JT Moore is in one of the nicest areas of Nashville. That doesn't bode well for the rest of the middle and high schools. See the data for JT Moore in the below link.
Hillsboro High School is the next step for your kids. It's CRT grades are comparable to JT Moore, the number of students under state proficiency standards doubles the state average. That's awful. I won't even continue about the number of suspensions because that said it all. Here's the data for Hillsboro High.
I think the overall reason is that there are plenty of elementary schools in Nashville that can be zoned appropriately for the people living around those schools, but there are much fewer middle and high schools in the area and that means a wide range of people will end up all going to the same schools. Meaning if you live in Green Hills, you would think Hillsboro High School would be a great school because of the area, but most of the students attending that school are from impoverished areas of Nashville and are bused there. It's a pretty good school from the standpoint of teachers and staff and education, but there are a lot of discipline problems that happen there and I would not want my child to ever be a part of that (when I have kids that is). Also, if I see a school that averages a C+ or lower on it's scores, you can bet my kids won't go there. It truly is a shame. My wife lived in Green Hills most of her life and I'd love to live there myself, but I don't want to pay for private schools, but I want my kids to get the best education they can find and that requires us living in the 'burbs' unless we decide a private school education is right for them. I don't think the majority of private schools are as expensive as what you quoted though. Lipsomb is under $10k per year per child. That is a lot, but cheaper than MBA or Ensworth. It's also in the Green Hills area which would be very convenient if you chose to live there. My wife went there all the way through college and loved it.
Last edited by Raiderstudent; 02-23-2012 at 01:02 PM..
JT Moore is a good middle school and so is West End Middle. They both offer the IB program.
Hillsboro is the best non-magnet high school in Davidson. In 2010 it ranked #822 in the list of Newsweek's best high schools. (This was above most Williamson Co high schools and 5th best in the state). It offers the IB program as well. It also was the only TN school on the list with over 40% of its students receiving reduced cost lunches. That's impressive.
You will also have the opportunity, as a Davidson resident, to get into one of the magnet schools and Hume-Fogg is the "hands down" best public school in the state and one of the best in the nation.
I do believe that parents with children in all schools but especially Metro/Davidson schools absolutely have to have a sincere interest in their child's education. The urban schools come with many more challenges and will require more work on the part of the parent to make sure the child succeeds.
Something that people who look at these schools from the outside in rarely seem to mention is that schools the size of Hillsboro have multiple social and academic worlds inside of one building. Generalizations are rarely useful when we talk about such complex organisms.
Even in schools performing below state or national standards, there are often substantial segments of kids performing above them. When a school has programs specifically directed toward the gifted, IB programs (like Hillsboro), etc., often the experience that those kids will have will be entirely different from their peers in the "mainstream."
I have firsthand experience with this phenomenon. In the urban public high school I attended in Pittsburgh circa 1997, there were approximately 500 kids in my class. I think that there were 20-30 in the advanced/"gifted" program -- which is to say, 5% or less of the student body generally. If you looked at that school by the averages, you would say that it was underperforming, and the people on this forum would advise you not to send your children there. In reality, kids within this "gifted" subgroup got as much or more out of the school as their suburban peers, and the vast majority of them ended up getting the same test scores and going to the same good colleges as they would have, had they been privately educated. Parental involvement, positive peer groups, and teacher encouragement plays a huge part in this.
This is actually a good example of the reference class problem, which I hadn't thought about until now!
I'm really struggling with this now. We're moving to Nashville later this summer and we're looking for houses (we may rent initially and then buy). We're looking at the Green Hills area and Brentwood. Looking at the elementary schools in Green Hills (Percy Priest and Julia Green) they actually score better than every elementary school in Williamson County. However, the middle schools and high schools are much lower than the average in Williamson County. For Percy Priest 82% of their students performed at a proficient or advanced level in math while 85% of the students performed at proficient or advanced for language arts and reading. That compares to state averages of 41% and 54%, respectively.
What's amazing is Hume Fogg with 100% of its student at proficient or advanced in math and 100% performed at proficient or advanced in language and reading. That compares to state averages of 55% and 69%.
Of course, what worries me is that the middle schools don't seem to offer the excellence of Percy Priest or Hume-Fogg.
This all may be moot in the end. Does Percy Priest score as well as it does because the majority of the kids have parents who are highly educated, intelligent, and emphasize education? And, without a doubt, when Hume-Fogg selects the students that can attend there it is essentially guaranteeing success by simply refusing to admit anyone who doesn't school well at the middle school level. I'm sure there is some synergy among students that keeps them all propelling forward at Hume-Fogg because that's the culture and the norm there.
Something that people who look at these schools from the outside in rarely seem to mention is that schools the size of Hillsboro have multiple social and academic worlds inside of one building. Generalizations are rarely useful when we talk about such complex organisms.
Even in schools performing below state or national standards, there are often substantial segments of kids performing above them. When a school has programs specifically directed toward the gifted, IB programs (like Hillsboro), etc., often the experience that those kids will have will be entirely different from their peers in the "mainstream."
I have firsthand experience with this phenomenon. In the urban public high school I attended in Pittsburgh circa 1997, there were approximately 500 kids in my class. I think that there were 20-30 in the advanced/"gifted" program -- which is to say, 5% or less of the student body generally. If you looked at that school by the averages, you would say that it was underperforming, and the people on this forum would advise you not to send your children there. In reality, kids within this "gifted" subgroup got as much or more out of the school as their suburban peers, and the vast majority of them ended up getting the same test scores and going to the same good colleges as they would have, had they been privately educated. Parental involvement, positive peer groups, and teacher encouragement plays a huge part in this.
