“My greatest fear for my life and yours is that we’ll just get busy and distracted and settle for a mediocre, unexamined life. It’s that we’ll just settle into life as usual and never become the person God intended for us to be.”
― Pete Wilson, Plan B: What Do You Do When God Doesn’t Show Up the Way You Thought He Would?

Metro Nashville Public Schools is closing out the week with a celebration.

To be fair, they’ve got reason to celebrate.

Superintendent Dr. Adrienne Battle was recently named the 2026 Urban Educator of the Year, receiving the Green-Garner Award for her leadership and the district’s academic improvements. Heady stuff. She follows Joyce Wilkerson, a Philadelphia school board member who received the award in 2025.

The award is billed as the nation’s highest honor for urban education leadership. In Nashville, the celebration comes wrapped in references to historic academic gains, record graduation rates, and expanded opportunities for students.

Those are things worth recognizing. Teachers work hard. Students work hard. Families work hard. Nobody should have to apologize for acknowledging progress.

But a little context belongs alongside the confetti.

Eligibility is limited to leaders from districts belonging to the Council of the Great City Schools. The council has 81 member districts. Membership generally requires a city population above 250,000 and student enrollment above 25,000, with an exception for districts serving the largest city in a state.

That doesn’t make the award meaningless. It does give “the nation’s highest honor” a little more definition.

I’ll let you sort all that out while I offer Dr. Battle congratulations.

Now, about that cake.

Historic for whom?

Yesterday, the district announced that its graduation rate had reached historic levels, rising from 85.7 percent to 86.4 percent.

That is an increase of 0.7 percentage points. Welcome news, certainly. Every additional student crossing that stage matters.

But is it cause for a cake-and-ice-cream celebration that leaves little room for questions?

An 86.4 percent graduation rate means 13.6 percent of the measured cohort did not graduate within the period being counted. That’s nearly 14 out of every 100 students.

If the cohort is roughly 5,000 students, we’re talking about approximately 680 young people. The precise number depends on the actual graduation cohort, which isn’t necessarily the same as the number of enrolled seniors.

Either way, that is a whole lot of kids.

I would argue it is not an insignificant number.

Those students don’t disappear because the headline says “historic.” Their families don’t get to turn the page because the press release has moved on to the next accomplishment.

In accepting her award, Battle offered this:

“We have one simple truth and mantra in Nashville Public Schools, which is Every Student Known,” Dr. Battle said. “We’re unwavering, we’re obsessed over making sure that every Nashville Public Schools student is known, that they’re supported, that they’re valued, cared for, and on a guaranteed path toward success.”

That’s an ambitious promise.

“Guaranteed” is doing a considerable amount of work in that sentence.

Maybe it’s just me, but if we’re eating cake, passing out gift bags, and celebrating a gain of less than one percentage point, somebody ought to be able to explain what happened to the students who didn’t make it.

Who is seeing them?

Who is following up?

And what does a “guaranteed path toward success” mean for the student whose path has already taken a detour?

A district can celebrate progress and answer those questions in the same afternoon. I’d argue it ought to.

Big jumps deserve big explanations

The district has recently faced questions about grade inflation and the reliability of its numbers. Against that backdrop, a couple of passages in the graduation announcement deserve attention.

Here’s one:

“Maplewood High School’s graduation rate increased from 71.2 percent in 2025 to 88.3 percent in 2026. Principal Sonya Brooks said team members meet at least once a month with each senior to provide individualized academic and non-academic supports to ensure they remain on track for graduation.”

And another:

“At Glencliff High School, the graduation rate increased from 61.5 percent in 2025 to 80.8 percent in 2026. Bailey Tidwell, the college and career readiness coach there for the past five years, said every student is assigned to a staff member for all four years.”

Those are increases of 17.1 and 19.3 percentage points, respectively.

Now, I’m not casting aspersions at anyone. I’ve simply been around education policy numbers long enough to know that jumps like those deserve more than a congratulatory paragraph.

They might reflect outstanding work. If they do, let’s understand that work well enough to repeat it.

Why now?

What prevented it in the past?

Is it sustainable?

How large were the cohorts? How did transfers, withdrawals, credit recovery, and other changes affect the results?

Are we comparing students with similar circumstances, or did the composition of the graduating class change?

