The mission of Ivy Classical Academy is to train the minds and improve the hearts of young people through a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principles of moral character and civic virtue.
On August 21, Ivy Classical Academy opened its doors to students for the first time. It might not be overstating things to say that its opening is the first shot fired in an educational revolution in Alabama.
Charter schools are still relatively new in the state. The enabling legislation is less than a decade old, and there were fewer than 20 such schools in the state in 2023-2024. Ivy is the first Alabama charter school to offer a classical curriculum to students and families, and early indications are that there’s a big appetite for it.
New schools of this kind often start with only kindergarten or a couple of elementary grades to ease startup logistical burdens. Because Alabama’s per-pupil funding from the state is relatively low, Ivy began with kindergarten through fifth grade to reach the economies of scale needed to make the school viable. Around 630 students were enrolled on Day One.
Look again at the Ivy Classical mission statement at the top of this post. When was the last time you saw a state-funded educational institution embrace anything close to those values? The Ivy faculty and staff actually work to inculcate intellectual and moral virtues in the students. Ivy’s website lists six core virtues that animate instruction:
Wisdom
Justice
Temperance
Courage
Compassion
Wonder
You know where the first four of those come from, of course. They are the four cardinal virtues stressed by the Western philosophical tradition since antiquity. Compassion and wonder are pretty great, too, and they have strong overlap with the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians, e.g., kindness, joy.
To give you an idea of what Ivy students are learning, I’ll share some information from the weekly newsletter I received yesterday from Daughter #1’s second-grade teacher. This past week, in addition to some phonics review and math, the students read the first five chapters of Charlotte’s Web, they learned the continents and the oceans, and began memorizing Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Bed in Summer.”
Meanwhile, Son #6’s fifth-grade class is several chapters into The Secret Garden and has already memorized Ivy’s mission statement and the pledge of allegiance . . . in Latin. (No, really . . . the school posted a video of the children reciting both things a couple of days ago. Check it out.)
Ivy’s model requires parents to buy in; we get DAILY reports from our children’s teachers about their conduct that we must sign and return. We also have to submit logs of the time we’ve spent at home reading to or with the kids every week or two.
The students have an opportunity to recite what they’ve memorized at the all-school assemblies every week. While construction is being finished on the cafeteria, these meetings are being held outside.
How is this the beginning of a revolution in Alabama education? The reaction from parents whose children transferred to Ivy Classical from other elementary schools are extremely positive. Almost every day, I hear or see a comment from a mom to the effect that her child has never enjoyed going to school until now, or that the faculty and staff care so much more about her child than the faculty and staff did at the other schools they’ve attended.
You can’t buy that kind of publicity, and if it holds up, it’s likely that every grade at Ivy Classical will be oversubscribed next year. Moreover, the demand for this kind of education in other parts of the state will increase. As a board member, I’m privy to a certain amount of scuttlebutt, and I know that people with the ability to make things happen are watching us with a view toward starting similar schools in other large cities in the next few years. When Ivy Classical’s students start demonstrating above-average academic outcomes, the momentum will increase. We’re establishing precedents and a model that is likely to proliferate throughout Alabama in the coming years.
Whether the newer schools will be charters is an open question, though. Last year, Alabama passed school choice legislation that will, if I recall correctly, create education savings accounts for every child by the fall of 2025. Schools using our curriculum or something close to it might be able to get off the ground in a year or two without going through the cumbersome charter process. If so, classical education could spread even more quickly here.
But I’m glad Ivy Classical is a charter. The requirement to accept anyone who applies as a potential student (subject to lottery) takes away the argument from defenders of the educational status quo that classical education can only succeed with a certain demographic of student.
Public education is a mess throughout the country, but there are some bright spots. I’m thrilled to be a part of one of them.