Pros
The curriculum is rigorous and rich, with a strong focus on reading and writing, the fine arts, primary texts and liberal arts content knowledge. Their approach to the humanities is appreciative and humanistic (e.g., what meaning does this have for us, what can we admire about these figures/institutions/texts while also identifying their shortcomings), not deconstructionist and reductive. They treat the humanities as works of art, not as (simply) raw material for teaching skills and detecting ideologies. I've found coworkers to be exceptionally generous and helpful, though this is my first year teaching so I don't know how common that is in the field. Many teachers are intellectuals who love to learn. Their emphasis on character education is philosophically rich and integrated into the curriculum; they truly espouse the philosophy that studying the liberal arts can make students better. (The application of the philosophy does seem to vary by classroom.) The children are sweet and hard-working. Most school families seem stable and committed to the kids' education. Our parents last year were supportive but not overly intrusive. It was very easy to start a club. As a Teaching Assistant, I rarely felt overworked and was always compensated with overtime pay for working more than forty hours a week. Benefits are good. The school had an orderly, cheerful, nurturing atmosphere and culture.
Cons
(1) Most urgently, many teachers are woefully unprepared and untrained. Lots of us (including myself) went into the job having no background in education at all. Great Hearts does offer a few weeks of in-house training, but it does not suffice. I was lucky to assist a unprepared teacher who was talented and effective, but several of my assistant teacher colleagues had horrible experiences with lead teachers who could not handle their classrooms. The Teaching Assistant job was billed to me as a mentorship/training program, but we received very little continuing training throughout the year and my lead teacher was too inexperienced herself to mentor me well. (2) The curriculum is too narrowly Western. I actually agree that students should be primarily formed in the tradition from which liberal democratic institutions are derived, but schools should join that with a thoughtful study of the rest of the world. Non-Western history and literature is minimized in elementary school (despite being a large part of the Core Knowledge E. D. Hirsch standards they theoretically espouse) and apparently ignored in high school. (3) The faculty lacks racial and religious diversity. (Nearly everyone is Christian and white.) (4) Pay is low, though given my lack of experience and teacher education I do feel fortunate to earn a living this way. (5) Administrative transparency is lacking -- no published budget! -- and teachers seem to have little control over administrative decisions. (6) Their programs for kids with special needs seem terribly understaffed. I'm not sure how that compares with other schools in the state, though.
