Thanks for posting my list, Malkin.  This is not exhaustive, but is rather my own personal “list of excellence” in terms of little-known North American schools.  All but one are in the U.S.  Canada is 50 years behind, at least, with so little imagination or initiative that even another hundred years may not bring such gems to our land.  And I say that as a Canadian…..... in case anyone wanted to nit-pick. 

Hillsdale Academy is an off-shoot of Hillsdale College, the well-known conservative institution of liberal arts, in Michigan.  Mark Steyn is a visiting professor there.  Also of note is that Hillsdale Academy, along with the Barney Foundation, is accepting proposals for a new Hillsdale-modelled charter school, which I am assuming will be in one or another of the U.S. states with charter school legislation.  If Canada had a crack at it, I would be in line immediately!  For those who visit the Hillsdale Academy website, there is the opportunity to download their curriculum guide, which is valuable in itself.  A few years ago I ordered a DVD from Hillsdale about the K-12 school; they may still offer this.  If I had my druthers for a school to send my own children to, Hillsdale Academy would be right up there on my list of most-favoured choices.  I pine for it.

Ben Bronz Academy is in Connecticut, and is as much a research lab for educational techniques as it is an an amazing school for bright children with learning disabilities.  Ben Bronz uses a combination of Direct Instruction, Precision Teaching, Mediated Learning (Dr. Reuven Feuerstein) approaches.  Tuition —hold your breath —is in the range of $35,000 U.S. per year.  However, many of the children attending Ben Bronz Academy are children whose Public School Boards are paying their tuition under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  See how far behind we are here in Canada?  For an alternative that is available to all, though, have a look at the Cyberslate online option, offered on the Learning Incentive (Ben Bronz) website as a form of tutoring at a very reasonable cost .

Franklin Academy is actually just the first school in the line-up from Mr. Robert Luddy, North Carolina businessman who decided that establishing schools would be the way he gives back to the community. Franklin Academy is a K-12 charter school in the Raleigh, NC area.  There are far more students attempting to enroll than there are spaces available, so they use a lottery system to determine who gets in, as do many other charter schools.  Apparently the waiting lists were so long (and the cap on charter schools in NC had been reached), that Mr. Luddy tweaked his model to set up the Thales Academies.  These are schools meant to be geared more towards university prep than Franklin Academy is (though many Franklin students certainly go on to higher education), and they are private.  Tuition is $5000 per year, which —believe me —is a bargain.  They use the Direct Instruction method of teaching, and the curriculum content is based on a classical approach.  Last I checked, there are two Thales Academies up and running, with a third being built.  In addition, Mr. Luddy has also founded and financed a classical Catholic High School by the name of St. Thomas More Academy, in Raleigh.  My husband and I had the pleasure of touring the Luddy schools a few years ago.  Excellence beamed forth.

The Roger Bacon Academy is another charter school in North Carolina, founded and operated by scientist and businessman Baker Mitchell.  This school brings together Direct Instruction, Precision Teaching, and classical content.  There is a second Baker Mitchell charter school on the go, and I believe he hopes to have many more in the works in years to come.  Direct Instruction/Precision Teaching(DI/PT), by the way, are evidence-based teaching/learning methods applicable to Special needs students,  average students, gifted students.  There are many explanations of it on the internet.  Our Canadian expert in this approach is Michael Maloney, of “Teach Your Children Well”.  See his website. 

And speaking of DI/PT,  Morningside Academy in Seattle, WA is another of the model schools for this method.  They offer an elementary/middle school from Sept. to June, and then they open up for a summer session of grades 1 - 10 for students from all over North America.  Alongside this is a summer session to teach adults how to use the DI/PT method back in their own classrooms.  Morningside Press publishes excellent written material on the DI/PT approach. 

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I would like to make note here of the CABAS Schools as well.  These are for children on the Autism Spectrum.  Ever wondered what happens to all of those children with Autism once they pass 6 years of age, and are no longer eligible for the assisted ABA Programs some provinces offer?  Or those who never had a crack at such intervention at all, because there were too few spaces, or because their doctors did not diagnose their Autism until they were past the cut-off age (personally, I wonder if they “miss” many of these diagnoses to save provincial funds….)?  Well, they still have all the disabilities of Autism is what, and now they are expected to keep up with standard schooling.  I know that what passes for remediation in my own children’s schools is a huge joke, so in no way are school-aged Autistic children going to receive what they need in my province.  The CABAS Schools have grown out of the philosophy and methods of a Dr. Douglas Greer, of the School of Education, Columbia University, NY.  The schools themselves (less than a dozen) are in the U.S., Italy, England, Ireland.  None in Canada.  I tried.  Worked with Dr. Greer on this attempt. but there was so little real interest and initiative here that it fizzled.     

Another school I would recommend for children with high-functioning Autism is the Haugland Learning Center of Ohio.  This organization also uses DI/PT (see a pattern?).  Tuition is $20,000 per year, however —and this is a big — the state of Ohio doles out a $20,000 Autism Scholarship annually to every child diagnosed on the spectrum; they are to turn around and access appropriate education with it at schools such as the Haugland Center. 

The only Canadian school I can add to my list of recommendations —and isn’t that sad —is The Mediated Learning Academy in Coquitlam, BC.  This school works out of the Mediated Learning method developed by Dr. Reuven Feuerstien of Israel, which I mentioned above in reference to Ben Bronz Academy.  The only other school using this particular and excellent method, that I have tracked down, is the North Carolina School for the Deaf. 

