This year, the Hillsdale K-12 Education program has expanded the schools in its network to 106.
As every year more American K-12 students switch to public charter schools, the program continues to grow, said Kathleen O’Toole, assistant provost for K-12 Education.
“We are growing every day due to an overwhelming amount of interest in quality K-12 education and the work of Hillsdale College,” O’Toole said. “We get calls and emails nearly every day with the same encouraging request ‘I want to start a classical school in my community, can you help?’ We answer this question with a resounding yes.”
The K-12 Education program partners, at no cost, with charter schools around the nation to bring a classical education curriculum to students and training for teachers and school leaders.
College President Larry Arnn said it is important to remember that schools are local and should be controlled locally.
“The overarching thing wrong with most things the government does is centralization. The national government cannot be good at controlling everything. Local things are better locally controlled,” Arnn said. “Schools are very much local in their nature. Chief authority in them should be in the schools, where the teachers and the parents are gathered with children.”
Charter schools and the K-12 Education program helps students achieve a deeper education, Arnn said.
“Everybody there has responsibility for something they have a keen interest in achieving,” Arnn said. “Our charter school effort helps to make this possible. The college has deep knowledge of all the subjects taught in school. We make that available to the charter schools. They take it and use it to build great schools for the people they know and love.”
O’Toole said she sees the unique nature of charter schools as a benefit for all communities.
“Hillsdale classical public charter schools are unique in that they make an excellent education accessible to all students,” O’Toole said. “Because the schools are started based on community interest, they are located in a wide variety of demographics. Some are quite rural, others in the middle of cities. Some serve a low income population, others do not. Some schools have a higher need for special education teachers, others do not. We emphasize the community because these schools thrive when they are integrated in their local communities.”
Charter schools are enrolling more and more of America’s public school students every year.
According to a report from the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, during the 2020-21 school year, charter schools enrolled 7.5% of all public school students. This was up from 6.8% in the 2019-20 school year.
O’Toole said the increase is very positive.
“For a number of reasons, the classical education movement has accelerated in the past few years,” she said. “It has been wonderful to see the overwhelming interest in returning to a tried and true way of educating human beings in intellectual and moral virtue.”
Currently, the Hillsdale K-12 Education program has 23 member schools, 14 candidate member schools, and 69 curriculum schools across 33 states.
O’Toole said member schools work very closely with K-12 Education.
“We have a very close relationship with our member schools, typically working with them from their inception,” she said.
Candidate member schools are in the process of becoming member schools, while Curriculum Schools hold a license to use K-12 Education’s K-12 Program Guide.
“Whether the individual is inspired by our curricular recommendations or their group goes on to found a member school, we hope this sets them on a path towards a deeper understanding of classical education and themselves,” O’Toole said.
K-12 Education recently began a School Leader Fellowship program to help fill the nationwide need for school leaders.
“The most essential element as a school looks to open is hiring the right school leader, and the necessary personality traits, experience, and educational background vary depending on the founding group, the local area, state requirements, etc. We have a thorough vetting process for these individuals, but the demand simply outweighs the supply,” O’Toole said. “This fellowship is new, but has already proven successful with Isaac Johnson, our first fellow, accepting a dean’s position at Cincinnati Classical Academy.”
The fellowship provides an individual the opportunity to work in a Hillsdale-associated school, shadow a headmaster through the school year, participate in leadership training, and work closely with the K-12 Education office.
O’Toole said K-12 Education is thrilled to offer a classical education to students around the country.
“The reach of classical schools goes far beyond the students – into conversations at the dinner table, the way they carry themselves doing extra curricular activities and sports, and more,” O’Toole said. “Students in these classical charter schools are shaping their character, who they are as people, and we are thrilled that anyone can participate in this form of education.”
