Diversity

Introducing Our Sliding Scale Tuition Policy: Furthering Our Commitment to Diversity

When we launched Abrome, we endeavored to tear down the practices and structures of schooling that harm children and society. However, we knew that simply removing testing, homework, standardized curriculum, grades, age segregation, and other hierarchical practices would be insufficient. Emancipated Learning requires more than just the absence of coercion and hierarchy, it requires a supportive community of free individuals who embrace opportunities for learning and growth. In order to cultivate such a community, we must be fully committed to diversity.

Diversity of experiences open up opportunities for leaps in learning and understanding that cannot be provided through lectures or textbooks. Diversity of thought is a catalyst for creativity and innovation. Exposure to diversity amplifies empathy and inspires people to take action to address the ills of society. But diversity is difficult to incorporate into alternative, private, or progressive schools that rely on tuition paying students to fund their operations.

At Abrome, we planned to generously leverage scholarships to promote diversity and offset the cost of attendance for families that could not pay the full price of tuition. However, we received feedback from multiple families that our listed tuition discouraged them from investigating Emancipated Learning. Further, in speaking with other alternative and progressive school leaders throughout the country, we learned that the scholarship model of tuition assistance resulted in a "barbell" effect in which there were plenty of high income families, and some economically disadvantaged families, but not many in between. Finally, full-pay families sometimes gain considerable influence over school affairs whereas many scholarship families feel as though they are imposters in a privileged environment.

Wanting to ensure that all families who would benefit from the Abrome learning environment were encouraged to apply, we decided to review our tuition policy. We wanted our tuition policy to be inclusive of all families across the socioeconomic spectrum, promote the egalitarian belief that every child can lead a remarkable life, and eliminate social hierarchy among families based on their cost of attendance.

Effective immediately, we are implementing a new sliding scale tuition policy that eliminates the categories of "scholarships" and "financial aid," and replaces it with an income and resources based method of determining tuition for each family. While affluent families will still be expected to pay the maximum tuition, families with fewer financial resources will pay a smaller, but equitable, percentage of their income. The minimum annual tuition is $600 (or $50 per month). 

Sliding scale tuition policies are not typical among private schools, but they do exist. This policy is sometimes called “indexed tuition” or “flexible tuition,” and the degree to which schools graduate the expected tuition payments varies greatly. Perhaps the most notable example of a sliding scale tuition model is that of the Manhattan Country School which was adopted in 1970. Today, MCS has broad economic diversity and no racial majority, rarities in the private school education space.

Abrome seeks to provide an environment for learning and growth, whereby students are introduced to, welcome, embrace, and celebrate differences. Diversity is essential to that end. And our new sliding scale tuition policy demonstrates our commitment to cultivating such a space.

If we want students to think for themselves, let them.

Last week, a group of Ivy League scholars published an open letter urging college bound students to "Think for Yourself."

Unfortunately for most students, thinking for oneself is really difficult because most students, especially the ones who manage to get into the Ivy League, have spent their academic years doing the opposite of thinking for themselves--they have allowed themselves to be shaped by others, seeking to perform perfectly as charged by adults. They have been rewarded for neither questioning the dominant narratives in society nor questioning authority.

The letter, however, seems to focus more on the debate over whether schools should be safe spaces for all, or if people with oppressive agendas (e.g., promoting racism, fascism, patriarchy) should be shut down in order to maintain that safe space. Or as The Atlantic puts it, should schools focus on "seeking truth" or "advancing social justice."

Contrary to what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues, we do not need to make binary tradeoffs between the two. As the professors allude to, the truth is the antidote to bigotry. However, debate does not mean entertaining absurdity. Universities should not subject themselves to debates over the virtues of slavery anymore than they should subject themselves to debates over a flat earth theory.

Truth seekers do not fear debate. In fact, they venture into territory where most people refuse to go because it is uncomfortable, and without easy answers. They look backward to learn from the past, but look forward to build a better future. They stand in stark opposition to those who see an earlier era as the ideal, where women, people of color, or LGBTQ folk "knew their place."

Those students who have been convinced to stay in line, follow a prescribed path, and to repeat what their teachers (or parents, preachers, or politicians) laid out as truth are the ones most likely to fall for bigoted ideologies that actively prevent truth from bubbling up in favor of maintaining a status quo that benefits the privileged.

It is the students who have not been beaten down with curriculum, standards, demands for conformity, and prescribed academic tracks that are the most likely to question. And for those who were able to engage in deep, meaningful, and enduring learning experiences in a self-directed manner, they are the most likely to question in an intelligent manner that will inoculate them from embracing simplistic (and often bigoted) explanations for the challenges we face in society.

