Brooklyn Free School | |
---|---|
Location | |
, United States | |
Coordinates | 40°41′13.5″N73°58′4.9″W / 40.687083°N 73.968028°W Coordinates: 40°41′13.5″N73°58′4.9″W / 40.687083°N 73.968028°W |
Information | |
School type | Private ungraded elementary and secondary democratic free school |
Motto | “Where children are free to be themselves” |
Established | 2004 |
Founder | Alan Berger |
NCES School ID | A0701595 [1] |
Director | Noleca Radway |
Faculty | 8 (2014) |
Grades | Ungraded (ages 4 to 18) |
Enrollment | 80 (2015) |
Campus type | Urban |
Affiliation | Nonsectarian |
Website | brooklynfreeschool |
The Brooklyn Free School is a private, ungraded, democratic free school in Brooklyn, founded in 2004. Students range in age from 4 to 18 years old. The school follows the noncoercive philosophy of the 1960s/70s free school movement schools, which encourages self-directed learning and protects child freedom of activity. There are no grades, no tests, no homework, and classes are non-compulsory. In 2015, the school enrolls 80 students and has about 24 graduates.
The school was the first free school in New York City since 1975. It started in a rented portion of a Park Slope Methodist church, and then moved to a brownstone in Fort Greene, and then was living in the Brooklyn Public Library, And shortly after moved to a place called "Major Owens Center" and is going to move to a new one that is close to the brownstone one in Fort Greene. Students participate in the design of classes and in the school's governance, which is done at a weekly Democratic Meeting. Staff and students all have equal votes. The school is funded through sliding-scale tuition, grants, and donations. In 2012, Lucas Kavner of The Huffington Post called the Brooklyn Free School "arguably New York's most radical center of learning". [2]
The Brooklyn Free School was founded in 2004 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, [2] and began its first academic session later that year. [3] Its director, Alan Berger, had been an assistant principal at a Manhattan high school before he left to found the alternative school. He had read about a free school in Woodstock, New York, and was "grabbed ... to the core". [4] Berger published his idea for the school in the October 2003 issue of the Park Slope Food Co-op newsletter. [4] About 170 people showed interest, and a group held biweekly planning sessions [5] until the school opened in the 16th Street Brooklyn First Free Methodist Church's bottom two floors in 2004. [4] The original class was thirty students with three teachers. [4] It was the first free school in New York City since the Park Slope [4] Fifteenth Street School closed in 1975. [2] By November 2012, the school had moved to a four-floor brownstone in Fort Greene. [2] The school had 42 pupils by November 2006, [3] 60 by 2012, [2] and 80 by 2015. [6] As of 2015, Lily Mercogliano is the school's director. [6]
We're trying to nurture kids to stay themselves ... That's what they need to bring to the world, to live a successful, individually happy life.
Alan Berger, Brooklyn Free School founder and principal, 2012 [2]
The school operates under a "noncoercive" philosophy where students are encouraged to develop their own interests and where all learning is self-directed. [2] As such, Brooklyn Free School has no grades, no tests, and no compulsory classes or homework. Students are free to pursue the activities of their interest, such as reading alone or taking a class. [2] Students are free to leave classes as they please. [2] Classes have included philosophy seminars, cheese-tasting, book discussions, business, astrology, psychology, videography, and Tibet. [4] Some classes are taught by volunteers. [2] By law, students are required to attend for 5.5 hours a day. [3] Principal Alan Berger contends that the school provides an education better adapted for the Internet era, as one more original, enterprising, and adaptive in the face of a changing economy. [4]
The Brooklyn Free School holds a weekly, mandatory Democratic Meeting on Wednesday mornings. [4] The meeting runs the school, and students and teachers alike have equal votes. Students are not required to pay attention. Meeting topics range from disciplinary grievances to admissions [4] to computer use. A meeting chair is chosen at the beginning of the meeting and the floor is opened for propositions. Anyone wishing to discuss a school issue can call schoolwide meetings. [2]
As of 2015, the school enrolls about 80 students, about half of whom are African-American or Latino. [6] The school is divided into upper and lower schools, the former ages 11 to 18 and the latter ages 4 to 11, [2] though they are not physically separated by age. [5] Children apply for admission and visit for a five-day orientation. Students are admitted by unanimous vote of a teacher-parent-student admissions committee. The group first determines whether applicants' parents support their decision to attend and whether the school can provide for the students' needs. [4] The school keeps a waiting list. [2]
The school is funded through tuition, grants, and donations. [4] The majority of students come from middle-class families from Brooklyn. The private school has sliding-scale tuition, and less than half pay full tuition. [4] Founding director Alan Berger said that 20 percent paid full tuition in 2012. [2] In 2015, about a third paid less than $500 in tuition, and another third paid half tuition. The sliding scale's full tuition is set at $22,000. [6]
The school graduated 21 students as of 2012, [2] and 24 as of 2015. [6] Students compile their own transcript and nominate themselves for graduation. Some take standardized state and college entrance tests. The majority of Brooklyn Free School graduates continue to college. [6]
Lucas Kavner of The Huffington Post wrote in 2012 that the school serves as a model for independent, democratic schools at the forefront of renewed interest in the 1960s/70s free school movement. He added that critics contend that the school's environment does not prepare students for real life, and that students from families that cannot hire tutors will suffer disproportionately. The school inspired the Manhattan Free School (founded in 2008), and, in turn, was inspired by the Albany Free School (founded in 1969). Kavner called the Brooklyn Free School "arguably New York's most radical center of learning". [2]
An article in The New York Times in 2006 wrote that parents hired outside tutors in concern for the school's academic preparation. A third of the original students left within the 2004 academic year, as did the original teachers. [4]
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven professional institutions. While its constituent colleges date back as far as 1847, CUNY was established in 1961. The university enrolls more than 275,000 students, and counts thirteen Nobel Prize winners and twenty-four MacArthur Fellows among its alumni.
