Classical School Opened By GOP Board Rocks Colorado Tests

A classical charter school that was preserved after Republican-backed candidates took over the local school board just posted the top state test scores in the district. Students at Merit Academy, a 3-year-old K-11 public school that opens its 12th grade in 2025, also posted the best scores among the four districts that families in the Woodland Park exurb of Colorado Springs can choose from under open enrollment.

While test scores scratch the surface of student and school academic quality, these do help vindicate Teller County parents dissatisfied with extended school lockdowns, an increase in screen-based schooling, and creeping politicization of taxpayer-provided education. Due to these frustrations, this group of parents started a new public classical school in 2021 and took over their school board that fall to keep Merit open and growing. Merit nearly doubled in size the year after that. Charter schools are public schools run by independent boards that can be closed if students perform poorly.

The Denver Gazette offers a data visualization tool for state English and math tests. It shows Merit Academy’s top standing in the Woodland Park Re-2 district on both measures of academic performance.

The below graph that Merit Academy Headmaster Gwynne Pekron sent to parents, teachers, and staff last week shows the classical school’s test scores at No. 1 compared to the Woodland Park School District, Manitou Springs, Park County, Colorado Springs Early College, and Colorado Springs District 11.

The state scores for the last school year, 2023-24, came out for specific schools and districts on Aug. 29. Like their counterparts across the United States, Colorado children are still struggling to overcome lockdown-caused learning declines. This year, some grade levels of Colorado children performed as well as the same grade level in 2019, but many average results remained below pre-lockdown levels.

High schoolers have particularly shown less recovery of lockdown losses than younger students. Math scores are especially abysmal. Here are two graphs illustrating Colorado high schoolers’ PSAT results, from Colorado Public Radio.

Merit’s high schoolers — it had no eleventh grade in 2024 — also outperformed these state averages on the PSAT, a college entrance prep exam.

“We are extremely proud of these results and the work they represent, but aren’t done striving for improvement by a long shot,” Merit Academy founding board member John Dill told The Federalist.

In 2023, teachers unions vociferously targeted the Woodland Park school board and managed to narrow its conservative majority. The contest gained hostile national media coverage from activists at NBC who support showing children transgender pornography. The local city council is attempting to remove approximately 10 percent of the district’s income and the police were called on a board member’s wife after conservatives decided to contest and win school board posts for the first time in 16 years.

The school board majority has publicly pledged support for high student achievement and parent choice at all Woodland Park schools, and points to Merit as an example of the effectiveness of their leadership on behalf of all local taxpayers and students. In the last three years, the board has raised teacher pay 16 percent and instituted performance-based raises.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist. Her new book with Regnery is “False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America.” A happy wife and the mother of six children, her ebooks include “Classic Books For Young Children,” and “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media including Tucker Carlson, CNN, Fox News, OANN, NewsMax, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Joy is also the cofounder of a high-performing Christian classical school and the author and coauthor of classical curricula. Her traditionally published books also include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.