Our Associate Director, Troy Wathen, answers some commonly asked questions about SLO Classical Academy’s unique program. If you have family or friends interested in learning more about how our school works and what makes it special, these are great posts to refer them to. (Click here for our first and second Q & A.) Better yet, invite them to attend a Campus Tour (the third Wednesday of every month) or attend a Parent Preview Night.
Why is an independent classical education any better than a publicly funded one?
The primary difference between an independent school and a publicly funded (charter or public) school is who gets to call the shots. Because we are independent, we have no entity other than our parents and students whom we must please. Having been at a charter school in between here and my previous independent school, I now have an even greater appreciation for a culture of learning rather than one of assessment. The assessment culture of modern schooling is suffocating. In my humble opinion, parents are much better judges of learning than bureaucrats, yet most testing data is for the decision-makers in government rather than the educators and parents. Data-driven decision-making is the buzz-word in modern education and no publicly funded school can escape the pressures associated with this philosophy. The keys to education are inspiration (teachers and curriculum), participation (whole families), and the curricular path (logically connected and rich in content). It is very difficult for these three to converge when everyone is stressed about test results.