This is actually a good example of the reference class problem, which I hadn't thought about until now!
I was about to post something similar to this. I graduated from John Overton here in Nashville and had a similar experience. While not quite as strong Hillsboro, it is one of the best non-magnet high schools in Davidson County (or at least it was when I graduated not so long ago).
Students were placed on different tracks based on academic ability. In my experience, the students on the AP/Honors track had the majority of their classes together throughout entire four years. The very top students in the highest level AP courses are students who would have fit right in at Hume-Fogg. They either just didn't get in through the lottery or didn't apply. Most of students I spent the most time with all went on to do pretty well. I started college practically a sophomore and ultimately went on to a top ten law school (one of my classmates actually ended up at the same school law school as well). Another friend went on to Cal Tech. Also, two attorneys I work with graduated from Hillsboro around the same time as me.
Plenty of students can do well in Davidson County public schools under the right circumstances. The main differences between the academic magnet program and regular city public schools to me seemed to be the overall rigor of the coursework and the exposure to student from so many different backgrounds (with many different sets of problems). The socio-economic disparity between students also seemed more apparent and there were more "issues" (cafeteria fights, culture clashes, smoking in the courtyard, the occasional drug bust, etc.), but I never felt as if I was receiving a poor education. With all that said, I would probably be a bit more leery of middle and high school in Davidson County if my child had academic or behaviour problems. But good students with a strong foundation from home seem to excel just fine even in city public schools all the time.
Does Percy Priest score as well as it does because the majority of the kids have parents who are highly educated, intelligent, and emphasize education? And, without a doubt, when Hume-Fogg selects the students that can attend there it is essentially guaranteeing success by simply refusing to admit anyone who doesn't school well at the middle school level.
This.
We chose Brentwood High because, to us, it is the total package. The middle school that feeds into it is excellent, and they as well as BHS have basically NO discipline issues.
BHS offers 22 AP classes, and the average composite ACT score there is 25. It has lots of arts offerings and many championship-level sports teams. Our kids are happy and have lots of opportunities there.
You really should just choose the place where you will be happy. If you WANT to live in Green Hills and feel like you are talking yourself into moving to the 'burbs, go with your gut. You should visit all the schools yourself to find out what they really feel like to you.
Something that people who look at these schools from the outside in rarely seem to mention is that schools the size of Hillsboro have multiple social and academic worlds inside of one building. Generalizations are rarely useful when we talk about such complex organisms.
Even in schools performing below state or national standards, there are often substantial segments of kids performing above them. When a school has programs specifically directed toward the gifted, IB programs (like Hillsboro), etc., often the experience that those kids will have will be entirely different from their peers in the "mainstream."
I have firsthand experience with this phenomenon. In the urban public high school I attended in Pittsburgh circa 1997, there were approximately 500 kids in my class. I think that there were 20-30 in the advanced/"gifted" program -- which is to say, 5% or less of the student body generally. If you looked at that school by the averages, you would say that it was underperforming, and the people on this forum would advise you not to send your children there. In reality, kids within this "gifted" subgroup got as much or more out of the school as their suburban peers, and the vast majority of them ended up getting the same test scores and going to the same good colleges as they would have, had they been privately educated. Parental involvement, positive peer groups, and teacher encouragement plays a huge part in this.
This is actually a good example of the reference class problem, which I hadn't thought about until now!
I don't think people from the "outside" are misconstruing anything. I'm sure if you raise your children right and ensure they stay on top of their education, they can do fine anywhere. But does that mean it's perfectly fine putting them in a school with triple to quadruple the suspension rates as other schools? Your child may go through the same AP classes with the same students year after year and do fine academically, but what about the other aspects of high school? It would be harder to engage in sports, extra curricular activities, etc. I've had a couple of friends who actually tried out Hillsboro High. It lasted a week before they were pulled out. They were taunted multiple times the first week of school and witnessed two fights. Is that where you want to put your children? Maybe so, and that's fine. But not me. I'll take the 'burb' schools over that any day.
^ The reality is that not every parent can afford to live in Brentwood or Franklin or send their kids to one of the private schools. Also, not everyone has the desire to live in a suburban community or a satellite town for various reasons. In order for these parents to make their own well-informed decisions, they do need to understand how it's feasible for their children to have a good public education in Nashville even if they do not attend an academic magnet.
^ The reality is that not every parent can afford to live in Brentwood or Franklin or send their kids to one of the private schools. Also, not everyone has the desire to live in a suburban community or a satellite town for various reasons. In order for these parents to make their own well-informed decisions, they do need to understand how it's feasible for their children to have a good public education in Nashville even if they do not attend an academic magnet.
I agree. Those are the choices everyone needs to make. You don't have to live in Brentwood or Franklin, BUT if you are inquiring about living in Green Hills, it seems like you could afford that. If you are a parent and choose to live in the city and not private/magnet school your child, you just need to be aware that it won't be as easy on your child than if they went to school elsewhere. I'd personally like to see my kids play enjoy school sports (if they choose) like Soccer, Baseball, Golf or even Dance and not spend their time counting the number of fights or drug busts they see in a week's time. Not really a possibility at most of these schools though. To each his own.
Last edited by JMT; 02-24-2012 at 10:46 AM..
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