Pros
Cool material to work with/teach. Colleagues very knowledgeable, kind, righteous. Lack of administrative and bureaucratic forms.
Cons
Lack of direction, lesson plans, materials, sources. No textbook. Unfinished curriculum. No clear 'why?' in the History curriculum. Classes are comprised of the teacher writing random, choppy, and disjointed bullet points on the board while the students copy things down as quickly as possible as 'notes.' Homework is always for the students to 'study notes for the next quiz.'
History less important than the other humanities for what reason? Three days a week given for History while five are given to Theology, Latin, Euclidean Geometry, Logic, etc. Lot's of really useless, dumb trivia coupled with biased, non-historical analyses. 'Lecture notes' are merely pages and pages of obscure information in the form of bullet points written by two nerds at the Flagship school who think everything is cool and everything is important: too much material to get through with no guide to get through it, and much of the material is unashamedly WRONG.
Course overview states that the goal of the History curriculum is to prepare students for lecture and note taking while in college, which is laughably hypocritical in light of the rest of CA's lofty language of mission. There is no focus on historical analysis, cultural analysis, reading texts deeply and accurately, and absolutely no energy given to writing anywhere in the curriculum. If you try to do anything even remotely deeply analytical, or take the time to teach your students to write a good essay, you will fall so behind so quickly in the material you will not recover.
A HUGE lack of any attention to the American founding. It is given only two or three weeks during senior year. The Mongols, Mughals, Avars, Vikings and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are each given as much or more time than the American Founding, while the rest of the nation studies USH during the entirety of junior year.
I do not believe that Chesterton Academy wants young persons to develop crucial skills, confidence, or competence. I think they want to make people who appear interesting and chivalrous because they swing dance, read Dante (albeit quickly and poorly), and know the Latin declensions. However, they cannot spell, or write in complete sentences, or think deeply or originally in any way. Students do not make any decisions as regards electives or courses, and so therefore, they are not personally invested in anything. They are severely unprepared in every way entering and leaving Chesterton Academy. It feels like everyone is just playing English grammar school.
I think the Network grew too large too quickly. They do not support teachers. It feels like you are working at a franchise or at a brand.