WAY Academy Reviews

There were many reasons why my experience at WAY Academy Southwest was horribly disappointing and, to be honest, alarming. I am working for a public school now, which I enjoy, and this work has clarified the problems I saw at WAY Academy Southwest. In this review, I'm going to focus on four things: curricular concerns, questionable management practices, lack of accountability, and the absence of appropriate classroom spaces for students to learn. All four of these concerns feed into a larger issue, which is the erosion of support for students and teachers (and therefore the neglect of the needs of students and teachers to teach and learn), and a problematic gulf between the school's ongoing practices and best practices. WAY Academy uses something called the "Hero Curriculum." If you google the term, and the read the about section for the website, you will find a mishmash of educational terms that suggest they are doing something innovative or interesting: "blended learning," "project-based learning," "online learning." We even come across a quote near the end that reads, "We began to build our own projects and learning platform to support our school. Students needed a way to find projects to do. They needed a way to organize their work and keep track of their progress. They needed a way to communicate and collaborate with teachers and other students. In short – they needed a system." "Blended learning" means learning that is online and in a physical space, so it's already redundant to speak of both "blended learning" and "online learning." "Project-based learning" is a concept from John Dewey, which has to do with active inquiry, tackling real problems in the world, and not imposing on a student what the teacher wants, but teaching in a way that allows the student to take his or her questions seriously and explore topics that interest and motivate them. When the hero curriculum website uses these terms in their about section, we might think, "wow, they really know what education is about. They are using terms that seem fancy and knowledgeable, and I like terms like that. So I think they should be trusted with the heart, soul and mind of my child." What was the hero curriculum, in actual practice? The hero curriculum was composed of a series of "online modules." It did not involve any books, and oftentimes the modules were not even structured in a sequence. Teachers would choose a module, or students would choose a module, which would lead them to a picture and a few sentences. They would look at the picture, read the sentences, then click to the next page. It was essentially trying to teach a subject with an actual history - a discipline - like English Language and Literature, which represents the greatest stories, poems, plays, essays and graphic novels ever imagined, drawn and written, through tiny bits of random information. For children, who need nutritious educational content to help them grow, this was like denying them all food, and instead passing out plastic drink stirrers. It was transactional education, mindless, education that reduces everything to an efficient click, education no different from an algorithm, or the mindset of a particularly mean and "efficient" floor manager in an Amazon factory. On the hero curriculum, students would sit at a computer and do one of the "modules." It had nothing to do with actual project-based learning. It was turning people into zombies and robots, in the name of "personalization." When the students completed an assignment, it would be emailed to an adult who was not their teacher, and who they had probably never met face-to-face. This adult would grade the assignment, though again, they were not the teacher teaching the student, but a different adult. This could be the strangest of all the aspects of the hero curriculum. Why would someone not teaching the child evaluate their work? Wouldn't this be confusing for the child (not to mention the adult)? I can imagine the school or the corporation of Hero Learning System making a feaux-argument for objectivity, but this completely evades the personal nature of education, how it has to do with relationships, and not robots. As you can imagine, if a school adopts such a curriculum, which suggests questionable decisions about teaching and learning, one may also wonder about the school's management practices. When I taught at WAY Academy Southwest, I was never observed, although I was let go for "funding reasons," which is the reason the school gave me when they summarily summoned me to an online meeting and in a few minute told me that was happening. To be let go for "funding reasons" seems odd, as the school did not have an English teacher when I was hired, and had fired two or three English teachers, according to a student I was working with, before I was hired. To be let go without being observed teaching is also odd. To have a teacher who formed good relationships with students, and then to let them go for "funding reasons" and cut off their relationship with the students they were working with, some of whom needed a last push just to graduate, also seems odd, as the school liked to emphasize their ability or their hope to help students graduate. There was a staff meeting each week, but the director canceled them more often than not, which is to say that any possible morale between teachers and administrators - and therefore between the adults and the kids, as the adults need to set the tone - was constantly eroded. This also cut off the opportunity for collaboration and teamwork, though this is also something the school professed to value. An atomized curriculum, based on a "system," breeds atomized individuals. Atomized individuals do not know how to support each other, which means that is it not possible in such an environment to hold anyone accountable. Accountability means holding people responsible for their actions. There was no accountability at WAY Academy Southwest. I am not aware of any teachers who were observed. I do not remember ever meeting a curriculum team to voice objections. As I said, the staff meetings were constantly cancelled, without giving us a reason. It seemed like decisions were made and based on personal whims. I wasn't sure who was my boss, or who was keeping who in check. It felt like an entire edifice perched on a toothpick. I remember never being told when I could take a break, or when lunch. Nothing was transparent about them, though if you go to their website they have a menu tab on "transparency." What was the actual physical space like for WAY Academy Southwest? We might wonder that, especially since this is a "blended learning" school. If a school is online part of the time and in physical space part of the time, what would that mean? WAY Academy Southwest was located in a building in Southwest Detroit. The ground floor was a large space, with desks spread out. There were not classrooms. It seemed like a place where used-cars were sold, or questionable insurance, or stocks and bonds. Teachers would sit at these large desks, with headphones, talking to students on screens. When students came into the building, they had no privacy, and would sit with teachers at these desks. Upstairs was one room for special education students. It was an actual room. Across from it, a large hall, where students also sat at computers. The hall looked charming, but it was also not a classroom, and the students were not interacting with a teacher in a classroom. It was like a constant assembly. Students should be given actual classroom spaces in which to learn, with teachers who can design the spaces to maximize learning. There is a paucity to online learning already; online learning in the vague shape of the Hero Curriculum system is a further alarming education, and one that sets up students and teachers for failure. Children do not need a "system" to learn. They need caring adults who know what it means to teach and learn, and who know how to support others. They need institutions that practice what they preach, rather than websites that use fancy language for discussing the education for the hearts and minds of children. I feel grateful to have my job in the public school, and I love working with my students then and now. But the students I worked at at WAY were given a disservice, and are still. Some very likely did not graduate after I was let go for "funding reasons." And some, there still, are not being given what they need to grow as individuals and communities. A charter school trying to invent education out of whole cloth, when there is strong research on what does and doesn't work in education over the last century, is a misguided enterprise. One may legitimately wonder why that school is still in existence, and what it actually hopes to impart to its students, rather than what it claims to want.