Monday night, more than 300 academy business partners and Metro Schools educators packed Rocketown for the third annual Academies of Nashville Awards. McGavock High School’s Academy of Aviation and Transportation, currently undergoing its review for accreditation from the National Career Academy Coalition, won the coveted “Academy of the Year” award. The awards were made possible by event sponsors Altria and Deloitte. For a complete list of all the winners, click here.

CEO Champions co-chair Steve Turner and Shoney’s Chairman and CEO David Davoudpour received special awards for their extensive contributions to the Academies of Nashville. Chief Academic Officer Jay Steele surprised the crowd at the beginning of the program by donning sunglasses and singing his own lyrics about the academies to the tune of Queen's “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” while members of his leadership & learning team danced behind him. Elected officials spotted in the crowd included Mayor Karl Dean, State Representative Harold Love Jr., Councilman Steve Glover, and School Board members Cheryl Mayes, Anna Shepherd, Jo Ann Brannon, Elissa Kim and Jill Speering.

To view and download photos from the event, click here. To view and download photos from the red carpet, click here.


CEO Champions Co-Chair Steve Turner and Shoney’s Chairman and CEO David Davoudpour.


Educators from the Academy of Aviation and Transportation at McGavock High School celebrate their win.



Jay Steele and the MNPS Leadership and Learning "Solid Gold Dancers."

Last weekend, I was in San Diego with a team from Metro Schools at the National School Boards Association's annual conference. The four-day gathering draws more than 5,000 school board members and administrators from across the country. MNPS Chief Academic Officer Jay Steele, Board members Cheryl Mayes and Anna Shepherd and I led a presentation of the Academies of Nashville model of high school transformation. We got some great questions, such as how students attend the academy of their choice (they can attend a school outside their attendance zone if there is capacity, but no transportation is provided), and how the academies interact with the International Baccalaureate program (there is a stand-alone IB academy at Hillsboro and the district is expanding opportunities for students from other academies to take IB courses at both Hillsboro and Hunters Lane). I got a chance to visit afterwards with board members from Baton Rouge, La., and Springfield, Mo.

I also attended an excellent session on implementing Common Core state standards in rural school districts. The panel featured Tennessee educators from Polk and Monroe Counties and Lee University. The discussion was moderated by Laura Moore from Tennessee SCORE. Jared Bigham, principal of Copper Basin High School, noted that career and technical education teachers have generally been the first educators to embrace Common Core, because they are used to problem solving, applied learning, and project-based learning. He also opined that Finland is at the top of international rankings in education not because of their school model, but because they draw their teachers from their top university graduates. Several participants in the audience stressed the need for teacher preparation programs to become more selective and train their graduates in how to provide effective instruction within the Common Core curriculum.

President Obama unveiled his proposed fiscal year 2014 budget today, and while it is sure to face significant alteration by Congress (assuming Congress is able to make progress in adopting a budget), there are some noteworthy ideas in the area of education. Backing up the president’s focus on pre-K education in his State of the Union speech, his proposed budget funds a state-federal partnership to provide high-quality early education to all 4-year-olds in low- and moderate-income families, with additional grant funds to entice states to expand pre-K to middle-class families. Tennessee’s pre-K program for low-income families began in 1996 as a pilot serving 600 children under Gov. Don Sundquist. The program continued to grow every few years, but has not been expanded since Gov. Phil Bredesen broadened the program in 2005 to its current level serving 18,600 children.

The proposed budget also contains a $1 billion Race To The Top grant competition for higher education, in which states would develop comprehensive plans to make postsecondary education more affordable, efficient and effective. Tennessee made considerable progress with the Complete College Act in 2010, which eliminated many redundant offerings and altered the higher education funding formula to reward degree completion. In his speech to Chamber members on April 2, Gov. Bill Haslam promised initiatives next year designed to address the rising cost of college tuition, as well as strategies to help Tennessee move from 32 percent of adults with postsecondary degrees to 55 percent by the year 2025.

Of particular interest to Nashvillians engaged in improving K-12 education in our city is the following item on page 82 of the budget summary document:

The budget provides $300 million for a new program to strengthen college- and career-readiness by redesigning high school to focus on providing students with challenging, relevant learning experiences, and rewarding schools that develop new partnerships with colleges and employers to support instruction and to help develop the skills students need to be prepared for jobs now and in the future. In addition, the budget proposes to strengthen and reform career and technical education to better align programs with the needs of employers and higher education.

