Effects of Career Academies on Metropolitan Nashville Public High Schools: A Quantitative Study

Metro Nashville Public Schools has transitioned each of their 12 zoned high schools to the academy model. The original basis of this study was to analyze student achievement and engagement between the different academies within MNPS high schools. However, as the study proceeded with data analysis, a need for baseline data became evident due to lack of completion during the initial five years of the transition to the academy model. The findings show with regard to student achievement that 50% of schools across the nation are scoring better than MNPS on the national percentiles for the PLAN ACT. The researchers chose to use PLAN ACT instead of ACT with regard to student achievement because it is a better predictor of student achievement for the purpose of this study. It can be concluded from the research that females had higher graduation rates overall. With regard to student engagement, it can also be concluded that attendance rates among all twelve academies were over 85%. When disaggregated by ethnic groups in the sample it was found that all had at or above a 90% attendance rate. The researchers also drew the conclusion that there was a disparity between the ratios of in-school suspensions (ISS) and out-of-school suspensions (OSS). This could possibly suggest inconsistency in how these discipline measures were implemented across MNPS academies