The top reported proficiency rate is 20% in Social studies. The lowest is 13% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Chadwell Elementary
Chadwell Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade in the Madison neighborhood of northeast Nashville, part of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools system. It is a regular public school, not a charter, and it operates within Davidson County. For a family considering this school, the picture is one of a deeply diverse student body and a community that is both suburban and connected to the broader Nashville area, paired with academic results that are lower than many would hope for but that place the school above the middle of the small group of districts within the county when looking across all tested subjects.
The school’s student population is predominantly Black and Hispanic, with a smaller share of white students and very small numbers of Asian, multiracial, and other backgrounds. This composition reflects the Madison area itself, a former settlement now folded into the Metro Nashville government, with a mix of residential subdivisions and commercial corridors along Gallatin Pike and Old Hickory Boulevard. Housing in the zip code around the school is priced near the national median, though slightly below the state average, and recent trends show a modest decline in home values. Rents in the area have also edged down, and the broader economic context includes a typical national unemployment rate and a median household income that has risen over the past several years. For families with school-age children, this is a neighborhood that offers public parks, a library branch, and metro bus transit, but the built environment is fundamentally auto-oriented, with multi-lane highways and traffic funneling toward downtown Nashville and northern suburbs.
The academic picture from state testing is candid. The share of students scoring at the proficient level or above on Tennessee’s TNReady assessments is low across all subjects. A modest proportion of students met that bar in English language arts, with slightly fewer doing so in math and in science. These figures are well below state averages, and a parent looking at the school’s test results will want to ask about the specific supports the school offers for literacy and math, and how it addresses the needs of students who are performing below grade level. That said, when compared to other districts in Davidson County, the school’s overall proficiency index — a composite of all tested subjects and grades — lands above the midpoint of the three districts for which data was available. That context matters: it means that within its immediate county, Chadwell is not at the bottom, though the absolute performance remains a concern.
No data on chronic absenteeism or graduation rate was available, which is expected for an elementary school. The school’s participation rates on the tests were very high, indicating strong engagement with the assessment process. Information about special programs, staffing, discipline, and course access was also absent from the data, so families should look into what enrichment or intervention offerings exist, such as art, music, physical education, and any before- or after-school supports.
Chadwell Elementary serves a community that is both suburban and urban-adjacent, with all the transportation and housing trade-offs that implies. For a family that values diversity and wants a neighborhood school where the student body reflects a wide range of cultural and economic backgrounds, this school offers that. The academic challenges are real and should be investigated further — a parent may want to talk with the principal about current improvement efforts, tutoring programs, and how the school differentiates instruction. The broader Nashville district has not shared recent major changes publicly that would directly affect a single elementary school, so the focus remains on what happens inside the building day to day. This is a school where the numbers say the work is hard, but the comparison to nearby districts suggests it is holding its own in a county with a wide range of outcomes.
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