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Section: New York > Printer-Friendly Version

For Every Private School, a Superlative

Grading the Private Schools

By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | January 31, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/for-every-private-school-a-superlative/70490/

Best Humanities: Collegiate
There is a reason boys at Collegiate sport some of the largest backpacks as they ride the crosstown bus west to their Upper West Side campus. They don't just have to read a lot of books; by their senior years, they're expected to be able to write one — or at least a lengthy senior thesis. Paper writing is constant at Collegiate, even at a young age and even in non-humanities classes. Founded in 1628 and touted as the oldest school in North America, Collegiate also places a lot of emphasis on history. Nearly all members of the history faculty hold a Ph.D. in the subject, and course offerings include the basics as well as extras such as African History and History of Psychological Thought. Regular colloquia bring experts to discuss topics of interest, and the school's powerful parent base makes these interesting. A recent colloquium on citizenship after September 11, 2001, included remarks from parent Caroline Kennedy, past parent Anna Quindlen, and a former treasury secretary, Robert Rubin. An annual book festival is another favorite event. The emphasis on collecting more and more facts breeds a knowing brotherhood that can rile female siblings.

Wall Street in Training: Horace Mann
The offspring of bankers and venture capitalists flood this city's private schools, but the culture is especially boiler-room-esque at Horace Mann. One of three so-called "Hill Schools" in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Horace Mann has generated a top-notch economics curriculum thanks to a tough teacher, Gregory Donadio. It even has a Mock Investment Club, where Google, Nike, Starbucks, and Sony were popular investments last year, according to a report in the student newspaper, the Record (more workaholic evidence; unlike publications at other schools, it comes out weekly). The whatever-it-takes attitude is also showcased in "Academy X," a novel whose account of brazen ambition among both parents and students allegedly led its author, a former Horace Mann teacher, to be fired last year. (Andrew Trees is now suing the school for compensatory damages.)

Hipsters in Training: Saint Ann's.
Runner-up: Berkeley Carroll
"I conscientiously object," the headmaster at Saint Ann's, Lawrence Weiss, said when told about The New York Sun's letter grades of private schools. His students at the Brooklyn Heights school, where teachers do not give grades — not even on tests— and the endowment is still a relatively new concept, are also masters at protest. A 2005 graduate, Sam Broadwin, said he was appalled when a few teachers started disciplining students who came late to class. At Saint Ann's, students are more often trusted to make good decisions on their own. "It's always less cool to be just like everybody else," another 2005 graduate, Rachel Achs, said. "What's cool at Saint Ann's is creating things and being interested and passionate about things."

Runner-up: An amped-up academic program at the artist-chic Berkeley Carroll School in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has been expanding the school's family base: Not just brownstoners, but many Manhattanites now attend. Still, the school's parent base is heavily drawn from the publishing world, and the editor-novelist crowd has an impact on the school. After tenth-graders read "Motherless Brooklyn," author Jonathan Lethem came in to lead some classes on it. A Writers in Residence program has included Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri.

First-Choice Second Choices: Hewitt, Dwight.
Runner-up: Columbia Grammar
Bad reputations are hard to shake, especially when wordplay is involved. Dwight is not actually an acronym for "dumb white idiots getting high together." Dwight's adoption of the International Baccalaureate curriculum, a globally renowned course-load, means many Dwight students are there by choice, not as a last resort. Among relocated foreign nationals the reputation is even better, both because of the International Baccalaureate and strong language offerings ranging from Hebrew to Italian. "There are some very, very high-power international students who really want Dwight and only Dwight, because it's one of very few schools that offer the IB," a consultant who helps families locate schools around the globe, Elizabeth Pearlstein, said. "There are some very, very bright kids there."

Hewitt, though not the most competitive all-girls' schools on the Upper East Side, is now considered an up-and-coming program to watch; it received 30% more applications this year than last. Many schools are pushing foreign languages into earlier years; Hewitt outdoes the pack, offering Mandarin at an optional afterschool program starting in kindergarten.

Runner-up: Long seen as a safety net for students who could not make their way at top schools, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School is now a competitive choice in its own right.

Athletes (Not Jocks): Poly Prep
The biggest event at Poly Prep Country Day School in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn this year is a party for a man named Edward Ruck, a teacher and living Poly Prep legend who is retiring after 40 years at the school. The fact that Mr. Ruck spent most of his career at swimming pools and baseball fields says something about Poly Prep, where academics are strong but sports are unparalleled. Poly has already accumulated two division championships this school year — in varsity tennis and varsity soccer. The soccer team defeated the favorite, Horace Mann, in triple overtime. Despite a disappointing season this year, the football team is also strong. Unlike other sports at Poly, the team doesn't play in the local independent school league, but instead in a national league that includes teams as far away as Washington D.C. The headmaster, David Harman, said the point is to think of students as "integrated parts." "Heart mind and body – the Greek ideal," he said.

