Our curriculum is created thoughtfully and intentionally, with the development of knowledgeable, hardworking, and virtue-oriented humans being the primary goal. Our lessons are integrated both horizontally (across subject areas) and vertically (across grade levels). We put great thought into the literature our students are exposed to, mindful of not only the intellectual and academic benefits of a book, but also its cultural and virtue-building value.

We do not prioritize standardized testing benchmarks when creating our curriculum. While teaching to these tests may produce impressive data, doing so would limit our ability to teach to the whole child. We feel that our time is better spent encouraging thoughtful discussion and shaping moral character.

Nonetheless, classical education does tend to produce strong test scores. Although the tests below are not aligned with our curriculum, our students’ scores exceed the state average in all subject areas. The way classical education focuses students and engages them with the content is simply unmatched. Furthermore, the classical study of Latin and Logic creates a foundational advantage not only for thinking itself, but for college entrance exams like the SAT, ACT, and CLT. That data is not yet available for our school, as our first class will graduate in 2025. However, as a Barney Charter School Initiative School, we can see that schools sharing our model tend to outperform the national average by a significant margin on the SAT, graduation rates, and college placements. View that data, and an explanation of BCSI’s model, here. 

The success of our curriculum is evident not only in our test scores themselves, but in the upward trajectory of those scores. Since the formation of our school, for example, the portion of our students who meet or exceed state benchmarks in math has risen by 28 points. Classical education is not an efficient sprint towards a test score. It is a mindful and purposeful hike from which a student emerges wholly changed.

SAT:

2024 ACANC Average : 1144

2024 Colorado State Average: 976

Score Percentile: 63%

PSAT 10:

2024 ACANC Average : 1009

2024 Colorado State Average: 917

Score Percentile: 70%

PSAT 8/9:

2024 ACANC Average : 984

2024 Colorado State Average: 878

Score Percentile: 72%

English Language Arts:

2023 ACANC All Grades Met or Exceeds Expectations: 44.8%

2023 Colorado All Grades Met or Exceeds Expectations: 36.23%

Math:

2023 ACANC All Grades Met or Exceeds Expectations: 43.4%

2023 Colorado All Grades Met or Exceeds Expectations: 31.47%