Atlanta Classical Academy off to a strong start

We're watching other classical schools that are getting ready to open this year -- two in Florida and one in Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta Classical Academy is a major effort, with a board that includes many prominent Atlanta families. The school had so many interested families that it went to lottery in its first year. There were 450 spots available in grades K-8 -- 1341 kids applied. http://www.reporternewspapers.net/2014/03/05/1300-students-enter-lottery-enroll-atlanta-classical-academy/

Is 'hands-on learning' really the best way?

We've all heard for years that less whole-class instruction and more hands-on learning is the best way for kids to learn. But the research shows the opposite, says professor E.D. Hirsch.

"What the international data show very clearly is that both procedural and content learning are best achieved in a focused environment which preponderantly emphasizes whole-class instruction but which is punctuated by small-group or individualized work."
                                                   -- "The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them"

Why Study Latin?

Children at the Lake Worth Classical Academy will begin studying Latin in fourth grade. Why teach children a dead language? Great question! Here's a great answer:
 

I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this, not because Latin is traditional and medieval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least 50 percent. It is the key to the vocabulary and structure of all the Romance languages and to the structure of all the Teutonic languages, as well as to the technical vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature of the entire Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical documents.

                                           - Dorothy Sayers
                                             "The Lost Tools of Learning"

First media

Thanks to local blogger Lynn Anderson for posting the first public notice that a new and very different kind of charter school is coming to Lake Worth... http://lynn-a.blogspot.com/2014/03/new-charter-school-planned-for-lake.html