This National Charter Schools Week, we should learn from charter schools and the ways in which their model helps students succeed, especially when it comes to bureaucratic management.
May 16, 2026
Why Charter Schools Have Succeeded Where Traditional Public Schools Failed
IW Features • Neeraja Deshpande
When schools are weighed down by bureaucracy, children often pay the price—but the post-pandemic success of many charter schools points to another possibility. For families and educators longing for schools with conviction, coherence, and room to recover older wisdom, this piece offers a hopeful glimpse of what can happen when freedom is joined to high expectations, moral seriousness, and a clear vision of formation.
IW Features
In Sarah’s words, her teachers taught her “how to know what’s right and how to do what’s right.” That is what we mean when we say a classical education prepares young people for real life.
One day at a classical school changed the course of her life.
In seventh grade, Sarah spent a single day shadowing at Jackson Hole Classical Academy. She says she learned more that day than in the seven years of school before it.
What followed was an education in great books, Latin, and poetry learned by heart, including Rudyard Kipling's "If-" Years later, when Sarah arrived at West Point to train as an Army officer, she found that same poem on the walls of the barracks.
Today, Sarah is a West Point graduate preparing to lead a platoon of soldiers. Her story shows what classical education is for: forming young people who know what's right, do what's right, and give of themselves in service to others.
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Classical Christian education in Africa is not a cultural import or a luxury reserved for the materially secure. It is a humane education that equips students to think, speak, serve, and flourish within their own communities.