Sounds exactly like the Academies of Nashville, the transformation of Metro’s 12 zoned high schools that deserves much of the credit for increased graduation rates, attendance, improved discipline and rising math proficiency over the past three years. Perhaps the similarity is not entirely coincidental, since high-level staff from the U.S. Department of Education have made visits to our high schools on several occasions during the past year. Most high schools around the country have looked and operated pretty much the same for the past four decades, if not longer. Nashville has been aggressive about completely shaking up the outdated model of secondary education, changing the way teachers teach and interact with each other and bringing relevance to the common core curriculum through meaningful engagement with our business community. It’s nice to get this virtual “shout-out” from the president and his reform-minded Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.

Over the past 18 months, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce has hosted a series of VIP Tours for community leaders to see firsthand the transformation of Metro’s 12 zoned high schools into the Academies of Nashville. Four of the six scheduled VIP Tours for the current school year have taken place, with a March tour of Overton High School and an April tour of Hunters Lane High School completing the series in 2013. For this year’s tours, we’ve issued a special invitation to principals of elementary schools, middle schools and optional schools. So far, 31 MNPS principals have participated in the four tours this school year.

In addition, Nashville business leaders shared the details of their academy partnerships with tour participants. Bill Lee, CEO of Lee Company, and Dawn Rudolph, CEO of St. Thomas Hospital—both members of the Chamber’s CEO Champions—talked about their work with Cane Ridge High School and Maplewood High School, respectively. Danielle Taylor of Warner Music talked about the country’s first student-run record label at Pearl-Cohn High School. Faith community leaders as well as elected officials were visible tour participants, with 11 Metro Council members, five school board members and three state legislators attending the fall 2012 tours. If you are interested in participating in one of the final two Academy VIP Tours at Overton or Hunters Lane, contact Rita McDonald at 743-3000.

To view a quick video or download pictures from each of the 2012 tours, click on the links below.
Hillwood High School: Photos | Video
Cane Ridge High School: Photos | Video
Maplewood High School: Photos | Video
Pearl-Cohn High School: Photos | Video



Cane Ridge academy ambassador Mazi Byrd leads a tour while CEO Champion Bill Lee listens.


District Lead Principal Elaine Fahrner talks with Pearl-Cohn students Gerald Harris and Treasure West.

The Chamber has launched the second round of Academy VIP Tours with a tour of Hillwood’s academies. More than 65 participants were treated to a district overview of the Academies of Nashville and a whirlwind tour of the school’s academy offerings in health science, communications and hospitality. CEO Champion and President of the HCA Foundation, Joanne Pulles, described the many activities HCA undertakes as an academy partner with the school. As was the case during last year’s VIP tours, the students were the main attraction. The participants broke into three separate touring groups led by Hillwood’s student academy ambassadors. To view photos from the tour, click here.

We’d like to thank each of the elected officials who participated in the Hillwood Academy VIP Tour:

• The Honorable Burkley Allen - Metro Council, District 18
• The Honorable Frank Harrison - Metro Council, District 2
• The Honorable Jason Holleman- Metro Council, District 24
• The Honorable Peter Westerholm - Metro Council, District 6
• The Honorable Brenda Wynn - Davidson County court clerk
• The Honorable JoAnn Brannon- School Board member, District 2
• The Honorable Amy Frogge - School Board member, District 9
• The Honorable Elissa Kim - School Board member, District 5

This year’s tours include a special invitation to the principals of schools that feed into each high school or are located nearby. Joining us at Hillwood were the principals of Bellevue Middle, H.G. Hill Middle, Charlotte Park Elementary, Gower Elementary, Westmeade Elementary, Middle College High School, Nashville Big Picture High School and Overton High School.

To attend the next Academy VIP Tour on Thursday, November 15, at Cane Ridge High School, contact Rita McDonald. The Maplewood tour, originally scheduled for October, will now take place on Wednesday, December 12.


Teacher Coby Ginsburg talks about Hillwood's Academy of Art, Design & Communication.


Jerry Geraghty, CEO of the Rogers Group and a member of the Chamber's CEO Champions, speaks with the Hillwood student ambassadors leading the VIP Tour.

America’s Promise Alliance, a national nonprofit founded by General Colin Powell, is holding a series of “Business-Education Collaborative Summits” across the country. The purpose of these gatherings is for business leaders to share best practices of how to be engaged with K-12 education in a way that produces academic results. I was asked to serve on the opening panel of the regional summit in Boston to share how the Nashville Chamber partners with Metro Schools.