So students, please, question everything. Challenge yourselves, each other, and your professors. Professors, challenge your students. Take on controversial topics. And parents, do not merely hope that your children will think for themselves once they get into college. Educate yourself on the benefits of self-directed learning, and investigate learning environments such as Abrome, as well as unschooling.

We do not have to subject students to oppressive ideologies that have no place in an intellectual setting in order for students to think for themselves. We simply need to allow them to think for themselves.

 

The Private School Tuition Criticism

American society has been trained to believe that schools are necessary vehicles of education. Without school, it is believed, one would not learn to read, write, find a job, or stay employed. And if we accept that schools are necessary for success in life, then we are left to ask, how would people of lesser means ever compete in a capitalist society without the benefit of schooling? The misguided conclusion that comes through generations of people being subjected to a monopolized and compulsory schooling system is that we need schools, and that those schools must be publicly funded.

This morning, a critic of alternative education reminded me that Abrome charges tuition, and lots of it. This was meant to be a trump card that should somehow lead to the false conclusion that we (and other alternatives to traditional school) are undermining education in society.[1] More specifically, this critic wanted me to blindly accept that the current institution of public schooling was inherently good for society, and that the real problems are that we criticize coercive schooling too much, and “white, wealthy parents” refuse to leave their children in district public schools (meaning they refuse to invest their children into the system to try to make public schools better, as opposed to investing in education for their children).

I cannot accept that the current institution of public schooling is an inherently good thing for society. As I have pointed out in the past, traditional schooling hurts students, their families, and society. Traditional schooling is inherently bad because it introduces coercion and illegitimate authority into the lives of children, it harms the current and future happiness and health of children, and it undermines the learning process. The practices and structures of traditional schooling were put in place for a variety of reasons, the bulk of which were nefarious (e.g., producing compliant industrial workers and obedient soldiers, promoting nationalism, destroying marginalized or oppressed cultures, sorting students to determine which ones received resources and opportunities, preserving class privilege, entrenching racial hierarchies). When the effects and history of schooling are highlighted to alternative education critics, they tend to double down on the funding mechanism of alternative schools as their proof of the superiority of traditional, public schooling.

Attacking progressive schools for charging tuition is an unfortunate but common tactic of alternative education critics. Like public schools, progressive schools need to be able to pay the bills (e.g., a living wage for educators, rent, utilities). How can anyone take seriously a public school advocate who believes that private schools should not be charging tuition, while also not being publicly funded? Their argument is less about funding and more about existence; they simply do not want viable alternatives to exist.

The one point this critic made that had some merit is that tuition-charging private schools are not an option for all families. But this critic took that to mean that unless every child has access to the same options, then no alternative options should exist. We fully agree that tuition charging private schools are not universally available to all students, but a non-coercive public school option is not available to any, much less all students. We acknowledge that there are disparities in access to educational options according to socioeconomic status (and geography). But because those disparities manifest themselves in both public and private traditional schools, it is left to progressive educators and radical communities to create alternatives in the here and now.

Abrome greatly values diversity within our learning space. Diversity strengthens the learning environment by way of promoting tolerance and empathy, increasing creativity and innovation, and reducing bullying. And we consider socioeconomic considerations to be central to our diversity efforts. Therefore, our full-pay families subsidize the cost of attendance for our lower SES families. But while alternative school critics feign indignation over our sticker price, they also make clear that even a $1 tuition would be too much, because they believe that giving “white parents of means” an alternative to coercive schooling is the reason public schools are not working.

While economic barriers to self-directed learning environments are unfortunate, it is worth pointing out that there would be no need for tuition funded alternative education options such as Abrome if public schools were non-coercive.[2] In fact, there are plenty of alternative education advocates who believe in public education, just not coercive public education.[3] But the only thing these critics seem to take offense to more than school tuition is the notion of self-directed learning. Perhaps that is because a belief in the need for publicly funded, coercive, compulsory schooling requires a belief in the superiority of those who work within the institution of schooling over what they believe are ignorant and incompetent children.

