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FUND MISSION
“The renewed study of philosophy, history, civics and humane letters represents our best path to cultural renewal and international leadership. After decades of calculated abandonment, the classics are the new frontier of useful knowledge.”
T. Robinson Ahlstrom, Chairman & CEO
America’s Promise
In America, access to formal academic education has long been an engine of equality, opportunity and prosperity. Ever since The Massachusetts Education Law of 1647 required, “every town of more than fifty families to hire a teacher,” boys and girls with little in common except their town or village have walked to the same schoolhouse, sat in the same room, read the same books and learned the same lessons.
This democratic tradition of common schools—well established long before our national independence—had a profound effect on the birth of the Nation. Observing the boundless talent and energy of successive waves of immigrants and settlers, America’s founders
established a town school system in which the aptitude, attitude and ambition of ordinary people could be the stuff of a great nation.
In Virginia, Thomas Jefferson organized a network of free academies “to bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty.” Jefferson believed that such schools would enable the United States to “give activity to a mass of mind which in proportion to our population shall be the double or treble of what it is in most countries."
In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin—himself a graduate of a free town school called Boston Latin—observed that, “Genius without education is like silver in the mine.” Zealous for the prosperity of the United States, he worked side by side with his friend, John Adams, who insisted on “education for every class and rank of people down to the lowest and the poorest.”
Less known is the fact that George Washington—along with being a valiant soldier and gifted statesman, was also an educational innovator who worked to create a model school for the new nation. Committed to education for all, Washington invested time, talent and considerable treasure in establishing Alexandria Academy, a town school that was independent, classical, coeducational and accessible to both “free” and tuition-paying students.
Today’s Challenge
As democracy becomes the universal ideal for political organization and new communication technologies overwhelm parochial social structures, the distinctively American notion of universal access to education is finding its way into traditional societies and taking root in cultures long stratified by ancient distinctions of race, class and gender. The demand for schools that prepare young women as well as young men for the world’s great universities has never been greater.
Ironically, widespread international demand for Western style schools comes at a time when America’s increasingly costly public schools fail to provide quality education to millions right here at home. Numerous international studies rank our system of public secondary schools among the worst in the industrialized world—and our graduation rates among the lowest. As President Obama recently noted, "Our students are outperformed in math and science by their peers in Singapore, Japan, England, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Korea, among others.”
Since the United States’ per pupil spending on math and science education already exceeds that of the nations now surpassing us in measurable student achievement, it is unreasonable to assume that merely spending more money or targeting more aid to programs in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (S.T.E.M.) will close the performance disparities. It is also unrealistic to suppose that still more institutional restructuring or pedagogical novelty will yield significantly improved student outcomes.
Since the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, detailed “a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation,” our schools have been in a period of constant and dramatic structural change. Reforms have included high-stakes testing for students, merit pay for teachers, charter schools, “pilot” public schools, extended classroom time, pay-for-performance student incentives and expanded federal oversight.
Chester Finn, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, sums up the current situation. “Since 1983 there has been a lot of effort and goodwill and activity and money spent on our schools, and yet very little to show for it by way of improvement.”
What we do know is that content matters. The one thing more important than how we teach our kids is what we teach them. America’s students—all of America’s students—deserve a sequential, comprehensive program of arts, letters and sciences that will equip them with the fruitful habits of mind, general survey of knowledge and spiritual imagination necessary for success in university and in life. In short, they deserve a classical education.
In the present situation, Daniel J. Boorstin’s definition of education as “learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know” takes on a whole new meaning. The renewed study of logic, philosophy, history, civics and humane letters represents our best path to cultural renewal and international leadership. After decades of calculated abandonment, the classics are the new frontier of useful knowledge.
A Classical Education for the 21st Century
Our mission is simple: Classics for Everyone! Our strategy is plain: Build a model, make it scalable, and turn the curriculum into an open educational resource. (OER) The extraordinary challenges facing our country, our culture and our economy require a new generation informed with the Enlightenment intellectual tradition and moral seriousness of George Washington and his age. Through the Fund, The Virginia Committee for Classical Education has been organized to meet that need and establish a classical town school for the 21st century.
Opening in the fall of 2010, Alexandria Academy – The Washington Latin School in the City of Alexandria will offer The New Classics™ K-12 curriculum that combines Latin, logic, rhetoric and “great books” with advanced programs in STEM. Along with the highest General Graduation Requirements (GGR) in the region, the school will provide a full range of opportunities in visual & performing arts and competitive sport.
Like the original Academy, the new school will be an independent, classical and coeducational “town school” serving both tuition-paying and “free” scholars who demonstrate an eagerness to learn and a willingness to work. As Washington stipulated in his founding gift, priority will be given to the sons and daughters of those who defend our liberties.
Through its Standards of Conduct & Civility, the new school will teach manners, virtue, self-reliance and the principles of republican government. Through its Honor Code and Student Judiciary, the students will maintain those standards.
The Academy’s rich academic programs will be enhanced through a broad network of articulated relationships with leading educational and cultural institutions including the National Archives, the Folger-Shakespeare Library, the National Gallery of Art, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The National Geographic Society and The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
The generous support of individuals, corporations, foundations, professional associations, veterans groups and religious societies will enable the Academy will offer one of the nation’s most challenging academic programs, while setting tuition significantly below that of other highly competitive independent schools.
The Robert Maynard Hutchins Classical Scholars Program has been established as an endowment fund from which, over time, dividends will provide direct aid to promising young scholars who genius might otherwise be lost. This will help to ensure that each Washington Latin School is a diverse community of scholars selected for their unique gifts, character and demonstrated desire to obtain a liberal education.
Through OWL = OnlineWashingtonLatin, the Fund will make The New Classics™ curriculum an Open Educational Resource, available to schools, home schooling parents and young scholars who seek out Direct Learning Encounters. (DLE)
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