The following are the first in a series of interviews in The Objective Standard with owners or managers of innovative private educational organizations, large and small, including private schools, tutoring companies, and online education providers. The purpose of these interviews is to show the diverse array of private-sector organizations dedicated to providing excellence in education and to indicate how the private market for education meets the real needs of parents and students.
We begin with owners or managers of LePort Schools, Advance Confidently, Academic Earth, Nurturing Wisdom, and Grammar Revolution. (If you’d like to recommend an organization for a future interview, please send a note to [email protected].)
LePort Schools, Ray Girn, chief executive officer
TOS: What is LePort Schools?
Ray Girn: LePort Schools is a network of private schools, including preschools, based in Orange County, California. As of fall 2012, we have six campuses, serving nearly nine hundred students from infants through eighth grade. For early education, we follow the Montessori method and run what we believe is the highest-quality Montessori system in the United States. For older children, we use our own in-house curriculum and pedagogy, which we’ve developed and refined over the course of a decade. The program marries advanced academic content, presented in a logical sequence, with practical, essential life skills.
LePort was founded in 2000 by Dr. Peter LePort, a surgeon with a flourishing private practice in Orange County. Dr. LePort became interested in education through his own children and wanted to start a school that would address the many educational issues and needs he encountered while raising them.
TOS: What is LePort’s mission?
RG: The mission of LePort Schools is to help children gain what we call “Knowledge for Life” and thereby to be happy children today and successful adults tomorrow. From a business perspective, we seek ultimately to become the largest private provider of child-care and K–12 educational services in the world.
Knowledge for Life has double meaning. First, it refers to knowledge that is for the purpose of living. The knowledge students gain at LePort is practical—it enables them to understand the world and thrive in life. When students graduate from our schools, they are confident and at home in the world, they appreciate the power of knowledge, and they are able to pursue long-term goals with discipline. . . .