U.S. News & World Report has released its annual ranking of the top public schools in the nation, with a familiar face leading the charge in Tennessee and moving up the chart.

Nashville’s Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School ranks No. 37, placing the downtown-based institution tops in the state. Last year, U.S. News & World Report ranked Hume-Fogg No. 49 in the country. In the magazine's annual ranking, Hume-Fogg consistently ranks No. 1 among the state's public high schools.

The state’s “runner-up” is Martin Luther King Academic Magnet, which is ranked No. 113 in the country. In 2012, North Nashville-based MLK ranked 80th nationally. Rounding off the top five in Tennessee are Merrol Hyde Magnet in Hendersonville, which ranked 127th nationally; Brentwood High, which ranked 227th; and Ravenwood High in Brentwood, which ranked No. 474.

Franklin High, at No. 8, is the only other Midstate school ranked in the state's Top 10. A full list of Tennessee schools evaluated can be found here.

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association was declared the functional equivalent of a state agency Friday and declared to be subject to the Tennessee Open Records Act.

Responding to a lawsuit filed by The City Paper earlier this year, Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman granted the newspaper’s motion, agreeing that the TSSAA is the state’s de facto regulatory body for high school athletics and therefore subject to records requests. Read the full story in The City Paper here.

Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education and Human Development and Metro Nashville Public Schools are partnering in a program to advance math and science achievement. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is overseeing a national partnership, of which VU and MNPS are a part, fueled by $3 million from the U.S. Department of Education. Melanie Moran and myvu.com have the story here.

Veteran Metro Schools teacher Mary Catherine Bradshaw — who made headlines in early 2011 when she left her position as International Baccalaureate coordinator at Hillsboro High to teach at Martin Luther King Academic Magnet High School — is leaving the system to work for LEAD Public Schools, a Nashville charter network. She will serve as dean of instruction of LEAD Academy High School.

Joey Garrison and The City Paper have the story here.

The relationship and communication between the Metro Schools board and the Service Employees International Union are growing ever more sour. The union on Monday filed suit against Director of Schools Jesse Register and the nine-member board over the recent recission of the district's labor negotiations policy. Joey Garrison has the details.

The Metro school board on Tuesday voted to approve two charter school applications for Antioch and North Nashville — which next fall will lift the city's count to 15 — but denied applications from two well-known organizations, Nashville's KIPP Academy and Arizona-based Great Hearts Academies. Joey Garrison has more on why the board did what it did and which one of the two groups immediately said it would appeal.

Jeremy Kane's LEAD Public Schools Group is getting a $3.25 million check from the Charter School Growth Fund to help it meet its goal of growing its student base sevenfold by 2016. The City Paper has the details.

U.S. News & World Report has released its annual ranking of the top public high schools in the nation. Coming in at No. 49 nationally and No. 1 in Tennessee was Nashville's Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School. Ranked No. 80 nationally was Martin Luther King Academic Magnet, which was the statewide runner-up.

Other Nashville are schools included in the national rankings were Merrol Hyde Magnet, Brentwood High and Fred J. Page High, which ranked 109th, 203rd and 1,820th, respectively. A full list of Tennessee schools evaluated can be found here.

Update: PostBusiness mistakely neglected to include Merrol Hyde Magnet in the original version of this story.

Count Country Music Television in for The Academies of Nashville program at Metro Schools. The television network has signed an agreement to provide $100,000 worth of in-kind contributions in the coming year to the Academy of Digital Design and Communication at McGavock High School. After that, CMT officials — who are the fifth group to sign with Metro — will be asked to provide $50,000 worth of contributions.