One of the interesting questions that came up that evening was how to make sure these efforts have the right staffing to be successful. I had made the point that a local or state chamber needs to have at least one full-time staffer devoted to the K-12 space. You won’t be successful if the chamber staffer also has responsibility for education, workforce and whatever else the organization needs done. Furthermore, you can’t run an impactful education strategy solely on the backs of volunteers. One of the participants asked if that meant volunteers weren’t important. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chamber members play an essential role at key moments, such as presenting the results of our annual report card, attending a legislative committee meeting, or serving on one of our Academies of Nashville partnership councils. By getting directly engaged in the work, these volunteers enhance the strength and impact of the Chamber. But we have to remember that volunteers have a day job, and that’s running their businesses. It takes full-time, paid staff to work on these issues every day, and the annual investment of our members helps make that possible.

The Boston summit included a visit to the Match Education School, a charter high school that later expanded into the middle and elementary grades on separate campuses. The Match School’s model features an expectation that all students will attend college and provides extended learning, as well as structured tutoring for every student. One of the unique features of the Match School is that the tutoring is provided by novice or aspiring teachers who are full-time participants in the Match Teacher Residency. Most participants in the residency actually live in a dormitory inside the school, working long hours for a modest stipend, with the expectation that they will go on to become full-time faculty at Match or other schools once their residency is completed.

The next Business-Education Collaborative Summit is in Denver December 3-4, with the last summit taking place in Los Angeles in early 2013. You can register for the summits at the America’s Promise website.


Business-Education Collaborative Summit panel, L-R: Rick Hess, American Enterprise Institute; Linda Noonan, Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education; Marc Hill, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce; Vernay Simmons, Prudential Investment Management; Dana Egreczky, New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.


Marc Hill and Mike Larsson, Chief Operating Officer of Match Education

Educators and policymakers from across the country are visiting Nashville to see how we are transforming the traditional high school experience. They are drawn by the extensive involvement of the business community in supporting the Academies of Nashville, with more than 170 academy partnerships across the district. They are also drawn by the results to date—the number of students proficient in high school math has increased dramatically, and the dropout rate has been cut in half, to only 2.3 percent.

The district rolls out the red carpet for our visitors so they can see the Academies of Nashville model firsthand, and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce decided to do the same for community leaders in our own city. Last year, more than 250 Nashville elected officials, faith community leaders, business executives and PTO presidents attended one of six Academy VIP Tours at McGavock, Antioch, Stratford, Whites Creek, Hillsboro and Glencliff. Since there are 12 zoned high schools implementing academies in Metro Schools, this year’s tours will feature Hillwood (September), Cane Ridge and Pearl-Cohn (November), Maplewood (December), Overton (March), and Hunters Lane (April).

To view a brief video highlighting last year’s VIP tours, see below. To attend one of this year’s Academy VIP Tours, contact Rita McDonald at 743-3152 or rmcdonald@nashvillechamber.com.

This week, Hillwood High School celebrated the opening of its newly renovated library. The massive upgrade was funded through a $500,000 private donation from John and Stephanie Ingram, as part of Mayor Dean’s Limitless Libraries initiative, a partnership between Metro Schools and the Nashville Public Library.

The sleek, contemporary design, accented by Hillwood’s signature green, was clearly a hit with teachers and students. From the media specialist’s glass-walled office, to the adjoining classroom with a retractable garage door, the space has a cool factor that will only increase once the "‘Topper Internet Café" is finished (it’s being planned by students in the Academy of Business & Hospitality).

Among the dignitaries joining Mayor Dean and Dr. Jesse Register at the event were newly appointed Davidson County Clerk Brenda Wynn; Tari Hughes, executive director of the Nashville Public Library Foundation; and newly elected school board member Amy Frogge. The new space will get an encore unveiling at Hillwood’s Academy VIP Tour in early September.



John Ingram speaks at the grand opening of Hillwood High School’s library, with Dr. Jesse Register and principal Steve Chauncy.

More than 50 community leaders participated in the final Academy VIP Tour of the school year at Glencliff High School on March 14. Increasingly, Metro’s academies are garnering national—and international—recognition. Earlier this month, 60 school district leaders from around the country spent two days in our city learning about Nashville’s academy model, and a team from Nashville has been asked to make a presentation at an international conference in the UK this June. The purpose of the Academy VIP Tours is to make sure our own community leaders in Nashville are familiar with what the Academies of Nashville are, how they work, and the results to date.