For those alternative school critics who argue that cost of tuition is problematic, I encourage them to expand their understanding of cost. The current cost of coercive schooling is a society that is filled with unhappy children and intellectually dead adults. A society that is deferential to authority and disdainful of those abused by authority. A society unwilling to learn from the past, live in the moment, or prepare for a complicated future. There is a mental health cost to coercive schooling, and it is paid in part through youth depression and suicide. There is an opportunity cost to coercive schooling, where young people forfeit their childhood and their future in order to participate in a race to nowhere. There is a social welfare cost to coercive schooling, where low SES families and people of color are repeatedly told that they are inferior, and where affluent, white families are convinced that they have a cultural or genetic right to the advantages that society unjustly provides them.[4] When all the costs of coercive schooling are compared to the tuition costs of progressive schooling, it becomes clear that coercive schooling is the one that produces a deadweight loss to society.

One final note: we do not criticize coercive schooling too much, but we are working on it.

 

1.  Although we are not undermining education in society, we hope to undermine the status quo of coercive schooling.

2.  Even the poorest families can provide their children with self-directed learning environments via homeschooling, unschooling, and cooperatives.

3.  We believe in voluntary, community education; not government funded, monopolized, compulsory education.

4.  It is ironic that the people who recognize the privilege that rich white families have in society are unable to acknowledge that the institution of coercive schooling compounds that privilege.

 

 

What does the average Abrome student look like?

We are often asked what our average student (we call them Learners) looks like. Well, there is no such thing as an average student, so we cannot describe what the average Abrome Learner looks like.[1] But we can share some facts about the makeup of our learning space.

This month we’ve grown from five to eight Learners. Two of our new Learners are girls, which helped ameliorate our boy to girl ratio from 4:1 to 5:3. The boy we brought in is six years old, giving us an expanded age range of six to fourteen years old.  

Abrome profile as January 24, 2017

In terms of race and ethnicity, 50 percent of our Learners are considered students of color.[2] We do not yet have any African American or Asian American Learners, nor do we have any foreign nationals or stateless Learners in our community. From a socioeconomic standpoint, three eights of our Learners are economically disadvantaged.

In terms of neurodiversity, we have one Learner on the autism spectrum who has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. The rest would be classified as neurotypical; however, we recognize that those identified as neurotypical are by no means a homogeneous group, and that every person has a different learning style.

Religiously, we have Learners that come from families that range from Christian to atheist. We do not yet have any of the non-Christian major religions found in the United States (e.g., Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism).

Politically, our Learners come from families that seem to be more progressive or anti-authoritarian than the general population, although we have not formally asked them to identify their political ideologies.

In terms of prior schooling, 63% were formally public schooled, 50% were formerly private schooled, and 63% were formerly homeschooled. Five of the eight Learners experienced more than one type of schooling before coming to Abrome.

Because we have two sets of siblings, we have a total of six Abrome families. Four of those families live in the same neighborhood as Abrome, and two of them live a considerable distance away. The two families that commute come from Round Rock and Liberty Hill. Both families commit to driving over 30 miles each way twice a day for their Learners to attend Abrome.

Those who look into Abrome as a potential learning space for their children, or as a place of employment, often take notice of our stated emphasis on diversity in admissions, hiring, and daily practices. It stands in stark contrast to the efforts of most schools which tend to throw the word diversity around, but do little to embrace it.[3] Abrome currently sits somewhere in between our ideal of a learning community that reflects the broad diversity of the wider population and the norm amongst public and private schools. At this point, only five months into our first year, we are proud of the diversity within our inaugural cohort, but intent to improve upon it.

1.     Parents, teachers, and other interested in education should read Todd Rose’s stellar book The End of Average, which bursts the myth of average people. 
https://www.amazon.com/End-Average-Succeed-Values-Sameness/dp/0062358367

2.     Percentage of students that are African American, Latino or Hispanic American, Asian American, Native American, Middle Eastern American, or Multiracial. International students are excluded. Does not include foreign nationals who hold citizenship with countries other than the US, unless they are naturalized or permanent residents.

3.     See our blog post on leveraging empathy to combat school bullying for some of the myriad of reasons schools struggle with diversity.
http://www.abrome.com/blog/2016/12/19/five-steps-to-end-school-bullying-empathy-essay-5-of-6

 

 

Five Steps to End School Bullying: Change the Context (Essay 6 of 6)

