NASHVILLE — The Nashville Prep charter school only opened its doors in the fall of 2011, but it’s already being honored as the most successful charter school in the state of Tennessee.

It’s easy to see why.

The students – who are respectfully referred to as “scholars” – are expected to come to class prepared and ready to learn, part of the school’s strict “no excuses” policy.

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“Scholars” attend school for nine-and-a-half hours every day, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. On each of those days, students receive at least four hours of literacy and math instruction, and additional tutoring sessions are available if needed. They also have an extended, 190-day school year (versus the traditional 180-day year), and attend classes every other Saturday.

By the time students graduate, all the extra hours spent in the classroom will add up to four additional years of education. (Nashville Prep currently serves only grades 5 and 6, but will expand a grade per year until it offers grades 5-12.)

The intense approach is already yielding results.

After just one year, the majority of fifth-grade students – many of whom entered with below-level skills from low-income households – has tested far above average.

According to the 2012 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, 79 percent of Nashville Prep’s fifth-graders rated proficient in math, edging out a nearby school district that’s located in one of the nation’s wealthiest counties.

Other scores were equally encouraging: 97.5 percent proficiency in social studies, 63.75 percent in English and language arts, and 78.75 in science.

“This past year, we were not only the highest-performing charter school in Nashville, but Stanford just released a study … that says we are the highest-performing charter school in all of Tennessee,” Nashville Prep Founder Ravi Gupta told EAGnews.org.

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“For us, it validates the hard work that our scholars, staff, and family have been putting in over the last year. And it really inspires us to continue to reach higher,” he said.

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing, though.

In an interview with Takepart.com, Gupta admitted that there have been some “tough conversations” with students.

“We tell them, ‘If you don’t shape up you’re going to leave,’” he told the news site. “But we’re constantly focused on what will happen if things go well.”

And so far, things have gone extremely well.

‘I never thought politics would allow’ for this type of school

When he was growing up in Staten Island, New York, the 29-year-old Gupta never imagined he’d one day be operating a charter school.

“When I was young, I never thought of going into education in large part because I was always a student of politics and believed … that the problem was intractable, that the politics wouldn’t allow for the type of school that I thought was necessary to really move things significantly. So I never really thought it was politically possible to create the kind of schools that I dreamed of,” Gutpta said.

(His skepticism was well-founded. Many public school leaders cannot even consider a longer school day or school year because it would touch off an ugly showdown with the local teachers union. The Chicago Teachers Union, for example, is demanding a 30 percent pay raise in exchange for working a longer school day. The two sides are still at loggerheads, and the CTU may announce a teachers’ strike any day now.)

For the majority of his education, Gupta attended public school. However, when it was time for him to enter into high school, his mother made the decision to transfer him to a local Catholic school.

The decision was not made lightly, as his mother had to take on a second job to afford the private school tuition. But Gupta believes that experience gave him insights that helped him craft the successful atmosphere at Nashville Prep.

“Students, though they’re young, they’re pretty sophisticated about what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “I just knew that things weren’t working the way they were supposed to work. So even then, I started to think about what was needed,” Gupta said.

Gupta first became interested in charter schools when he learned of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) while working on the Obama campaign in 2008. HCZ is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping poverty-stricken families living in Harlem through various social programs, including multiple charter schools.

“I was blown away when I started to learn about what some folks were doing with the freedom that a charter school allows.”

Gupta, a Yale Law School graduate, was working with Building Excellent Schools, a nonprofit organization based in Boston, when he was recruited by the Tennessee Charter School Incubator to build a charter school in Nashville.

He told NashvilleScene.com that his lack of experience as an educator was an advantage. It left him untainted by traditional educational pedagogy, and made him more receptive to new or unconventional ideas that other administrators might reject.

‘We have a bias towards talent over experience’

Those unconventional ideas have led to success, which has attracted a lot of attention and many new faces to Nashville Prep.

“Enrollment is awesome. We’re currently 35 scholars above our charter enrollment. And we have a waitlist,” Gupta noted.

The charter school has also received numerous applications from prospective educators across the country.

“We’ve had tremendous success,” said Gupta. “Our first year, we had over 800 applications for 10 staff positions. Every offer we gave was accepted. This past year, we had over 1,400 applications for 7 staff positions and every single offer was accepted there as well.”

The charter school understands how important it is to have effective teachers in the classroom.

“Nashville Prep almost takes a ‘moneyball’ approach,” he said, referencing a concept some low-budget baseball teams use to find underappreciated players.

“We have a bias towards talent over experience. We take a lot of folks who might not be super-experienced but have all the other components,” Gupta explained.

When asked if Nashville Prep has plans to expand beyond the original charter, Gupta showed interest but was cautious of moving too fast too soon.

“We’re having a discussion at the board level right now about what the next step is. Our board wants to consider serving more scholars but also wants to avoid doing that at the expense of hurting our current program. So, we will only consider growth if it preserves the very special thing that is going on at Nashville Prep right now.”

However, the New York native did say that he would like to see a high performing charter school in his hometown.

“The last time I checked there wasn’t a high quality charter school in Staten Island and that breaks my heart. So I’m constantly reminding folks up in New York that, you know, I’m willing to be at the table for any discussion around creating high quality options for scholars in my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods. It’s good to have dreams left to achieve, and that’s definitely on my list.”