Education: Class Dismissed

It's every modern parent's worst nightmare—a school where kids can play all day. But no one takes the easy way out, and graduates seem to have a head start on the information age. Welcome to Sudbury Valley.

By Hara Estroff Marano, published on May 01, 2006 - last reviewed on July 05, 2006

A longitudinal study of graduates—now numbering over 800—shows that Sudbury alumni take an increasing amount of time between high school and college. "The opening of vistas in the 21st century has affected everyone," says Greenberg. But the students go on to lead deeply satisfying lives. Most are unusually resilient. Almost all feel that they are in control of their destiny. In disproportionately high numbers—42 percent—Sudbury graduates become entrepreneurs. The alumni study shows that a "spectacularly high number" pursue careers in the arts—music, art, dance, writing, acting. Math, business and education are popular routes, too.

Since 1991, more than three dozen Sudbury-type schools have sprouted around the country and the world. A few months ago, I visited De Ruimte (The Room) in Soest, near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. As at Sudbury Valley, the youngest and longest-term students are largely from well-educated families that have the confidence to buck convention.

It may be that the culturally rich environments at home contribute the lion's share to how they turn out, and the kids would do well in any school that didn't destroy motivation. It may be that the Sudbury-style schools work so well because they are small: Their values have a chance to spread by contagion, and bad choices are constrained by the power of social approval. No one can say for sure.

But on a 10-acre estate in Massachusetts, 200 kids are having a hell of a time preparing for the future. And not one student needs a diagnosis of ADHD or any learning disability to fit into the program.