Bullying is not the only problem with schooling, but it is one that literally brings violence into children’s lives, and in worst case scenarios it ends lives. In this essay series we laid out five actionable steps that schools need to take to end school bullying. First, schools must incorporate age-mixing as a means to reduce hierarchy and competition, and increase empathy.[1] Age-mixing in three or four year batches is helpful but not sufficient. For maximum benefit, schools should consider age-mixing from Kindergarten through 12th grade, and perhaps even more broadly than that. Second, schools must eliminate competition, starting with grades.[2] Grades do not aid in the learning process, but they can shut it down, and they almost always create an unhealthy rank ordering of students. This ordering ultimately leads to various forms of bullying. Third, schools must give students full agency over their learning.[3] Allowing students to pick from some electives or to determine the sequence in which they learn something is not sufficient. The adults must be willing to step aside so that students feel as though they are in control of their lives, which lessens the likelihood that they will try to control the lives of others. Fourth, schools must respect their students.[4] This requires that schools commit to the principles of anti-oppression, trust students to take full control over their learning, and avoid manipulating student behavior through punishments and rewards. And fifth, schools must promote empathy in their communities.[5] They can promote empathy by embracing diversity, modeling empathetic behavior, and tearing down hierarchy within the schooling community.

In this series we have pointed out how these five steps promote superior learning and academic achievement, as well. That schools continue to reject the five steps to end bullying, when those steps would also improve the quality of education, raises some serious questions about the motives of the various stakeholders in the traditional schooling industry, both public and private. What could possibly be so important to traditional school administrators, school boards, politicians, accreditation agencies, and content providers that they would refuse to advocate for and take the steps necessary to build intellectually vibrant environments free of bullying? Part of the answer can be found in the realization that the bullying in schools does not come only from other students, it comes from the adults, as well.[6] Such bullying can range from a vice principal berating a student for violating a rule to a teacher embarrassing a student for not knowing the answer to a question, and in some of the more backward schools in America, to corporal punishment or the threat of criminal charges against students. 

So what is a parent to do when their children are trapped in schools where the adults bully the students and where peer bullying is promoted directly or indirectly through the practices and structures of schooling? Politicians, bureaucrats, and school administrators can talk about school reforms that will help reduce bullying over time, but parents do not have the luxury of waiting for years when their children are being subjected to environments of bullying in the here and now. Fortunately, parents can do for their children overnight in one simple step what tens of thousands of schools refuse to do by way of the steps we laid out. Parents can change the context.

If the waiters at your favorite restaurant made fun of the way you ate your food every time you went there for dinner, you would stop going to that restaurant. If you found out your trainer was telling everyone at the local gym what your weight is and how you are too lazy to get it down, you would stop using that trainer. If your neighbor’s dog attacked you every time you went over to their house, you would stop going to their house. We know that if something is hurting us that we should remove it from our lives.[7] We change the context. Yet when our children are being bullied at school, the idea of removing our children from school is unfortunately considered by too many to be an unnecessary overreaction that does more harm than good. Instead, society tells us to teach children how to cope with the bullying, to work with the school staff to find ways to limit the incidence of bullying, and to lobby the school board to address the problem of school bullying.  

Life is far too short and far too precious to leave children to suffer in schools, especially when we know that pulling them out of school will eliminate real harm from their lives. Change the context. Identify a local alternative school that has incorporated the five steps we have laid out. Change the context. If you don’t live near such a school, move. Change the context. If you cannot afford to attend an alternative school, downsize your life so that you can, or homeschool or unschool. Change the context. In doing so you will allow your children to recognize their personal worth, to feel in control their own lives, and to lead healthier and happier lives. As a bonus, your relationship with your children will improve considerably. They will recognize that you are on their side, proactively working to help them enjoy life. Change the context.

 

(1)   http://www.abrome.com/blog/2016/10/3/five-steps-to-end-school-bullying-age-mixing-essay-1-of-6  

(2)  http://www.abrome.com/blog/end-bullying-collaboration-not-competition  

(3)   http://www.abrome.com/blog/2016/11/25/five-steps-to-end-school-bullying-agency-essay-3-of-6   

(4)   http://www.abrome.com/blog/2016/11/29/five-steps-to-end-school-bullying-culture-and-philosophy-essay-4-of-6

(5)   http://www.abrome.com/blog/2016/12/19/five-steps-to-end-school-bullying-empathy-essay-5-of-6

(6)   Unfortunately, the media and education schools largely restrict their focus on bullying to that committed by students, not by educators. However, the bullying that comes from adults, the ones young people are told to trust, can be far more pernicious. This has parallels to how the media and education schools often focus on students and their families to explain away academic shortcomings, instead of turning the focus on the adults who run the system. Here is a report from Australia that provides examples of how adults often bully children in schools:  https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/emotional-abuse-hidden-form-maltreatment#sch.

(7)   We are not suggesting that standing up to bullies or trying to influence change in systems is not a worthwhile endeavor. In fact, the course we are suggesting in this essay will force schools to address bullying.

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