Crossroads Academy, a private school in Hanover, N.H., and one of the earliest schools to push a traditional academic curriculum, started with five students and parent volunteers. Ten years later, it has 140 students. Charter schools, however, have given the parents their most powerful option. In 37 states over the last eight years, charter school laws allow publicly financed schools run by private boards. Now in its fourth year, the Princeton Charter School teaches students to read with phonics, the old method of sounding out the letters.
Students spend an hour each day in English class, another hour in math class.
Other subjects are taught in the 45-minute periods typical in American schools, and include topics considered musty elsewhere, like history and geography. The curriculum is tightly defined. Beginning in fifth grade, students learn history chronologically from year to year, starting before 500 B.C. Grammar lessons begin in the first grade. Young children memorize and recite poems to grasp the rhythms of speech and words. Every student writes each day and spelling and syntax count in the grading.