Albuquerque Academy’s Head of School Julianne Puente will be joining a group of leaders from independent secondary schools across the U.S. develop a written framework to help secondary schools support academic inquiry, expression, and viewpoint diversity in light of rising levels of partisan rancor and national polarization.
“The last few years have seen unprecedented levels of conflict on independent school campuses among Boards, faculty, parents, teachers, and school leaders,” says Dr. John P.N. Austin, head of school at Deerfield Academy. “Increasingly, schools are being brought to the center of difficult conversations around the principles of free and open inquiry, expressive freedom, and nonpartisanship in the classroom. Our goal with this project is to establish a framework, led by some of the most insightful leaders in education today, that helps all secondary schools with guidelines about when to assert neutrality on issues of political and social action and how to best integrate diverse arguments and perspectives into the design and teaching of courses.”
Deerfield Academy was awarded a leadership grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation in New York City, which will support this work.
The working group is charged with researching, developing, and writing a framework to help secondary school educators navigate complex issues around fundamental questions of speech, inquiry, and academic freedom.
Ms. Puente will be joined by Dr. Austin; Project Director Dr. Lee Levison, recently-retired Headmaster of the Collegiate School in New York City; Head of School Dr. Kai Bynum, Lakeside School (WA); Head of School Monique DeVane, College Preparatory School (CA); Headmaster Dr. Byron Hulsey, Woodberry Forest (VA); Head of School Dr. Mike Latham, Punahou School (HI); Head of School Byron Lawson Jr., Trinity Preparatory School (FL); Head of School Joy McGrath, St. Andrew’s School (DE); and Head of School Dana Weeks, Germantown Friends School (PA).
Throughout the 20th century, leaders in American higher education published and developed a series of statements defining the professional duties and freedoms of faculty and other academics. This includes the 1915 Declaration of Principles, led by John Dewey, and later the University of Chicago’s 1967 Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s more recent 2022 Report of the MIT Ad Hoc Working Group on Freedom of Expression.
These documents have offered colleges and universities invaluable guidance on fundamental questions of speech, inquiry, and the responsibilities of faculty, but no similar framework exists for American secondary school teachers and leaders.
The working group will research, develop, and write a framework for excellence in teaching and learning based on:
- Fostering an intellectual culture for students that actively promotes expressive freedom and curiosity without fear;
- Developing guidelines to help schools determine when—and if—to assert neutrality on matters of politics and social action;
- Promoting impartial, nonpartisan teaching in support of student agency and the development of personal views on matters of public interest;
- Integrating diverse arguments and perspectives in the design and teaching of courses and in all school activities.
Once completed and published, the working group hopes that the resulting framework will encourage focused conversations in schools to determine their own positions on these fundamentally important matters.
“Whether a school chooses to adopt our final framework or eschew it entirely, we view either outcome as a positive one,” says Dr. Austin. “The whole project is based on the goal of supporting educational pluralism and that diversity of purpose and mission that is the defining strength of independent schools in America. In a time of increased polarization, we must establish avenues where diverse arguments and points of view are allowed, tolerated, and accepted. Not doing so would be to relinquish our responsibility of educating the next generation of American leaders by challenging them and teaching them that our strength comes in our differences and our ability to work together through them.”
