Metro High Schools are the Most Challenging in Tennessee

Three schools land on national and statewide rankings from The Washington Post
Nashville, Tennessee - Metro high school students get a rigorous academic experience with the opportunity for advanced classes in every school. The challenge these courses give sets students up for success in college courses and has now also earned them a new national distinction.

Writers at the Washington Post have named Hume-Fogg, Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) and Hillsboro High Schools among “America’s Most Challenging High Schools.” Schools are ranked nationally, regionally and by state, with all three schools scoring in all three categories.

Hume-Fogg and MLK are ranked as the number one and number two most challenging schools in Tennessee, respectively, and Hillsboro comes in at number eight. With three schools on the statewide list, Metro Schools is the most represented district in the top 10.

School	Tennessee Rank	Southern Rank	National Rank
Hume-Fogg Magnet High School	1	40	59
Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet High School	2	60	109
Hillsboro High School	8	423	845

The list was created according to the ratio of students to exams given in Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE). Hume-Fogg and MLK both have high levels of AP participation; last year 604 Hume-Fogg students took 1,433 exams, while at MLK 434 students took 912 exams. Hillsboro offers both AP and IB, with 176 students taking 187 AP exams in 2013 and another 29 students earning full IB diplomas.

All Metro zoned high schools offer advanced academic courses. Hunters Lane was Tennessee’s first IB school, and Antioch High is an IB candidate school, meaning it will offer IB in the near future. Overton, Cane Ridge, Whites Creek and McGavock all offer the AICE program from Cambridge University.

Metro Nashville Public Schools

Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools is the nation’s 42^nd largest district, preparing more than 83,000 students to excel in higher education, work and life. With the goal of being the first choice for Nashville’s families, Metro Schools is committed to providing a high quality education to every student. The district is earning a national reputation for urban school reform, its commitment to social and emotional learning and rising academic achievement, and currently ranks in the top 27 percent of districts in the state for academic performance. Its new strategic plan,Education 2018: Excellence for Every Student, sets the goal of becoming the nation’s top performing urban school system by 2018. The governing body for Metro Schools is the Metropolitan Nashville Board of Public Education, a nine-member elected body. For more information, visit www.mnps.org.