<p>Does anybody know of any progressive high schools that are especially good in preparing students for ivy league type admissions?</p>
<p>Progressive? Help us out here. Lots of schools prepare for IVY.</p>
<p>St. Annes in Brooklyn is the only progressive school I know that actually gets you into Ivies.</p>
<p>I’d go with St. Anne’s and Fieldston School in Riverdale section of Bronx. Full name: Ethical Culture Fieldston School… classes held outdoors sometimes and no APs. 9 to Yale this year according to their website.</p>
<p>Fieldston’s progressive? </p>
<p>I didn’t hear that.</p>
<p>The only progressive schools in the city are:
st. anne’s
little red schoolhouse/elizabeth irwin
rudolph steiner
friends seminary</p>
<p>and… that’s about it. as far as I know.</p>
<p>Someone explain please. What makes a school progressive?</p>
<p>when the school progresses of course ^^ lol, kidding</p>
<p>According to my encyclopedia:</p>
<p>movement in American education. Confined to a period between the late 19th and mid-20th cent., the term “progressive education” is generally used to refer only to those educational programs that grew out of the American reform effort known as the progressive movement. The sources of the movement, however, partly lie in the pedagogy of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel. </p>
<p>Progressive education was a pluralistic phenomenon, embracing industrial training, agricultural education, and social education as well as the new techniques of instruction advanced by educational theorists. Postulates of the movement were that children learn best in those experiences in which they have a vital interest and that modes of behavior are most easily learned by actual performance. The progressives insisted, therefore, that education must be a continuous reconstruction of living experience based on activity directed by the child. The recognition of individual differences was also considered crucial. Progressive education opposed formalized authoritarian procedure and fostered reorganization of classroom practice and curriculum as well as new attitudes toward individual students. </p>
<p>Various Progressive Plans </p>
<p>John Dewey , an early proponent of progressive education, maintained that schools should reflect the life of the society. He suggested that the schools take on such responsibilities as the acculturation of immigrants in addition to merely teaching academic skills. Dewey also proposed a number of specific curricular changes that had strong impact on subsequent reformers. At his Laboratory School in Chicago, for example, Dewey developed (1896-1904) a method in which younger student groups worked on a central project related to their own interests. The division of more advanced work into units organized around some central theme was an attempt to adapt the method to the academic needs of older children. </p>
<p>Other efforts to reorganize the schools included the Gary plan, developed (1908-15) in Gary, Ind. Devised to utilize the school plant more efficiently, to provide opportunity for more practical work, and to coordinate various levels of schooling, the plan divided the school building into classrooms and space for auditorium, playground, shops, and laboratories. Two schools ran simultaneously in this space so that every facility was in constant use. The school day was eight hours long, and schools were open six days a week. The Gary plan was widely adopted. The Dalton plan (1919), at Dalton, Mass., subdivided the work of the traditional curriculum into contract units, which the student undertook to accomplish in a specified amount of time. The Winnetka plan, established (1919) at Winnetka, Ill., separated the curriculum into the subjects handled by the Dalton technique and used the cooperative method of creative social activities developed by Dewey. </p>
<p>A prominent experimental school was established by Francis Parker at the Cook County Normal School (Chicago, 1883). The Horace Mann School (New York City, 1887), the Lincoln School (1917) at Teachers College, Columbia Univ., and the experimental school (1915) at the State Univ. of Iowa were other notable progressive institutions. Activities programs were designed to supply certain aspects of progressive education to those schools in which more radical adjustments were not possible; the activities included clubs, student self-government, and school publications. </p>
<p>Popularity and Long-term Effects </p>
<p>The principles and practices of progressive education gained wide acceptance in American school systems during the first half of the 20th cent.; similar pedagogical innovations were instituted in many of the schools of Europe. From its inception, however, the movement elicited rather sharp criticism from a variety of different sources, particularly for its failure to emphasize systematic study of the academic disciplines. Opposition increased greatly in the years following World War II, and many hold that by the late 1950s the movement had collapsed. By that time, however, the progressive movement had effected a permanent transformation in the character of the American school, and many progressive schools across the country were firmly established. Other educational reform movements that have been affected by or are similar to progressive education are open education , the Summerhill school, and the reforms of Maria Montessori .</p>
<p>Fieldston considers itself to be progressive, but this is mostly in comparison to the other private schools in New York. Yes there are no AP’s, GPA’s, rankings, and occasionally in the spring classes meet outside (this year’s senior gift was an outdoor classroom). However, teaching (in my 13 year experience in the school) seemed fairly traditional, although I don’t have much to base my opinions on. Fieldston does do well with preparing students for “Ivy-type admissions”. Fieldston’s progressivism is mostly rooted in its history as the workingman’s school over 100 years ago. However, it comes through in the school’s ideology of openness and liberalism.</p>
<p>St. Ann’s, with its lack of grades, seems to be more progressive.</p>
<p>Do progressive boarding schools exist?</p>
<p>Sorry, I tried reading mikep3’s post but I still don’t fully understand what a progressive high school is. Can anyone summarize please?</p>
<p>from knowing some progressive schools, i’ve felt that a progressive high school is one which seems sort of informal. they’re not looking for a precise memorization of facts in order to get the high grade on a test in order to get into harvard. they want students to fundamentally know why something is correct… a lot of the education is teaching students to look at situations in different ways to gain a full understanding. it’s a lot of discussion – it’s more centered around the students than around the teacher. it’s very hands on. in a lot of places there aren’t letter grades, but rather written assessments on the student-- the teacher really takes the time to know and understand each student.</p>
<p>Did you go to Blue Star Camps, bluestar7?</p>
<p>Fieldston is very progressive, my sister goes there.
