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Academy thrives as public schools struggle
By Jacob Harrison
Collegian Reporter
As the deadline
approaches for implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind
Act, school districts nationwide have been reassessing their
programs and administrative organization. Many school officials
are complaining that the expectations imposed by the new federal
standards are simply too high.
While school districts across
the country scramble to explain to the federal government why
many of their graduates are struggling to pass basic exit exams,
the Hillsdale Academy has been increasing its student population
and expanding its academic program.
Academy Headmaster Kenneth Calvert
has been working with his staff to enhance and better coordinate
new and existing programs, "seeking to bring about local,
state and national reform," he said.
"We supply curricula, ideas
and support to schools seeking to either change the way they
do things or to provide greater competition versus the state
schools."
Although a record-breaking 1.2
million high school students took the ACT college entrance exam
this year, research showed that only 26 percent of test takers
were ready to handle college coursework in science and 40 percent
in math. In English, 60 percent of students were prepared.
But the academy's seniors of 2003
were accepted to every college and university to which they
applied after receiving high marks on the ACT, averaging in
the high 20s to low 30s.
Calvert said the success of academy
students rests largely in its curriculum, which is not designed
to teach students how to pass tests, but focuses instead on
traditional core courses like math, science, history, English,
Latin and rhetoric.
"We are very different from
government schools because we do not attempt to be comprehensive-adding
shop courses, age-appropriate curricula or trying to cover every
so-called learning disability," he said. "I am of
the strong opinion that if our state schools have a program
it probably won't work. The whole thing needs a serious overhaul-a
reformation."
The academy is one example of
alternative options that are gaining popularity with parents
in many states. The recent proliferation of charter schools
and a growing interest in voucher programs indicate more parents
are seeking alternatives to failing public schools.
Charter schools, which use tax
money but are free from many of the public school's programs
and regulations, have spread in places like Washington, D.C.,
where the legislature is struggling to pass the nation's first
federal school choice law.
In Michigan approximately 70,000
students now attend the state's 202 charter schools. Teachers
from the 12,500-member Detroit Teachers Union recently protested
a plan for charter school expansion. Since funding is allocated
according to student populations, they claim charter schools
will take money from needy public schools.
The voucher system, by which federal
aid is given to poorer students in failing public schools to
transfer to private or charter schools, is under attack by opponents
who say the vouchers violate the separation of church and state
by using federal money to aid students who may use it to attend
schools that endorse a certain religious perspective.
But the academy is not a charter
school, prep school, public school or classical private school,
as they have no entrance exam requirement. Calvert said they
are "an independent school," which holds to the conservative
values that informed American education long before progressive
revisions altered core curricula.
The Brookings Institution, a Washington
think tank, recently released a new study of the homework patterns
of kids aged 9, 13 and 17. According
to the study, most American students take home less than one
hour's worth of homework each night.
But at the academy, Calvert said
students receive more homework than public school students.
"Hesiod made a distinction
between good and bad strife," he said. "I think that
good strife-the good struggle-should be introduced to the young
student early and often. Our culture certainly has a feel for
this on the athletic field. Why don't we understand this in
the classroom?"
Alongside curricular exercise
is the academy's athletic program, which has expanded under
the leadership of athletic director Mike Roberts, who joined
the school last year. Academy students now participate in league
play, with cross country and golf added to the program roster
this year.
In addition, Roberts pursued local
head coaches and rallied athletic directors to create the Mid-South
Conference for volleyball, basketball and soccer.
"It is important for us to
build rivalries and tradition," Roberts said. "No
school our size in the state of Michigan offers so many sports.
From sixth grade and up, over
90 percent of our kids are involved, and most will compete in
more than one sport."
Academy Latin instructor Andrew
Holm has been working with Hillsdale College classics professor
David Jones to build the relationship between the college and
academy Latin programs. They are building a "tutorial relationship"
between students from the college and academy, with the goal
of making Latin a four-year study attainable to all students.
"We want our Latin program
to work in conjunction with our English and history programs,"
Holm said. "We are also trying to introduce college students
to Latin instruction as a wide-open field that holds career
opportunities many are unaware of."
Calvert said he thinks it's a
natural connection to send students both ways, "because
the classics department at the college is becoming a power to
be reckoned with in the nation."
With 100 students in the lower
school (K-8) and 45 in the upper school (9-12), student population
has been strengthened by what Calvert calls his "evangelism."
They have recently recruited students from over a dozen families,
including six families from Jackson, three from Adrian and two
from Coldwater.
"This is my evangelism,"
Calvert said. "I'm out there preaching to parents about
the educational solution that exists at Hillsdale Academy."
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