Education - Education & Child Care

According to a study by the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Ohio’s Case Western University, Nashville is one of the 10 most educated metropolitan areas in the United States. U.S. News & World Report and academic journals have recognized the Nashville region’s diverse and outstanding educational institutions. This diversity includes not only the area’s public schools but also literally scores of private elementary and secondary schools, both secular and with church or religious affiliations. Nashville also has highly respected single-sex institutions, including the all-girls Harpeth Hall School and the all-boys Montgomery Bell Academy. Some 20,000 Davidson County students attend private schools—that’s about 23 percent of the total number of school-age children in the county. Tuition in area private schools ranges from about $1,000 to more than $19,000 per year.

Higher education, of course, has long been one of Nashville’s bragging points. The most prominent institutions are Vanderbilt University, with its highly ranked schools of education, medicine, business, and law; Meharry Medical College, a leading educator of African-American doctors and dentists, which has an alliance with Vanderbilt; and Fisk University, which is highly acclaimed not only among historically African-American colleges and universities but also among all postsecondary schools. And these are far from the only options you’ll find in this area. In fact, the region has some 19 colleges and universities offering baccalaureate, graduate, or professional degrees to more than 85,000 students annually.

Overview

This chapter looks at the Nashville metropolitan area’s public school systems; the “best and brightest” private schools, colleges, and universities; and arts and special-needs schools. We also address the child-care issue—which, in some areas, is becoming more and more inseparable from the school issue, as some schools allow children to enter pre-kindergarten as early as age 3.