Future Classicists: The Trinity School
An important moment at the Trinity School on the Upper West Side comes at the end of certain students' senior year, in a class called the Virgil Academy. After a year of preparation by the strong classics department head, Donald Connor, students stand before a panel of teachers, to field tough questions on the Aeneid, which they have read in the original Latin. The grilling culminates a program that also teaches students ancient Greek. Not bad preparation for kids sweating over the SAT verbal section. "I think I know 10 or 12 people that are applying to the same college as me," a senior from Washington Heights, Kushar Patel, said. But at Trinity, one of the very top-tier schools in the city, help is not just at the college counseling department, where a counselor, Lawrence Momo, used to work in admissions at Columbia. It's also right at the school head; Henry Moses was once dean of freshmen at Harvard.

Captains of Globalization: United Nations International School.
Runner-up: LycÉe FranÇais
Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish are all taught at the United Nations International School, a mammoth facility on the bank of the East River that keeps a low profile. Founded in 1947 as a partnership with the United Nations, the children of diplomats are guaranteed spots at the school, and diplomacy is a regular part of the curriculum. Students recently sent recommendations on environmental policy to a United Nations committee. They also add traveling to their resumes, taking trips to Japan, if they study Japanese; Mexico, if they study Spanish, and, this year, for those studying Mandarin, China. One other global skill is also a specialty: writing. Sarah Bottoms, a parent of a middle school student, said one English teacher, Linda Miglierina, is one of the best in the school.

Runner-up: Families come to the Lycée Français from around the world and the city. But a conspicuous portion are French, reportedly including some of the city's top French chefs, who flock to the Upper East Side building for a curriculum that blends traditional American with the French Baccalaureate.

Artists in Training: Calhoun
A three-day play festival is how some students at the Calhoun School on the Upper West Side are ending their school year this spring. Members of a playwriting class last year wrote the plays; this year's advanced directing class is putting on the show. The unconventional final project — brainchild of theater director Marjorie Duffield, a playwright whose work has been produced off-Broadway — is standard fare at Calhoun, where administrators use art to teach reading, math, and writing beginning at age 3; all students are required to play at least one instrument, and most play more than one. Calhoun advertises itself as progressive, but "art school" is not far off; the head of school, Steven Nelson, once ran an art school in Cleveland, and one of the school's biggest recent projects was its opening of a performing arts center in 2004.

Extra Honor: Best Cafeteria. Peanut butter and jelly is anathema at Calhoun. So is even the sight of a sandwich, unless you include a curried vegetable pita with yogurt, served November 19 alongside kale, pear, and celeriac soup; brown rice, and vanilla/orange chicken; or a tofu salad wrap, served the Monday before with miso soup, teriyaki chicken wings, jasmine rice, and peas. More menu samples can be found in a 2004 cookbook of recipes the school's beloved Chef Bobo crafted at Calhoun, "Chef Bobo's Good Food Cookbook" – as well as the dinner parties occasionally thrown by enthusiastic high schoolers dissatisfied by their parents' comparatively lame orders-in. School head Steven Nelson said Bobo and his team are happy to take their French Culinary Institute training to a school rather than a top restaurant: The hours are much better.

Best Urban Campus: Packer.
Runner-up: Riverdale
The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce heralded a renovation, expanding the size of the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights by one-third, as one of the borough's best. Renovation is a modest term. Students treading to Joralemon Street suddenly seemed to be going off instead to the magical mansion school in the Harry Potter books, Hogwarts. A new middle school was built where a deconsecrated Episcopal church had been, and students got a new dining facility, student center, and expanded libraries. Flying buttresses and half a dozen chandeliers tower over one, and a dark-wood stairway spirals behind to an upper-level floor. Wireless access is universal, extending even to the Tiffany windows in the school's chapel and the organ built in 1912. Uptown Manhattan Brooklyn Heights is not (yet), but the producers of the television show about East Side private schools, "Gossip Girl," didn't seem to mind; Packer's campus is the background for several episodes of the show.

Runner-up: Most New York City school campuses are limited by their urban landscapes; to get to a sight of green or a place to run around, students must first board a bus. This isn't true for Riverdale, one of three Hill schools in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Both of the school's two campuses are wooded.

Best Fit for Misfits: Rudolf Steiner
The school with the strongest community in the city is the product of an Austrian philosopher who died 80 years ago, Rudolf Steiner. Named after him, the Rudolf Steiner School on the Upper East Side operates according to Steiner's whole-child philosophy, known as the Waldorf schooling model. To cultivate imagination, parents of younger children are encouraged to ban television, newspapers, and even "Sesame Street," and computers aren't introduced until eighth grade. A single teacher follows each class of about 20 children from first to eighth grade, creating a family feel. "What happens if you don't like your teacher? It's sort of like saying, What if you don't like your father or your brother?" the school's head administrator, Joshua Eisen, said. "You have to work it out." Grades don't just depend on tests; a notebook children fill with writings, drawings, and even doodles also gets turned in. More attention to spirituality is paid during regular sessions of what is called "eurythmy," a kind of dance where participants stand in a circle and move their bodies in specific ways meant to convey different kinds of "soul qualities." All students participate, all the way up to high school. The nurturing environment is something city families seem to crave. Two new schools that follow this so-called Waldorf model are now sprouting in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Power Women: Spence
Runner-up: Marymount
Female empowerment is practically part of the curriculum at Spence, where girls pride themselves on being less nerdy than their Brearley rivals but just as smart — and more personable. "Girls that get into the Ivy League while looking hot," the first entry for Spence on the user-generated dictionary Web site UrbanDictionary.com reads. "In one word: perfect." People skills are refined in debates that the school sometimes hosts during lunch periods and that are often stoked in the pages of its many student-created publications. The education in speaking their minds pays off; one recent graduate turned a semester abroad at an environmentalist school into a campaign to push Spence to go green. A ninth-grader last spring placed first in her division at a national chess competition. A-level networking is not out of the question. The Vogue editor Anna Wintour and Mayor Bloomberg are among the school's powerful parent body, and Mr. Bloomberg has been a trustee of the school.