Those are ordinary questions. They become extraordinary only when an institution treats asking them as evidence of disloyalty.

In urban districts, neighborhood change and gentrification can alter who attends a school. That doesn’t establish what happened at Maplewood or Glencliff. It means enrollment and student mobility belong in the conversation.

The press release offers this explanation:

“One of the things that have led us to our success in our graduation rate is building those relationships step by step and pairing each of our students with an adult in the building,” she said. “It takes a whole staff effort.”

It continues:

“Tidwell said the staff works to ensure that every student not only graduates but also leaves with a postsecondary plan for college, a career, or military service.”

Good. Relationships matter. So does having a plan.

But how does that differ from what happened before? If assigning students an adult and checking in regularly produced this kind of improvement, what kept those practices from being implemented effectively in previous years?

What changed in staffing, scheduling, expectations, or follow-through?

Teachers deserve a better explanation than the suggestion that everybody finally discovered relationships.

And the public deserves enough detail to distinguish a repeatable improvement from a particularly favorable year.

Company is coming

I guarantee you that these are the kinds of questions state lawmakers will be asking when the 2027 General Assembly gets underway.

They won’t be the only questions.

With the state making noise about intervening in MNPS, grandiose proclamations come with a cost. The larger the claim, the more obvious the invitation to inspect it.

You can call that unfair. You can call it politics. Neither description makes the inspection go away.

A higher profile requires stronger answers.

Meanwhile, school board meetings continue to draw disgruntled constituents and educators criticizing district leadership. Television reports keep bringing forward new issues.

This week was no exception.

A former Dodson Elementary employee used public comment to accuse the district of responding to her report of abuse by disparaging her character.

That allegation deserves a response addressing what she reported, how it was investigated, and how she was treated.

It’s an all-too-familiar concern for anyone who followed the retaliation litigation that ended in a $6.5 million settlement.

A settlement, by itself, does not establish that every allegation was proved. It also doesn’t make the underlying concerns evaporate.

District leadership and the board owe the public more than the hope that a large check closes the conversation.

There is a particular settlement provision that continues to bother me: the restriction described as barring the six plaintiffs from future employment across Davidson County government, beyond the school system itself.

What public interest does that serve?

If the purpose was resolving a workplace dispute, why extend the employment consequences beyond that workplace?

I’d love for someone to explain how a restriction that broad encourages the next employee to report wrongdoing.

From where I’m sitting, the message looks pretty clear: speaking up might cost you more than your current job.

That’s a troubling message for a school district to send.

Every student. Every employee. Every question.

Then there is the veteran principal at J.T. Moore.

An educator with 18 years in the principal’s chair is absent, and questions remain about the nature of that absence and a possible return.

I’ve heard it described as FMLA leave and as administrative leave. Those are different things, and I’m not going to pretend that uncertainty is a confirmed explanation.

But the uncertainty doesn’t erase the questions.

Last spring, the principal raised concerns about the rejection of an assistant principal candidate, questioning whether the candidate’s sex played a role. An email raising a potential civil rights issue reportedly went unanswered.

That allegation needs examination. The timeline needs explanation.

It would be irresponsible to declare that one event caused the other without evidence. It would also be irresponsible to decide the questions don’t matter because asking them is uncomfortable.

Then there is Lilith Pipkin, who remains expelled from MNPS while questions persist about the investigation supporting that decision.

The account challenging the district’s actions disputes whether a home visit occurred and says police found insufficient evidence to prosecute.

A police decision not to prosecute does not automatically prevent a school from imposing discipline. Criminal proceedings and school discipline operate under different standards.

But that distinction is the beginning of an explanation, not the end of one.

What evidence supports the district’s decision? Was it tested fairly? Were conflicting accounts considered? Is the punishment proportionate to what can actually be established?

If MNPS is going to impose its harshest school-based consequence, it ought to be able to defend that consequence through a fair process.

“Trust us” is asking a lot under the circumstances.

A couple of years ago, I heard about a teacher whose car was stolen from a high school parking lot during the school day. The account was that a student took the keys from her purse, inside her desk, and was back in her classroom three days later.

That account, too, deserves documentation before it becomes a definitive comparison. But the broader question is reasonable: can families and teachers understand how disciplinary decisions are made?

Consistency doesn’t mean every case gets the same outcome. It means the reasoning should survive explanation.