Oh, and I won’t allow myself to forget the online schools.  My family has had personal experience with Regina Coeli Academy and Veritas Press Online Academy.  I would happily recommend either.  In addition, for those students seeking truly top-notch, challenging instruction in either Mathematics or Computer Science, try http://www.IMACS.org .  The Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science offers weekend and after-school programs for upper elementary through senior high level students, in several U.S. locations.  They also have a terrific online program for high school students; I have a 15 yr. old taking this right now, and I can attest to its quality.

Woops! I forgot The Davison Academy of Nevada, a free public school for profoundly gifted middle and high school students.  It has won many accolades in the few years it has been in operation. This school was founded by Philanthropists Bob & Jan Davidson, and they continue to offer financial support.  Can you even imagine such a thing happening in Canada?! 

And speaking of education for highly-gifted students, there are various “Talent Search” Programs through several U.S. universities —Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Duke —to identify such students, and then to offer them both online, weekend and summer programs suited to their Special Needs.  Stanford even has a complete high school program offered online for highly gifted students.  Eligibility is first determined through testing; all programs then charge tuition, though assisted funding is sometimes available.  Monumental line-up of courses!

The Canadian “system” is vastly superiour to the American system. The Americans greatest problem is that they think of society as composed of individuals or small projects that cannot be brought to scale. Isolated excellence is the wrong goal. Having the highest average is the goal.

The entire American mentality is look at Escalante here, Look at KIPP there, look at HCZ over here. They don’t know how to lift up the whole group at the same time. Their approach does not work. The approach of Finland, Korea, Canada, and other who take a mass improvement philosophy is what works.

Don’t know that the owner of a tiny “Academy” catering to a very select group of wealthy, largely foreign, folks who can afford absurdly high fees should lecture on education for the masses!

His gig looks far more like one of the elite schools he so rages against than a public system.

Apart from that he’s quite credible!

Have to disagree with you there, Dean.  I have four children who are all designated “Twice Exceptional”, in that they have disabilities, in conjunction with particular areas of above-average abilities.  My husband and I have turned over every stone here in Canada (Ontario, more precisely) for more than 15 years, attempting to find an appropriate place for them in our supposedly “vastly superior system”.  You know what?  Such places do not exist here.  The IEPs and IPRCs and supposed Special Needs education is on paper only; nothing actually happens.  Furthermore, the Canadian approach to education is all about mediocrity for everyone.  I repeat, it is not a superior system.  It is simply a dull, mediocre system that keeps chugging along year after year with plenty of provincial funds plugged into it; we probably don’t have quite as many truly awful schools as some of those existing in, say, blighted urban American neighbourhoods, but then again, we don’t have any of the many, many excellent schools existing in the U.S.  either — a number of these being charter schools or private schools of reasonable tuition.  In Canada we have no choice.  We get the unimaginative , uninformed, and middle-of-the-road as our only way to go.  Canadian schools are like supermarkets in the former Soviet Union —uninspiring, behind the times, and not even able to deliver the essentials to all.  If excellent students come out of Canadian schools here and there, it is despite such schools, rather than because of them.  I attended a small parochial school in the U.S. for many years of my own early education; my parents paid a moderate tuition for my four siblings and myself.  The education we received there was head and tails above what my own children are now getting in a well-funded Catholic School Board in Ontario that wouldn’t know innovation or excellence to save itself, and where - unfortunately - trash culture reigns.  Somehow, I would choke if I had to refer to the present situation as “vastly superior”. 

Not sure who/what you’re referring to, John L.; please clarify.

Sorry!

  The inside joke here is that “Dean” is actually guy named Doug Little who, with his wife, owns a place called VIP Academy; it caters to wealthy foreign families who want an Ontario High School credential to attend Canadian Universities.

Basically it represents everything to be against when he posts here.

By the way Dean, thanks for the appreciation.  That list contains the fruits of what I have found —the very hard way —over these past 15 years, and that I am good enough to share on this site.  In fact, I have shared a lot of my findings on this site over the past several years, though it simply goes into the common pot here, without credit.  Don’t underestimate what I give you….....you cannot imagine how many thousands of hours, and travel, and grief has gone into my recommendations.  I know whereof I speak.  Do you?

I offered this list and accompanying information as one answer for parents in situations like mine who cannot quite content themselves with leaving their children’s education to our Canadian system —whether because they want challenging and superior academics for their children, or they need evidence-based remedial education that actually works….... they might have met the situation I did in which a Director of Special Needs Education in a large local board told me, “Don’t worry; I have plenty of contacts with grocery stores — I can get your son a job stacking vegetables when he’s 16”.  Um-m-m, my son is highly gifted in Mathematics and various sciences, even though he also has the disabilities of high-functioning Autism.  So our system figures he should settle for stacking vegetables, does it?  I fail to detect any superiority in their approach, and I will continue to fight for better.  Superior system, indeed!  What nonsense.

Sadly, Morningside does not accept students wth an autism diagnosis - no matter how high functioning.  They are willing to consider students with an NLDdiagnosis, but only after considerable observation.

Though I did list and describe Morningside, it was not in the context of schools for children with Autism.  Morningside uses Direct Instruction/Precision Teaching (DI/PT) mainly, which can be applied to average, gifted, or Special Needs students with success.  My own children happen to have high-functioning Autism, and DI/PT has been successful for them, but not at Morningside.  This school works for the most part with children who have learning disabilities.  Some approaches will work well for a variety of Special Needs, but it does not mean that every school employing these approaches is set up for every type of child.  You need to check out the schools in particular to learn which groups of learners they work with.