It delivered one of the biggest blows in Nashville’s fight over charter schools — a spreadsheet compiled by Metro Nashville Public Schools that suggested a suspiciously high number of students exit charters midyear and return to traditional schools.
The implication: Charters were weeding out low-performing students before end-of-year testing, improving the schools’ results.
But more than one year after a debate on student attrition widened a gulf between charters and the district, a team of Vanderbilt researchers contends there is no evidence of a larger exodus of students from charters.
Instead, a 75-page Vanderbilt Capstone study conducted at the request of Metro Schools calls poverty the root of a widespread mobility problem in Davidson County — students routinely moving from one school to another.
It recommends that the Metro school system improve its data collection on why students transfer, conduct exit interviews when students leave and enhance communication with transfers within both charter operators and the district.