Hmmm.

Cake doesn’t cure warts

Cake and ice cream don’t cure warts.

Focusing on another part of the body doesn’t make them disappear, either. Neither does ignoring them.

The only way to get rid of warts is to recognize and address them.

A fair amount of responsibility rests with the school board.

Despite outward appearances, I’m not convinced this board is more functional than the board we had a decade ago. It may be quieter. It may produce fewer public disagreements.

That is not necessarily the same thing.

At least a decade ago, you could usually find board members willing to fight for constituents. Sometimes the fighting was messy. Sometimes it was excessive.

But constituents could see somebody carrying their concerns into the room.

This incarnation too often gives the impression that its primary responsibility is protecting Dr. Battle from criticism.

That is not what voters elected them to do.

Supporting a superintendent includes asking difficult questions before those questions become somebody else’s investigation. Protecting the district includes confronting practices that could damage it.

Board members should be able to celebrate an award on Friday and demand an explanation on Monday.

They should be able to defend teachers without treating every administrator as an adversary, and scrutinize administrators without treating every critic as an enemy.

Those are basic expectations of oversight.

As the state continues making noise about taking over the district, MNPS needs to clean its house.

I’d treat it like an upcoming visit from nosy in-laws.

You know they’re coming. You know they’ll open the wrong closet. You know the thing you hoped they wouldn’t notice is exactly what they’ll ask about over dinner.

You wouldn’t throw a rager an hour before they arrived, would you?

Probably ought to follow the same rule here.

By all means, celebrate the gains. Then put down the cake plate and answer the questions.

Look who’s reportedly back

Speaking of familiar faces and unanswered questions, guess who’s reportedly back in town?

None other than former Tennessee chief academic officer Lisa Coons.

For those unfamiliar with the professional administrator, Coons’s résumé includes MNPS, where she oversaw priority schools, followed by Tennessee’s Department of Education and Virginia’s top education job.

Her Nashville tenure deserves a closer look whenever her name surfaces for another leadership position. So do the circumstances of her departure.

I have not been impressed with that chapter of her career.

After MNPS, then-Commissioner Penny Schwinn brought Coons into state leadership, where she became chief academic officer.

The two were quite the change agents.

Readers of this space know that I have a few questions about what all that change accomplished and who was left dealing with the consequences.

As Schwinn’s tenure wound down, Coons moved to Virginia as superintendent of public instruction, essentially that state’s education commissioner.

Her tenure there lasted about two years and ended in resignation amid reporting about procurement concerns, delays in history teaching materials, and staff departures.

Those issues deserve careful sourcing and a distinction between allegations, documented findings, and administrative failures. They also deserve attention before the next job announcement arrives.

A leadership résumé ought to include some accounting of how the previous assignment ended.

After Virginia, Coons went to work for ILO.

That shouldn’t shock anybody familiar with the networks connecting education agencies, advocacy organizations, and consultants.

ILO’s founders include Julia Rafal-Baer, formerly of Chiefs for Change, and Rebecca Shah, who served as Schwinn’s chief of staff.

There are a lot of familiar names in this business.

The firm also faced scrutiny in Rhode Island over contracting. Again, the details matter: what the process required, what occurred, and what officials actually concluded.

But the public has every right to ask those questions when organizations staffed by former education officials seek work connected to public education.

Connections might explain how someone gets in the room. They don’t establish whether the public should pay for what happens once they’re there.

The next chapter

For now, I have no confirmed explanation for what Coons is reportedly doing back in Tennessee.

A return to town doesn’t establish a job offer. Speculation doesn’t establish an appointment.

But with a new governor preparing to take over, familiar names returning to familiar circles will generate questions.

Who is advising whom?

Who is positioning themselves for a role?

And will the next administration examine past performance as closely as it examines professional connections?

I’d like to see that happen.

Tennessee’s educators have lived through enough initiatives, reorganizations, and declarations of historic transformation to deserve some continuity of accountability.

If an idea worked, show us. If it didn’t, explain why. If somebody wants another turn at the wheel, let’s hear what they learned the last time.

That seems a reasonable expectation for people asking to shape the lives of children and the working conditions of teachers.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

At some point, somebody has to stop passing the cake and start asking who’s cleaning up.

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Categories: Education