Founders Academy (Texas) receives award from Hillsdale College

SAT PR News reports that Founders Classical Academy in Leander, Texas will receive $25,000 from Hillsdale College as recognition of its “excellence in teaching.”

Hillsdale gives out the Henry Salvatori Prize for Excellence in Teaching each year to a public or private school that “exemplifies the principles of a classical liberal arts education.”

Founders is a young charter school in Texas. The charter system is booming in places like California (Intellectual Virtues Academy) Texas (Aristoi Academy) and Arizona (Great Hearts Academy) and others. This award goes to show that public support for good teaching in a public context will be recognized and awarded.

If you thought that the classical education movement sweeping America was only in Christian schools, think again. Certainly, this brand of education fits with the heavily Christian population of the U.S., but it can be implemented in public charter schools with all the same amazing results.

Founders Academy, for instance, states that it’s mission is:

… is to train the minds and improve the hearts of young men and women through a rigorous, classical education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in good character and civic virtue.

This mission is pretty close to what public schools and universities used to strive for in the U.S. from 1600’s-1900’s. How universities and schools voluntarily transformed themselves into the educationally ineffective, boring, bureaucratic machines that many are today is a story for another time. Schools like Founders, however, are bucking the trend. They continue:

We stand against many of the trends that have overtaken American education for the sake of providing something increasingly rare: an education that is good for its own sake. At Founders Classical Academy, we believe that a liberal education in the sciences and the humanities is inherently good—something worth having apart from the many good things that can come from it.

Congratulations to Founders and bravo for executing this mission for the good of its students and the good of society. To learn more, explore their website.