The touring group visited Glencliff’s four academies: the Ford Academy of Business, the Academy of Environmental & Urban Planning, the Academy of Medical Science & Research, and the Academy of Hospitality & Marketing. Student ambassadors led four different touring groups around the school, explaining the various offerings. In an added twist to this tour, students from Hillwood High School’s Academy of Art, Design & Communication were on hand to videotape the tours, which you can watch below.

We’d like to thank the following elected officials for participating in the Glencliff tour:
Metro Council member Buddy Baker
Metro Council member Chris Harmon
Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry
School Board member Ed Kindall
School Board member Gracie Porter

We were also pleased to be joined by two candidates for the state legislature, Harold Love, Jr., and Jason Powell. Also touring were CEO Champions Peggy Cooning (Trevecca Nazarene University), Bill Lee (Lee Company), and Ron Samuels (Avenue Bank), as well as Chamber board member Kent Adams (Caterpillar Financial Services). Members of the PENCIL Foundation board of directors were in attendance, as was Cheryl Carrier of the Ford Motor Company Fund.

We’d like to thank the 30 members of the Metro Council and the nine members of our state legislative delegation who attended a VIP Tour this school year. In addition, special recognition goes to all nine members of the Metropolitan Board of Education, each of whom attended at least one of the tours at Antioch, Glencliff, Hillsboro, McGavock, Stratford, or Whites Creek. We’re excited about plans for Academy VIP Tours at Cane Ridge, Hillwood, Hunters Lane, Maplewood, Overton and Pearl-Cohn during the 2012-2013 school year. To view photos from the tour, click here.


Teacher Deborah Crosby explains what students are working on in the Ford Academy of Business.

The Academies of Nashville is a high school reform model that is improving graduation rates, school attendance and performance on the state’s algebra exam. One of the key elements of the academy model is to create a class schedule that allows teachers of traditional subjects (math, English, science, social studies) to work and plan together with teachers who teach in a career or technical area (CTE). Unfortunately, state law made this very difficult, since all career and technical education class sizes have to be fewer than 25 students, while general high school classes have a maximum class size of 35.

The lower class size for CTE dates back to a time when these courses often involved heavy machinery and equipment. It was, understandably, a safety issue. But most CTE classes in the 21st century don’t look like your vintage shop class. There’s no reason why CTE courses such as marketing, accounting, and banking & finance can’t have the same class size as all the other high school courses. So, in 2008, as Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) first began reorganizing high schools into academies, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce began working with the Tennessee Department of Education to search for a legislative solution to the CTE class size issue. Bruce Opie, the legislative liaison at the time, deserves our sincere thanks for helping to guide the discussions.

Through the leadership of the bill sponsors, Rep. Brenda Gilmore and Sen. Joe Haynes, legislation ultimately passed that year in the form of a two-year pilot for MNPS. The Tennessee Department of Education determined which CTE courses were eligible for the class size flexibility, and courses that involved machinery and equipment stayed at the 25-student limit. The legislation also called for a state study of the pilot, which was never conducted, so in 2010 we worked with the bill sponsors and department to extend the pilot another two years. From the beginning, the legislation was limited to Davidson County because some CTE directors in other parts of the state believed the intent of statewide class size flexibility was to somehow harm or undermine their programs. A similar statewide provision was stripped out of the original Race To the Top legislation in 2010 for the same reasons. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In 2012, the pilot has fulfilled its intended purpose. Principals are clearly using the class size flexibility strategically to help create a master schedule that allows general education and CTE teachers to plan together. Last school year, 78 out of 286 eligible CTE classes in MNPS were using the class size flexibility, a 27% usage rate. The Department of Education did issue its report on the pilot before the current legislative session, calling for the pilot to be extended and studied further. We’d like to thank the Tennessee General Assembly for passing HB2415/SB2883 this session and Governor Haslam for signing the bill into law this week. The Academies of Nashville in MNPS represents the cutting edge of CTE innovation; the question for future General Assemblies will be, what about the rest of the state?


Teacher Deborah Crosby talks about her business CTE class during the Academy VIP tour at Glencliff High School on March 14.

Tom Aaron from Deloitte and Jessica Pierucki from Altria take turns announcing the 2012 nominees for the Academies of Nashville Awards, as the Chamber’s Marc Hill looks on.