Parents and teachers who helped found Colorado’s first charter school are celebrating after students there outperformed local schools on state tests.
“To me, this was proof that classical education produces great test results without teaching to the test,” Mark View, a father of three Merit Academy students, told Fox News Digital. “If you teach your kids to love learning, they’ll naturally do well on the tests.”
Merit Academy opened in 2021, spearheaded by parents frustrated by pandemic-related school closures and the growing politicization of public schools.
The school, advertised as a “political apolitical” institution with an emphasis on classical education, faced fierce opposition from the local teachers union and some community members when it first opened in Woodland Park, a town of about 7,800 people in Teller County.
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“When school choice was introduced, it was a little confusing,” said Vu, whose children have been homeschooled, attended private school and are now in their second year at Merritt High School.
According to local media reports, Woodland Park’s school board initially rejected Merit Academy’s charter application, citing budgetary concerns, a lack of a facilities plan beyond the first year of operation, staff recruitment challenges and questions about whether Merit could “effectively serve low-achieving students.”
But then four conservative candidates won seats on the bipartisan board, and at a special meeting in January 2022, they paved the way for Merritt to become the district’s first charter school.
The district’s teachers union argued that the move was “unjust and, at worst, illegal” because the agenda didn’t mention Merit Academy at all, according to NBC News. The judge ordered the board to list future agendas “honestly and openly,” but did not rule on whether the board’s actions were legal, according to the outlet.
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Meanwhile, the school began in the basement of a local church and then moved to a converted hardware store, growing from about 100 students. As enrollment grew, Merritt moved into Woodland Park’s middle school half, sharing the building with public school students.
Vieux remembers dropping her kids off at school and watching the crowds of students split up: One group, dressed in red, white and blue, headed toward the Merritt side of the building, where cellphones are banned and students spend more time reading than using computers.
Other students, dressed in a variety of outfits — jeans, flip-flops, sweatpants and tank tops — turned their attention to the public schools. Vieux thought the two distinct groups perfectly illustrated the value of school choice, which ties tax dollars to individual students rather than specific schools.
“As a family, my wife and I have literally chosen the path that we think works best for our kids,” he said. “One size fits all doesn’t really work.”
This year, Merit Academy is serving about 500 students in kindergarten through high school, filling the remaining space in the old public school building, Priest said. Next year, the school will expand again with its first graduating class of 12th graders.
Merit Academy’s new 2024 Colorado Academic Performance Scale (CMAS) scores rank the charter school in the top 21 percent statewide, outperforming Woodland Park and other local school districts.
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At Merritt High School, 64.1 percent of students met or exceeded CMAS standards in English and language arts, compared to the statewide average of 44.1 percent. Additionally, 43.6 percent of Merritt High School students met or exceeded the standard in math, compared to just 34.2 percent statewide.
“Test scores aren’t everything, but they do show the growth we’re striving to achieve,” Priest said.
Merit Academy’s curriculum emphasizes patriotism and five core values: courage, goodness, perseverance, responsibility and friendship, in addition to science, math, history, literature and the arts.
There are AP classes and college credit opportunities for college-bound students, vocational certificates for students who want to graduate job-ready, and the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, for students interested in the military or aviation sciences.
What Merritt doesn’t offer, proponents say, is political indoctrination.
“As educators, we’re here to teach the curriculum,” Priest said when asked about the school’s “no politics” stance. “I’m a math teacher. I teach math.”
School choice systems have seen growing support recently, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused many public schools to suspend in-person classes.
The school choice advocacy group EdChoice reported this spring that 11 states now offer universal or nearly universal school choice.
Colorado voters will decide in November whether to protect families’ right to school choice in the state constitution. State education board members oppose the conservative-backed proposal, arguing it could be used to create a voucher system for private schools.
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Some commentators have described “No Politics” as a conservative dog whistle, but Vieux said he doesn’t see it that way.
“I think liberals and conservatives want the same good things for kids,” he said. “The political process is for adults, and one of the benefits of a good schooling may be that they learn to develop a set of values and critical thinking skills so that they can participate in the political process when they’re ready.”
Priest, who taught in traditional public schools for six years before joining Merit Academy, attributes much of the charter school’s success to students and parents.
“Our parents have chosen this school for their children,” she said, “and they’re choosing this traditional education, so they’re very supportive of what’s going on here and their children’s education.”