Anonymous
09/11/2025 14:57
Subject: Are progressive schools a bad fit for parents who want to see academic progress?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You have to know your child. It was not a good fit for my older child, who has learning disabilities. It was fabulous for my younger child, who is a self starter and intellectually curious. He loved the freedom and we definitely saw academic progress.
Why was it not a good fit for the child with LD? Why would traditional have been better?
Progressive schools are based on the idea that if you give kids the right tools, they can explore and draw their own conclusions. My kid with LDs needed much more explicit, teacher-directed instruction.
That is helpful thank you. What did that look like in the classroom for the older child? Did he just seem lost in the progressive school?
Yes. And getting super dysregulated because he couldn't understand the expectations or the unspoken social rules that everyone else intuitively knew. And once he was diagnosed with dyslexia, our providers said he needed explicit instruction.
On the other hand, I can't emphasize enough how good it was for my gifted kid to be given the space to work things out for himself and to go as far and as deep as he wanted to. He thrived on the ability to make connections for himself (those same connections that his brother needed to be taught).
Do you think that traditional and structured generally works better for ND kids then? Even ND kids who are gifted? Mine is gifted but a little slower on the social uptake
There is no way to answer this question. There is a huge spectrum of ND kids and no one approach is going to be "better."
Anonymous
09/11/2025 13:41
Subject: Are progressive schools a bad fit for parents who want to see academic progress?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My kids attend/attended a progressive k-8. What has struck me is that year after year, kids from the k-8 have risen to the top of their high schools. Not every kid, of course. But frequently and regularly, which to me speaks to the progressive model. Otherwise, the k8 had a freakish amount of bright kids. They have become valedictorians (where measures), presidential scholars, etc. And this is from a small school. And their high schools range from progressive to traditional to public magnet.
But I agree. It doesn’t work for everyone, but I also argue that it can be an effective and successful model.
Maybe because bright kids do well in any number of settings. When kids aren't doing well, their parents often pull them out. The kids who stay through 8th are often very bright. It's them plus the kids who can't cope in a traditional setting and the kids who can't get in anywhere else.
But you don’t know how much better they could be doing in a non-progressive school. In public schools a kid who is really good at math could be taking Algebra in 6th, setting them up to get through Calculus BC early in HS and then on to more advanced math, advanced science, prestigious science competitions… the truth of the matter is that parents wealthy enough to pay for 8 years of “progressive” elementary school likely don’t prioritize this kind of acceleration or achievement. Which is fine but don’t pretend that the school approaches are the same and nothing is missed.
Anonymous
09/11/2025 13:25
Subject: Are progressive schools a bad fit for parents who want to see academic progress?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You have to know your child. It was not a good fit for my older child, who has learning disabilities. It was fabulous for my younger child, who is a self starter and intellectually curious. He loved the freedom and we definitely saw academic progress.
Why was it not a good fit for the child with LD? Why would traditional have been better?
Progressive schools are based on the idea that if you give kids the right tools, they can explore and draw their own conclusions. My kid with LDs needed much more explicit, teacher-directed instruction.
That is helpful thank you. What did that look like in the classroom for the older child? Did he just seem lost in the progressive school?
Yes. And getting super dysregulated because he couldn't understand the expectations or the unspoken social rules that everyone else intuitively knew. And once he was diagnosed with dyslexia, our providers said he needed explicit instruction.
On the other hand, I can't emphasize enough how good it was for my gifted kid to be given the space to work things out for himself and to go as far and as deep as he wanted to. He thrived on the ability to make connections for himself (those same connections that his brother needed to be taught).
Do you think that traditional and structured generally works better for ND kids then? Even ND kids who are gifted? Mine is gifted but a little slower on the social uptake
I can only speak for my kid, who did much better knowing exactly what he was supposed to do and when. He needs the implicit to be made explicit or he doesn't get it. He also needs assignments to be straightforward and scaffolded. Traditional schools did that better than progressive.
Other kids with disabilities might chafe at being told what to do at all times and would do better with the relative freedom of a progressive school.
Anonymous
09/11/2025 13:05
Subject: Are progressive schools a bad fit for parents who want to see academic progress?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You have to know your child. It was not a good fit for my older child, who has learning disabilities. It was fabulous for my younger child, who is a self starter and intellectually curious. He loved the freedom and we definitely saw academic progress.
Why was it not a good fit for the child with LD? Why would traditional have been better?
Progressive schools are based on the idea that if you give kids the right tools, they can explore and draw their own conclusions. My kid with LDs needed much more explicit, teacher-directed instruction.
That is helpful thank you. What did that look like in the classroom for the older child? Did he just seem lost in the progressive school?
Yes. And getting super dysregulated because he couldn't understand the expectations or the unspoken social rules that everyone else intuitively knew. And once he was diagnosed with dyslexia, our providers said he needed explicit instruction.
On the other hand, I can't emphasize enough how good it was for my gifted kid to be given the space to work things out for himself and to go as far and as deep as he wanted to. He thrived on the ability to make connections for himself (those same connections that his brother needed to be taught).
Do you think that traditional and structured generally works better for ND kids then? Even ND kids who are gifted? Mine is gifted but a little slower on the social uptake