Free School Movement

The modern version of the Free School Movement, which began in the 1960s, was an effort at educational reform, and to some extent dissent, motivated by the perceived failure of the public school system to meet the needs of children. In many instances, it related to children of the minority poor in urban settings. In other situations, following the model of A. S. Neill in Summerhill, it dealt with the alleged “inhumanity” of the “standardized” local public school and claimed to offer “freedom” to its students in their schooling.

There are a number of ideological bases for the free school, many of which predated Neill and Summerhill. The work of the French philosopher Rousseau, and the teachings of the 19th-century European educators Pestalozzi and Froebel, have been regarded as providing background for the Free School Movement. The ideas of the Progressive Education Association (PEA) of the early to mid-20th century are also hailed as intellectual forerunners of the movement. Of more recent vintage, the writings of the American educators John Holt, Herbert Kohl, Joseph Featherstone, Jonathan Kozol, Paul Goodman, and Edgar Z. Friedenberg reflect the feelings and ideas of the movement. So, too, do the “Freedom schools” of the American South, conducted for African American children, in the 1960s.

Some have divided free schools into pedagogical and political domains. The pedagogical would represent the position of romantic philosophy that sees cognitive development in terms of organic growth. Often these schools were founded in communities that had, by traditional measures, fine public schools. These free schools aimed to provide what some parents viewed as the necessary freedom for their children to develop their personal goals, unobstructed by the traditional structure and bureaucracy of the public schools. The clientele for these schools were usually from the liberal, White, middle- or upper-middle class. For this group, the free school provided an opportunity for the development of personal autonomy on the part of each student.

The political free schools, however, had a different population and rationale. Most of these schools were located in urban areas where the public schools were charged with failing to meet the basic needs of poor minority children. Many of these schools utilized an academic curriculum that emphasized basic skills, and an attempt to instill a sense of pride in the child of herself or himself and her or his culture. Usually these schools attempted also to create the political awareness necessary for survival within a society that was dominated by persons from outside the local community, who were seen as disinterested in, if not hostile to, the local minority community.

These free or alternative schools, pedagogical or political, in addition to their differences, shared some common goals. They were operated apart from the public school structure and bereft of its financial support, often conducted by uncertified staff, and presented their students with the opportunity to learn in an environment free from the open or hidden foundations of the schools of “official” society. Some have contended that they led to efforts to develop alternative schools within the public school system itself.

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