I go to Dalton, which is also progressive but not to the same extent.</p>
<p>Isn’t there something ironic about wanting a progressive boarding school but having already decided that you’re going to an Ivy?</p>
<p>After you finish life at a progressive boarding school (yes, they are out there - you might take a look at the membership of the Coalition of Essential Schools <a href=“http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/schools/query/q/562?x-r=runnew)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/schools/query/q/562?x-r=runnew)</a>, you may want to continue on at a progressive college. Keep your mind open to the possibilities – Hampshire, Pitzer, Marlboro or something a little more conservative like Oberlin or Reed.</p>
<p>the putney school in vermont is a progressive boarding school</p>
<p>It’s an odd pairing - progressive high school with a focus on preparing or the Ivy League or somesuch. You sound like a fairly particular kind of applicant, just based on that. </p>
<p>The only boarding school that leaps to my mind that seems anything like St. Ann’s is Milton Academy (I’m also not that familiar with boarding school options outside the northeast). I’m sure there are many more day schools and boarding schools particularly on the West Coast, that would meet your requirements.</p>
<p>Fieldston was founded by Felix Adler who was, with Dewey, one of the leading PROGRESSIVE educational philosophers of the day. The idea of progressive education is that the STUDENT’s interests, needs, ideas determine the shape of the learning experience–it is student-centered, not subject-centered or teacher-centered. This is also WHY there are no AP courses (even though students regularly take the tests and get 5s)–why should some testing company determine what smart kids should learn?</p>
<p>Progressive is a philosophy that says learning should not be one-size fits all.</p>
<p>Smile Dog -</p>
<p>You hit the nail on the head - - progressive and prep for Ivy is a difficult combination.</p>
<p>I haven’t viewed any of the schs listed as satisfying both criteria.</p>
<p>Many would argue that St. Ann’s, with it’s emphasis on IQ testing and being the most traditional in it’s admission policies, is far from progressive. And, IMO, there’s more to being progressive than the absence of structure and worshiping the idiosyncratic. OTOH, St. Ann’s certainly fits the bill in terms of getting kids into the Ivy League - - but again, does it really “prepare?” Or, after having screened for IQ, aren’t these kids who would have been on track for Brown even if they had attended another shc?</p>
<p>As for the absence of AP courses, many of the day schools have eliminated them (same w/ class rank) in an effort to improve college admissions for the weaker students. If APs aren’t offered, then no student or groups of students is penailzed for having opted for a weaker courseload.</p>
<p>If progressive is, as Muggle suggests, “a philosophy that says learning should not be one-size fits all,” I wouldn’t discount many of the top day and boarding schools. </p>
<p>PM me if you want details.</p>
<p>I’m with you on progressive and prep for Ivy being difficult.</p>
<p>It would seem that the whole college admissions process (not just Ivy) is very much geared against the progressive educational idea. When the preparedness for learning at a certain level is measured by random sampling of data regurgitation (standardized testing and percentile grading) as opposed to the subjective evaluation of mastery of concepts and integration of related concepts, all learning is geared towards the objective measurements (test scores and grades). Add in trophy hunting for ECs and a calculated admissions essay (what do they want to hear?) and and admissions officer has been lowered to a number cruncher who evaluates writing samples.</p>
<p>What a university wants (IMHO) are students who are interested in learning what the professors have (in their collective wisdom) decided is important about a discipline and who want to apply those principles to solve bigger problems. They need to be of a certain level of understanding of the underlying principles of the various subjects (calculus being built upon algebra being built upon etc.) that the discussions in class are meaningfull to all, allowing for a collegial give and take discussion.</p>
<p>If you didn’t have thousands of students applying for hundreds of slots, you could realistically have real professors spend about 10 minutes with each applicant (in the major subject areas) having a conversation about a subject matter to see if the applicant has the required level of knowledge (and genuine academic interest) to be a benefit to the class s/he is admitted to.</p>
<p>Of course, this process would be subject to all kinds of legal challenges because somebody isn’t going to like that their supergenious kid was subjectively (and for nefarious reasons in their paranoid mind) denied admission.</p>
<p>While I applaud schools going away from rank and not labeling classes as AP or whatnot, that is only going part of the way to fix the problem. The school has just substituted its reputation and written evaluation for those quantifiables. This does work for schools with well respected reputations and the best achieving of students, but not for schools in general or more average students who will be widely ignored by colleges because it is easier to do so.</p>
<p>Getting off my soapbox (which I borrowed from others here)…</p>
<p>I don’t applaud schools for moving away from or doing away with class rank and AP classes because in most cases the change in policy has far less to do with academics than with “winning” the college admissions game. No rank - - a common ploy among private schools - - signif incerases the college chances of the kids who would have been at the bottom of the class. Likewise the “elimination” of AP classes. </p>
<p>Suburban schools are catching on and starting their own scams - - my favorite is the re-classification of the standard college prep track as “honors,” so aevery student is carrying a full honors courseload - - the courses aren’t any more rigorous, but the honors designation provides real boost in the college admissions process.</p>