The Corbett Charter School, which last year ranked number #3 in the U.S.A. in the Washington Post Challenge study of school across America, has come in this year at #2! The Charter School is committed to implementing IERG ideas, principles, and practices throughout the curriculum.
Corbett Charter School topped the list of Oregon High Schools and landed at #2 in the nation in the Washington Post's High School Challenge. (This used to be the Newsweek List and it migrated to the Washington Post with its architect, Jay Matthews). This ranking reflects the achievements of Corbett Charter School's teachers and students for the 2011 School Year. The Post tracks around 2,000 schools each year. This is an astonishing achievement.
To repeat some of the information about the school and its program given last year:
Corbett Charter School represents one of the best college preparatory opportunities in the country. In May, 2011, The Washington Post ranked Corbett Charter School third in the nation. But for Corbett Charter School, the quality starts much earlier than our award-winning high school program.
We have put tremendous time an energy into the design and implementation of Corbett Charter School. Our school is purposeful from beginning to end.
Although our approach to education is a far cry from the scientifically-managed, skill-driven, test-prep orientation that constitutes the agenda for many schools, our test results are consistently impressive at the elementary and middle school levels, and extraordinary at the high school. Great test results are a by-product and not a focus of our schooling. Education is simply too important to be given over to the testing industry. We are happy that people appreciate our test scores, but test scores have no role in our planning or in our delivery of instruction. Our purpose is to educate, and not to train.
We believe that there is a fundamental difference between education and training. As a result of a great education, individuals become more and more unique...more and more 'who they are'. Training, on the other hand, tends to make people more and more alike. Training wants identical outcomes for every student: 'all students will...'. Education fosters the development of intellectual tools to the end that each student is capable of making judgments, setting priorities, and creating something new in the world. Training can only ever replicate what is already done, already known, already thought. Training is good and necessary. But education needs to take us further than the limits of training. What do we call the ability to move beyond what is already done? Imagination. Imagination backed by substantial learning is how the future is created.
We begin each unit of study with an experience designed to create emotional engagement in the topic of study. The means for creating emotional engagement varies with the ages of the students, but this is our goal from primary rooms to senior high school.
We intend that our classrooms be places of joy in learning about the world and that our days include a celebration of the opportunity to learn together. We do not bring children together so that they can learn in isolation. Particularly in the early grades, there is a strong emphasis on common activities where each student brings away a unique benefit even while all are engaged in the same work.
One of the insights of Imaginative Education is that students of varying ages are attracted to a topic through different avenues, as their emotional and intellectual landscape changes in predictable ways as they mature. This is why our Primary classrooms are celebrations of oral language, while our Intermediate program emphasizes literacy. The move from oral to written language is not just a matter of skill development, it is a question of how students, at different ages, most enthusiastically and effective engage the world.
Corbett Charter School values the arts. We have championed the expansion of the music program so that every student has access to general music or to band from the fourth grade though graduation. The most casual visit to any of our buildings will provide ample evidence that the visual arts receive similar emphasis, culminating in a variety of Advanced Placement Art options at the high school level.
