The top reported proficiency rate is 41% in Science. The lowest is 30% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Bradley Academy - an Arts Integrated School
Bradley Academy - An Arts Integrated School sits in Murfreesboro, a fast-growing suburb and the seat of Rutherford County. Murfreesboro has been among the fastest-growing cities in Tennessee for decades, driven by its proximity to Nashville, the presence of Middle Tennessee State University, and major employers like Nissan, Amazon, and the county’s own government and schools. The city is car-oriented and served by Interstates 24 and another major highway, with a traditional downtown centered on the Rutherford County Courthouse and civic anchors including the Stones River National Battlefield and the Discovery Center at Murfree Spring. Housing values in the area are near the state benchmark, and rents have been rising slightly year over year, while the national mortgage rate sits in the mid-six-percent range.
Bradley Academy is a regular public school within the Murfreesboro City Schools district, which serves students from Pre-K through sixth grade. The school itself serves kindergarten through sixth grade. Because the district ends at grade six, Bradley Academy has no high school and therefore no graduation rate to report. Its enrollment is moderate for an elementary and middle school. The student body is racially and ethnically diverse: slightly more than a third of students are Black, slightly more than a third are Hispanic, and the remainder are White, multiracial, or from other backgrounds. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not available in the source records, and neither was information on the proportion of students with individualized education plans or English learner designations. A parent who wants to understand the economic and special-education profile of the school would need to ask the school or district directly.
On state assessments, Bradley Academy’s results are below the midpoint among districts in Rutherford County. Proficiency rates in math, English language arts, science, and social studies were all below the county median for the tested grades. In math, about two-fifths of students scored at the proficient level or above, a figure that put the school in the bottom quarter among county peers. English language arts proficiency was lower still, at about a third of students. Science proficiency was around two-fifths, and social studies, which was tested with a smaller group, was about three in ten. These numbers are reported by the state from the TNReady assessments. The school’s overall proficiency index across subjects and grades placed it in the bottom quartile relative to other districts in Rutherford County. A parent considering Bradley Academy will want to explore what academic supports and interventions are in place and whether the school’s arts-integrated approach is designed to strengthen core academic outcomes.
The school is named for its arts focus. Its formal title calls out arts integration, though specific details on how the curriculum embeds the arts were not provided in the available data. No information on course offerings, advanced programs, or enrichment beyond the arts emphasis was included. For a family drawn to a school where the arts are woven into daily instruction, Bradley Academy offers that distinctive approach, but the academic performance data is a significant consideration, particularly in English language arts and math.
The district itself, Murfreesboro City Schools, is a Pre-K through sixth-grade system with roughly a dozen schools. The parent-relevant changes search turned up no recent policy, curriculum, or property-tax changes meeting the reporting threshold, so a reader should not assume any major recent shifts in district operations or finances. The school’s civil rights data and discipline statistics were not available, and neither were staffing ratios or attendance figures. Those are gaps a prospective family would want to fill by contacting the school or visiting in person.
Bradley Academy presents a clear picture: a diverse, mid-sized elementary and middle school with an arts-integrated mission, set in a rapidly growing city, but with state assessment results that trail the county median across tested subjects. For a family whose priority is the arts environment, the school merits a close look and direct questions about how the arts program supports academic progress. For a family whose primary concern is measured achievement in math and reading, the current test outcomes give them reason to investigate further.
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