The League of Democratic Schools

Whatcom Day Academy is a member of the League of Democratic Schools. The League is organized and supported by the Institute for Educational Inquiry. The League of Democratic Schools is organized to promote professional development that emphasizes the growth of students as individuals who are successful members of a democratic society, and to help preserve schools that successfully advance the Agenda for Education in a Democracy.

Characteristics of Member Schools

The League consists of schools that pursue the following characteristics:

• Democratic purpose: Members of the school community believe the primary purpose of schooling is the development of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions in our nation’s youths that support renewal of our nation’s social and political democracy. These are “schools that dare to make a better society,” and they have a definite view of what that society should be. They share a commitment to the mission of the Agenda for Education in a Democracy.

• Student achievement: Students in such schools are successful academically and socially. Multiple measures of such success are used with portfolios, exhibitions, demonstrations, and other comprehensive assessments joining teacher-administered and externally prepared tests as ways of assessing achievement. Frequently, follow-up studies reveal continuing success by those who have completed their study at the school. Mastery of learning, not sorting or ranking of students, dominates assessment practices.

• Ongoing professional development: All members of the school community engage in continuous learning. The school community has both a capacity and a commitment to renewal—one in which the members have the ability to engage in civil discourse, to take risks, to critically examine different points of view. Members of the community engage safely in authentic dialogue. Outside partnerships (with universities, businesses, and other agencies) strengthen the work of the school community.

• Approaches to learning: There are many opportunities for students to interact with each other and with adults in different roles. Students experience continuity and diversity in relationships with adults. The grade/age configuration of the school is not important, but it operates in a way that is appropriate for students of different developmental stages. Strategies that leave a student with the same core teacher are all right, if the structure also ensures that students are engaged with other teachers. Team teaching with preservice teachers or parents is one of the favored strategies. Multi-age groupings are commonly used. The schools encourage learning that takes place outside the boundaries of the school campus. The schools engage students with parents and other adults within the community.

• Small size: The school is small—small enough so that faculty members can gather as a group for dialogue. There are a small number of student contacts for each teacher and small advising groups to ensure that each student is well known by an adult. In general, the basic instructional unit is no more than 300 to 350 students. (There may be several such units on a single campus. For example, a high school may have multiple career-themed academies, or a year-around elementary school may have three or four sub-schools.)

• Governance: These schools operate with substantial capacity to make decisions about their own functioning within the larger systems of which they are a part. Such schools are often schools of choice—schools chosen by parents and/or students and schools in which faculty exercise considerable discretion regarding instructional practices and curriculum. The schools may be neighborhood public schools, magnet schools, charter schools, or private schools, but all take seriously their commitment to the public purposes of schooling. They are inclusive (not selective) and aggressively strive for a diverse student population.