Jul 26, 2011
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools serve nearly 78,000 students with the goal of being the first choice for families in Nashville and Davidson County. The governing body for MNPS is the Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County Board of Public Education. Until six years ago MNPS schools were performing poorly when a team of eight Metro principals got together and decided things had to change. They applied for a $6 million grant with the collaboration of local business and civic partners aimed at redesigning their schools into small learning communities. Thus began something of a revolution that is transforming secondary education in the Metro area.
Academies of Nashville were established in all MNPS 12 zoned high schools based the concepts of applied learning and rigorous academics. Under this initiative each school identifies themes that are defined as Academies which in turn are comprised of pathways. These are similar to majors in college such as medicine, engineering, and business. All MNPS students are obliged to register for the Freshman Academy and subsequently must choose one of the subject areas to continue through until graduation. This is sometimes referred to as a “wall-to-wall” model in which every student in every MNPS school belongs to an Academy.
The Academies use a theme to engage students and to bring relevance and rigor to the curriculum. All students study core subjects under that theme. For example, a team of math, science, and English teachers teach each subject standards in the context of Health Science. Students in an Engineering Academy learn the core subjects using the principles of engineering, which allows for greater understanding. One of the key advantages is that students have a sense of belonging to a community of learners, a place to fit into, rather than being programmed in educational silos unrelated to each other. Academies help students explore colleges and career options while learning critical 21st-century skills so they can graduate college-ready, career-ready and life-prepared.
Freshman Academies provide students a nurturing environment to ensure high school success. Students in upper grades choose an academy based on their interests. Themes include engineering, science, health care, International Baccalaureate, aviation and many more. Academies partner with area businesses, community agencies and post-secondary institutions to provide an enriched experience in and out of the classroom. Some schools have only two Academies while others have up to four. Academies draw upon
resources within the community to amplify and augment the classroom experience. Businesses such as the Nashville Airport Authority, Gaylord Entertainment, U.S. Community Finance, and Aegis Sciences Corp. have become actively engaged in the Academies. Their interest is in helping schools provide the knowledge and skill set required for their work force. Community colleges and universities are also becoming partners with the Academies out of self interest: the search for increased enrollment among high school graduates.
On March 1, 2011 Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services, the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company, announced that Nashville had been named a Ford Next Generation Learning (Ford NGL) Hub, one of only seven in the entire country. Nashville will offer professional development as well as coaching and mentoring for other communities around the region seeking to develop a master plan for education transformation and local educational, community and business leader engagement. Educators and civic leaders from around the country have take notice and are now coming to observe the Academies of Nashville. Among them was the newly-elected Governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam, who visited McGavock High School in April of this year.
Over the last four years Ford has collaborated with Metro Nashville Public Schools, Alignment Nashville, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and the PENCIL Foundation to create and launch this district-wide high school redesign model. The Ford NGL Essential Practices have served as the foundation for the district’s five-year master plan for high school improvement. More than 100 businesses, including Ford Motor Credit Company, have pledged to support and engage with the Academies of Nashville initiative. The vision of Ford NGL is to mobilize educators, employers, and community leaders to educate and empower a new generation of students who graduate with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the 21st century economy. As part of this announcement, Ford and its Nashville area dealers are investing $10,000 to support the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and Alignment Nashville in their new role as a Ford NGL Hub. The funds will be used for planning, training, and preparation for the continued development of the academies.
Jay Steele, Associate Superintendent of the MNPS system, is often credited with being the biggest promoter of the Academies of Nashville. He has described a very ambitious vision for every graduate of MNPS schools:
A 10-year plan for college and career
An ACT score of 21 or better
A work-based or service learning experience or a research project
At least one course completed virtually
College credit and/or a nationally recognized professional certification.
As a professor in the College of Business at Tennessee State University, I have recently begun to observe and participate in the Academies of Nashville. Last fall we began an initiative we called operation outreach designed to attract under-represented (i.e. immigrant) students from MNPS schools. It was then that I started hearing about Academies of Nashville and learned that universities were encouraged to become partners as well. We attended open house events at several schools and witnessed what some of the Academies were doing and set up our own booth there. We learned that to become an official partner to an Academy one must submit a request to the Pencil Foundation which serves as the broker/ intermediary in the process. Subsequently we have proposed partnering with three schools: Glencliff , Hillsboro, and McGavock. In each case the partnership is to focus initially on business-related Academies. We have made visits to each of the schools and met with their respective Academy Coaches. Eventually we might encourage partnerships involving other TSU colleges such as Engineering and Health Sciences which are among the more popular Academies.
Recently we hosted a delegation of three persons from McGavock High School on our downtown campus. The meeting was well attended by some 20 faculty and staff of the College of Business and other TSU administrators. The primary purpose of this event was to become acquainted with each other and to explore modalities of entering into our partnership. Those are likely to consist of hosting high school students and teachers on field trips to our campus where they will observe our facilities that feature a state-of-the-art electronic Trading Room. The McGavock visit concluded with a tour of the Nashville Business Incubation Center adjacent to our campus where clients in the facility demonstrated their products and services. Our faculty have proposed serving as guest lecturers in McGavock’s Hospitality and Finance Academy, mentoring, and offering curriculum advice in business subject areas. McGavock has invited us to send representatives to the next quarterly meeting of its Academy Advisory Board in August. We look forward to making our contribution to the education of high school students in Metro Nashville.