Runner-up: One of two top Catholic girls' schools in the city (Convent of the Sacred Heart is the other), Marymount on the Upper East Side focuses most on the charity side of Catholicism. Many students who aren't Catholic are attracted to its emphasis on attention to each child and to classes such as Social Justice and Atmospheric Science: Global Warming Simulations. Still, there's one gender gap remaining: Unlike its brother Catholic school, Regis, Marymount charges tuition — in the same north-of-$30,000 range for high school as the other independent schools.

Best Yeshiva School: Ramaz
There is no shortage of yeshiva schools in the city, but Ramaz on the Upper East Side is rare in offering both a top-notch secular education and a strong Jewish one too. The school's Talmudic studies program, led by Rabbi Shlomo Stochel, now an assistant dean at the upper school, is especially strong. Nine periods in a day and nary a homework-free night, plus twice-a-day davening, however, can make Ramaz students often a very tired lot. This is especially true, as always, in the college admission season, but students are helped through it by a counseling staff as strong as those at any of the top secular schools. Meetings begin in the junior year, and on college night parents can meet with representatives from every top school. Plus, though tuition is at the top end for a Jewish school, at $24,500 for high school it is lower than many of the city's independent schools.

Kings of Debate: Regis
The Regis School on 85th Street on the East Side may be the best deal in the city. A free education for any boy who can provide evidence of baptism and clear the school's tough admissions standards, Regis is filled with smart boys who seem to be willing to do anything to get there. Commutes are often above two hours. A few years ago a student even had his family move from Missouri to take advantage. They come for the strong academics — humanities education is the known strength, especially John Connelly's history class, but several Intel winners have also emerged. Once at school, though, the real jewel is the speech and debate team, known as the Hearn Society, which, led by legendary coach Eric Dimichele, regularly defeats distant New York state rivals Stuyvesant and Hunter in the state championships. Tryouts determine who gets on, and Hearn's size rivals a varsity sports team — maybe not a coincidence. "It was our version of the football team — which, incidentally, did not exist," a 2003 alumnus, Pablo Torre, said. The president of Hearn becomes an instant big man on campus (and usually a shoo-in for Harvard acceptance), and top debaters make debate their social life too, enjoying regular hotel stays around the country for tournaments and, at school, treating a room called the Hearn Room as their private social club.

Science Nerds: Brearley
When a group of Brearley girls took a three-week school trip to India recently, one of their stops was to a multinational information technology company in Bangalore, Infosys. The Upper East Side girls' school with one of the strongest reputations in the city has great offerings in every subject, but its science program is the current rising star. A senior this year is a semifinalist in the national Siemens science competition, where research topics begin at the graduate level and go up from there. A new robotics team has been sending perhaps the country's only team of just girls to a national competition for three years now, and though they have not won top robot yet, the program seems only set to improve. Under the guidance of a Ph.D. chemist from Columbia, Laurie Seminara, who heads the upper school's science department, Brearley this year is trying out a new advanced class, Engineering, Robotics, and Programming, that Ms. Seminara said she hopes will become a staple of the curriculum next year. School officials point out that the excellence in science is nothing new; in 1944 a Brearley student became the youngest person ever to win what was then called the Westinghouse talent search, at 15.

Most Resembles a Commune: Ethical Culture Fieldston.
Runner-up: Manhattan Country School
As one of the three Hill schools in Riverdale, Ethical Culture Fieldston is surrounded by some of the most competitive academic programs in the city. Students there, however, pride themselves as stressing out half as much but being twice as smart and twice as moral. Classes in ethics begin in second grade and go through high school. Students study theories from Kantian morality to egoism. Other topics include comparative religion, ethical issues in science, and adolescent social psychology. The result is a close-knit community where students hang out mostly with each other, even on the weekends.

Runner-up: The Manhattan Country School. Many schools in the city pride themselves on their diversity if their "diversity number" — the percentage of students who are not white — exceeds 20%. At Manhattan Country School on 96th Street on the East Side, opened in the 1960s with the goal of being racially integrated, the number is 57%. More than 20% of students self-identify as multiracial, and more than 75% receive financial aid. The result, the school says, is "an independent school with a public mission." Best perk: a second campus that is a farm 150 miles away in the Catskill Mountains, where instruction is offered in sheep shearing, cow milking, and egg collecting.

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