In the shadow of the nation’s capital, a growing number of Washington-area families are quietly rethinking where and how their children learn. From the economically struggling neighborhoods of Anacostia to the affluent suburbs of northern Virginia, families of faith are discovering an alternative to the region’s increasingly polarized debates over curriculum and school governance.
The revival of classical Christian education is underway, and for many parents, the timing matters. With private school admissions deadlines arriving in December and January across Washington, Maryland, and Virginia, families are reassessing their options with unusual urgency.
The controversies in public education are well-documented. Montgomery County’s introduction of LGBT-themed storybooks into elementary classrooms sparked a firestorm when the school board refused to allow parents with religious objections to opt their children out. The Supreme Court vindicated the parents in Mahmoud v. Taylor, ruling 6-3 that the district’s policy violated parents’ religious freedom.
In neighboring Fairfax County, parents have raised similar concerns about prioritizing ideology over parental rights — from admissions at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology to policies that keep parents in the dark when their children seek to change their gender identity at school.
Against this backdrop, many families now seek an educational philosophy that offers coherence, depth, and a shared moral framework. Classical Christian education, with its emphasis on virtue, ordered liberty, and a rigorous engagement with primary texts, has become an increasingly compelling alternative.
The rise of classical Christian education is fundamentally tied to religious freedom — not merely as a legal right, but as a reality that shapes how young people understand themselves and the world. When children learn that mathematics reflects divine order, literature reveals the human heart fashioned in God’s image, and science explores his creation, they are equipped to live fully alive in the world. This is a vision of education that has shaped Western civilization for centuries.
Classical education predates modern educational fads by millennia. Unlike the college-prep treadmill, classical schools introduce students to great works of art, music, and literature while maintaining rigorous standards in mathematics and sciences. Most importantly, they cultivate wonder, the foundation of learning.
This movement is exemplified by schools such as Cornerstone Schools of Washington, D.C., and St. Jerome Institute, which represent a wider trend of classical Christian education striving for excellence across America.
Cornerstone operates in Anacostia, one of Washington’s poorest neighborhoods that suffers from both economic poverty and family instability. Cornerstone provides an education rooted in faith, love, and learning — tools needed to break cycles of despair. It benefits from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers to qualifying low-income parents of up to $10,000 for grades K-8 and $15,000 for grades 9-12.
SJI represents classical education’s appeal to Catholic families in the region. Expanding from its first campus in Northeast D.C. to Northern Virginia, SJI will launch a new high school campus at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church in Falls Church in the fall of 2026. Located just inside the Beltway, SJI NoVA seeks students from devout families who desire a Catholic, seminar-style, technology-lite, liberal arts education for their teenagers.
The greater Washington area has seen an explosion of classical Christian options, including Ambleside School in McLean, Trinity Academy Meadow View in Falls Church, and parish schools such as St. John the Beloved Academy in McLean, St. Rita Catholic School in Alexandria, and St. Jerome Academy in Hyattsville. Many of these schools report heightened inquiries each December, as families scramble to complete applications, schedule shadow days, and discern whether a different educational path is possible.
Yet accessing these alternatives remains challenging in Virginia and Maryland, where school choice lags behind Washington’s options. Nationally, however, the landscape is shifting: As of 2025, 18 states now offer universal or near-universal school choice programs, expanding access to private religious education.
I have witnessed the transformation in my children, who attend classical Christian schools in northern Virginia. As older ones have gone on to secular universities, they bring a light that helps both themselves and their classmates. Conventional wisdom suggests that success depends on AP courses and test preparation. But students grounded in truth, trained to think clearly through engagement with primary texts and Socratic dialogue, navigate contemporary higher education with confidence and charity.
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This December and January, thousands of Washington-area parents will submit applications, attend open houses, and consider whether the schools they once assumed were the only option still serve their children well. The classical Christian revival is not merely a reactive movement. It is an affirmative vision of what education can be, one that resonates with families searching for meaning, stability, and excellence amid uncertainty.
In the Washington region, the quiet revolution continues — one admissions deadline at a time.
Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is the director of the Conscience Project and recipient of the Religious Freedom Institute’s 2025 Religious Freedom Impact Award.