One of the ways in which private schools in NYC offer a key advantage to students is in the realm of progressive education. Public schools take a notoriously long time to add elements into their academic program, usually long after children who requested such programs have moved on and perhaps even become parents themselves. While there are always a few “beta test programs” in the public school system, the fact is that they remain far behind the academic trends and what is needed now.
Private schools, especially NYC private schools, seldom jump on “trends” in educations, but rather they are always a forerunner in the type of academic forums and programs that are needed and requested by students and parents.
One of the battlefronts waged in public schools throughout the nation right now is the war for appropriate and useful foreign language skills. In public schools, it is the general rule that second language studies begin in 9th grade. As just about every study has proven, it is younger children who pick up second languages faster, more efficiently, and with longer-lasting usability factors. Why, then, would languages not be taught at an elementary and grade school level? Private schools routinely begin second language classes in elementary and grade schools levels, with children reaching college proficiency by the time they are in high school.
Private schools have also realized the benefits of giving students the option of learning languages other than the typical French and Spanish offered in most public schools. You would hard pressed to find a NYC private grammar school that doesn’t offer a Mandarin Chinese language program to it’s young students.
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It’s not so much progressive education as what can be called The New Progressivism–a rigorous high-standards, student-centered, collaborative approach to learning that is based on recent research in the nature of intelligence and learning as well as the evolving understanding of how teaching and learning experiences can be shaped to optimize individual understanding.
A quick glance through the “academics” pages of most NYC independent schools shows a pervasively New Progressivist approach to curriculum and school programming, even where strong traditions linger. There seems to be little doubt as to the excellence and desirability of these schools, even in tough economic times, which provides functional evidence of the power of the New Progressivism as a holistic approach to education.
Learn more about The New Progressivism at http://www.newprogressivism.org/2008/12/text-new-progressivism-is-here.html