BROOKLYN FREE SCHOOL

Brooklyn Free School is a private Pre -K-12 democratic free school in Brooklyn. It's the first free school in New York City. There aren’t any grades or tests and there is no homework. The upper school is for students between the ages of 11 and 18 and the lower school is for students between the ages of 4 and 11. There isn't a program in this school. Students can choose any class they want and they can not go to class if they don’t want to. The students make the school rules. They can read alone or take a class. They can leave classes whenever they want. There are philosophy seminars, cheese-tasting classes, book discussions. There are also mathematics, chemistry, physics, psychology, geometry and writing classes. Students need to be at school for five and a half hours a day, but what they do with this time is up to them. There are meetings every week and in these meetings students talk about school management or student admission rules. When a student wants to have a meeting, he/she can call for one. Students run the classes with teachers being there just there as moderators. “The school expects every student to find his or her own way” says the school principal.

Free schools believe that students learn best when they want to, not when forced to. “Every kid here is definitely motivated to learn something” says the assistant principal. “Our aim is to make them motivated to learn.”

Experts say it is nearly impossible to figure out how successful free schools are. Some free schools report that many of their students go to college, but they still need to be more structured.