Metro Nashville Public Schools director touts district pandemic recovery to business leaders

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Director Dr. Adrienne Battle told Nashville business leaders the district’s recent national recognition for learning loss recovery followed strategic changes to better serve students.Speaking to the Rotary Club of Nashville Monday, Battle said the district has focused on key changes in recent years, including doubling down on the district’s Tier 1 instruction focus on high quality instructional materials and ensuring the district is operating with a common curriculum at all schools.  Battle says MNPS also worked to remove student barriers with initiatives like high-dosage tutoring and wraparound support.Some of these changes began years ago and Dr. Battle says the pandemic itself provided opportunities for educational innovation.“It gave us an opportunity to just step back and really assess how we were delivering on our promise to a high-quality education for all of our students,” said Dr. Battle.The district credits that work with playing a big role in the Education Recovery Scorecard that found MNPS is for surpassing national trends for pandemic recovery.According to the report, students in Tennessee lost half a grade level in math and 39 percent of a grade level in reading from 2019 to 2022. This learning loss followed a nationwide trend during the pandemic.The research found MNPS ranked third among the top 100 districts in math growth from 2022 to 2023 and the district is ranked sixth among the top 100 districts in reading growth during that same period. The district was one of just two large urban school districts to rank in the top ten for both subjects.“The beautiful thing is, when you think about this particular data set and how we were able to accomplish this substantial growth over the last few years, is that it represents every school in Metro Nashville Public Schools,” said Battle. “This is about every individual student in Metro Nashville Public Schools and our ability to help them grow and achieve at higher levels.”Vanderbilt professor and researcher Jason Grissom joined Dr. Battle at the Chamber meeting to praise the district’s results.“Just really really impressive results for the district,” said Grissom. “We can really be I think proud of the response that the school system that we’re all sort of invested in has the response that they’ve made to the pandemic.”Dr. Battle told business leaders MNPS has multiple strategies to continue the momentum of learning loss growth.  These include a so-called “ESSER Bridge” to continue funding the initiatives that led to that growth.MNPS directed its Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) COVID funds towards high dosage tutoring and other support that played a role in its pandemic recovery. The district’s current plan is to leverage $77 million from unspent funds for the ESSER Bridge.