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in France. The school was built on a radical new model of American higher education based on Cooper's belief that an education "equal to the best technology schools established" should be accessible to those who qualify, independent of their race, religion, sex, wealth or social status, and should be "open and free to all." Cooper is considered to be one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States, with all three of its member schools consistently ranked among the highest in the country.
Tutoring is private academic support, usually provided by an expert teacher; someone with deep knowledge or defined expertise in a particular subject or set of subjects.
An alternative school is an educational establishment with a curriculum and methods that are nontraditional. Such schools offer a wide range of philosophies and teaching methods; some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, while others are more ad hoc assemblies of teachers and students dissatisfied with some aspect of mainstream or traditional education.
Alternative education encompasses many pedagogical approaches differing from mainstream pedagogy. Such alternative learning environments may be found within state, charter, and independent schools as well as home-based learning environments. Many educational alternatives emphasize small class sizes, close relationships between students and teachers and a sense of community.
Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the west, Atlantic Avenue and Prospect Heights to the south, and Vanderbilt Avenue and Clinton Hill to the east. The Fort Greene Historic District is listed on the New York State Registry and on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a New York City designated historic district.
A cram school, informally called crammer and colloquially also referred to as test-prep or exam factory, is a specialized school that trains its students to achieve particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools, or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term cramming, meaning to study hard or to study a large amount of material in a short period of time.
Saint Ann's School is a private school located in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The school is a non-sectarian, co-educational pre-K–12 day school with programs in the arts, humanities, and sciences.
Park Slope is a neighborhood in northwestern Brooklyn, New York City, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park and Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush Avenue to the north, and Prospect Expressway to the south. Generally, the section from Flatbush Avenue to Garfield Place is considered the "North Slope", the section from 1st through 9th Streets is considered the "Center Slope", and south from 10th Street, the "South Slope". The neighborhood takes its name from its location on the western slope of neighboring Prospect Park. Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue are its primary commercial streets, while its east–west side streets are lined with brownstones and apartment buildings.
Brooklyn Friends School is a school at 375 Pearl Street in Downtown Brooklyn, New York City. Brooklyn Friends School (BFS) is an independent, college preparatory Quaker school serving a culturally diverse educational community of approximately 900 students as of 2017–18, from preschool through 12th grade.
William Bunker Tubby was an American architect who was particularly notable for his work in New York City.
Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School is a private, Roman Catholic, co-educational, college-preparatory high school located at 357 Clermont Avenue in the Ft. Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The school serves students in grades 9 through 12. Loughlin was founded in 1851 and was the first high school in the Diocese of Brooklyn (1853), but today is run independently by the Christian Brothers in the Lasallian educational tradition.
Millennium High School is a selective public high school for grades 9 through 12 in Manhattan. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education in Region 9 and is ranked 15th within New York State and 152nd nationwide by the U.S. News. The Phoenix is the school's mascot, meant to symbolize the school rising from the ashes of the World Trade Center following the September 11 attacks. In 2016, the school received more than 6,000 applications for 170 seats, yielding an acceptance rate of less than 3%. Admission to MHS is based on selective criteria including a middle school GPA of 90 or above, attendance, and state test scores in reading and math.
North Star: Self Directed Learning for Teens is a self-directed learning center in Sunderland, Massachusetts, founded in 1996. North Star's mission is to help teenagers find ways to learn and excel outside of traditional middle school and high school. It offers a noncoercive learning environment without required classes, grades, or tests. Members range in age from 11 to 19 years old. Both previously-schooled teens and long-time homeschoolers attend the center. As of 2015, North Star has over 60 members and over 500 alumni from all over the Pioneer Valley and beyond.
City-As-School (CAS) is a public high school located at 16 Clarkson Street between Hudson Street and Seventh Avenue South in the West Village of Manhattan, New York City which was established in 1972. It is one of America's oldest alternative public high schools.
Léman Manhattan Preparatory School is a private school located in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The school serves students from early childhood through 12th grade at two campuses in Lower Manhattan. Founded as Claremont Preparatory School in 2005, it was renamed in 2015.
The free school movement, also known as the new schools or alternative schools movement, was an American education reform movement during the 1960s and early 1970s that sought to change the aims of formal schooling through alternative, independent community schools.
Three Rivers Village School is the first democratic school in Pittsburgh, PA. It operates on the Sudbury school model of democratic education. Three Rivers Village School opened in the Fall of 2013 and accepts students from Kindergarten through twelfth grade. It is a tuition-based private school that offers a sliding scale tuition rate. As of Fall 2014, it enrolls around 25 students.
The Albany Free School is the oldest independent, inner-city alternative school in the United States. Founded by Mary Leue in 1969 based on the English Summerhill School philosophy, the free school lets students learn at their own pace. It has no grades, tests, or firm schedule: students design their own daily plans for learning. The school is self-governed through a weekly, democratic all-school meeting run by students in Robert's Rules. Students and staff alike receive one equal vote apiece. Unlike Summerhill-style schools, the Albany Free School is a day school that serves predominantly working-class children. Nearly 80 percent of the school is eligible for reduced-price meals in the public schools. About 60 students between the ages of three and fourteen attend, and are staffed by six full-time teachers and a number of volunteers.
External video | |
---|---|
Video of the school's operations by Voice of America |