The doors of Oakland Academy opened on Sept. 7, 2011, to 32 students in Waterford, Mich. Now in its second year, the school is holding its annual Liberty Campaign Dinner featuring keynote speaker Rick Santorum next week.
Four months prior to the opening, eight families had traveled to Hillsdale, Mich. to visit Hillsdale Academy.
“The purpose of the trip was to meet with administrators and learn about the Hillsdale Academy model, to understand the curriculum, to see the school in action, and to ask questions about why the Hillsdale Academy model was so successful in producing graduates that were intelligent, articulate, well-read, and had great character,” the Oakland Academy website reads.
Oakland Academy is one of many private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling families across the nation that has received some kind of guidance from the Hillsdale Academy and its curriculum.
The academy was founded in 1990 to provide a model of traditional and classical education and an example of how effective that education can be.
The academy’s success has begun to spread by word of mouth and through affiliation with Hillsdale College. Hillsdale Academy Headmaster Ken Calvert said that on Wednesday alone three schools contacted him about the academies curriculum: one in Idaho, one in Maine, and one in Illinois.
The academy has a reference guide available online and print that other schools can use to either get their school started or revamp their curriculum.
“They can use them as much or as little as they like,” Calvert said. “I’m in contact with the schools that are serious and really working hard.”
Calvert says he stays in touch with certain schools usually on a monthly basis.
“We are not there to dictate to them,” Calvert said. “They look to us for guidance or insight. And a lot of times, we learn a great deal from working with these schools.”
Calvert said the academy model is distinct from the Barney Charter School Initiative in that it reaches beyond the charter schools to private schools as well as parents looking to homeschool their children. The Hillsdale Academy model also does not have the barriers of charter school laws that the Barney Charter School Initiative has to work around.
“The genius of what Hillsdale College is doing is that we are helping everyone who needs help and everyone who comes to us,” he said.
Recently, the academy has assisted Oakdale; Midland Christian School in Midland, Mich.; and Bridgedale Academy in Westmont, Ill. They also helped the College of the Ozarks in Missouri establish a partnership with a private school much like the Hillsdale College and Hillsdale Academy partnership.
Calvert said the academy also partners with Hillsdale College to offer teaching apprenticeships for college students who would like to teach. The college dropped their teaching certification program two years ago.
“There are more students who want to teach now than there were when we had the certification program,” Calvert said. “We take students who have a real desire to teach and have them work in the academy for a semester.”
Calvert said that these students often get jobs teaching soon after they graduate in private and charter schools across the nation.
“Once [other classical schools] hear we’ve got a new group of apprentices, we start getting the phone calls,” he said.
