Low tuition, classical education – what’s not to like?
By James A. Bacon
One day about two years ago Ann McLean, a devout Christian and mother of four, felt that she was “spoken to” by God and given a mission in life – to start a new school. She never looked back. If all goes well, she will enroll her first six classes of students for Hunter Country Day School this fall.
While the decision to launch a private school based on a classical education and Christian values came on suddenly, dissatisfaction with the conventional alternatives in the Richmond area had been percolating for quite a while. Educational standards in public schools, she felt, had collapsed. The curriculum in public and private schools alike had invaded by a dominant culture coarsened by sex and violence. And the college preparatory school where her children were enrolled heaped “crushing tuitions” on parents to pay for trophy buildings and athletic programs.
McLean’s intent is to focus on fundamentals, creating an environment where children can hone their minds and build character at the lowest tuition possible. Hunter Country Day will adopt a curriculum inspired by the classical education movement — the ultimate back-to-the-basics program — and charge only $6,000 in yearly tuition. That compares to $10,500 per pupil spent by public schools nationally this year and $10,900 in Virginia.
A slim, blonde banker’s wife with a Ph.D. in art history, McLean epitomizes the entrepreneurship sweeping K-12 education today. It’s a time of great ferment as Americans across the country seek to reinvent an educational system they see as badly broken. Indeed, that entrepreneurial, mission-driven spirit may be America’s best chance to break free from the rigid, suffocating stasis of the public school system. While private schools do offer an alternative, prep-school tuitions approaching $20,000 a year are unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans.
With the backing and support of two other Richmonders, McLean has leased classroom space from the Dover Baptist Church in Goochland County and scoured the region for second-hand equipment and desks. The school will have few frills. “We don’t need a huge football team. Sorry,” she says unapologetically. Technology has its uses but she doesn’t need high-tech school buildings either. “Socrates never had a classroom. Jesus Christ never had a classroom.”
Tuitions will go to hiring great teachers , keeping the teacher-student ratio down to an intimate 12 to one and implementing a classical education curriculum. By “classical,” she doesn’t mean traditional, like teaching phonics (although she is a big believer in phonics). McLean is developing a curriculum based on the “trivium” developed in the Middle Ages: grammar, logic and rhetoric. Elementary school pupils are grounded in a foundation of facts, such as grammar. Middle school pupils learn how the facts relate in a logical framework. And high school students master rhetoric, or critical thinking. The curriculum is based on language and concepts, not photos, video and other images so prevalent in education today.
A core goal of classical education is to build students’ character. The founding fathers, says McLean, understood that humans were by nature selfish and fallen, the only antidote for which was the cultivation of personal virtue. “The American experiment depends upon an educated populace founded on Christian values,” says McLean, who makes no secret of her political and cultural conservatism. “The most important job of any culture is training the next generation” – a job at which the nation is failing. She wants to reverse the nation’s cultural decline. “I’m the little girl sticking my finger in the dike.”
McLean’s philosophy of education is not for everybody. But that’s the beauty of free markets. Real competition would offer a broad spectrum of alternatives to the secular uniformity of public schools and the soaring cost of elite prep schools. More importantly, Hunter Country Day will succeed only if McLean provides the kind of education – at an affordable price – that parents want for their children.
Virginia’s General Assembly is debating a number of proposals this session to increase private school choice by means of tax credits. None of the proposals are bold enough. Based on Governor Bob McDonnell’s proposed 2012-2014 budget, the commonwealth will distribute $5.1 billion, or roughly $4,000 per student, in Direct Aid to Public Education. If that $4,000 followed the students, rather than the schools, the vast majority of Virginians could afford a private education of their choice…. Or, if parents couldn’t find a school that suited, like Ann McLean they could start their own.
