One Hundred Years and Counting: The International Growth of Waldorf Education

As the number of students enrolled in charter schools grows across the country, so do questions about their impact on academic outcomes (National Center for Educational Statistics). Given the importance of student test scores as evidence of success at the state, school, classroom, and teacher levels, understanding the effect of these charter schools' pedagogies on student outcomes is critical. Waldorf-inspired charter schools are one such growing alternative pedagogy. This study answers the question: Is there any significant difference between the levels of achievement for students in English Language Arts and math who are enrolled in Waldorf-inspired charter schools vs. those in either local public school classrooms or other charter classrooms that do not use the Waldorf pedagogy? Using OLS multiple linear regression this study examined the significance of the levels of achievement in English Language Arts (ELA) and math among students in 16 Waldorf-inspired charter schools and other charter and non-charter schools in California, using the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) scores. The research revealed that there are significantly higher percentages of eighth-grade students in Waldorf-inspired charter schools meeting or exceeding state standards in ELA and math as compared to their non-Waldorf charter school comparison groups, even when controlling for the size of the school, socioeconomic status, and district-level fixed effects (p < 0.01). This is despite the significantly smaller percentage of students in these schools meeting state standards in grades three through five. The results of this study suggest that Waldorf's developmental approach to education can result in strong academic outcomes despite a slower, low-stakes approach to teaching.

This paper reflects on an educational policy initiative taken by the New Labour Government in England in the 1990s–2000s to extend parental choice in publicly funded school education, and to widen social access to different educational approaches. As such, the policy which led to the opening of a Steiner Academy School in Herefordshire contained elements of educational diversity and inclusion, a degree of parental choice that had not been considered previously, and an extending of social access to different and distinctive educational approaches. For example, in the case of the Steiner Academy Hereford, the National Curriculum for schools in England was set aside in favour of the Steiner Waldorf curriculum framework. The paper seeks to set out the main features of the negotiation that led up to the state funding of Steiner education in England, along with an exploration of the processes, compromises, achievements and setbacks that were encountered along the way.

In this article we deal with questions of inclusion or inclusive educational requirements in schools and pay special attention to Waldorf schools. In doing so, we are first concerned with the question of how inclusive Waldorf education is in its foundations in order to then look more closely at the situation in Waldorf schools today and explore what potential Waldorf education has. A contribution to this is the research we are doing on the methodology of perception vignettes. For four years we have been using this methodology to develop an approach of “understanding” diagnostics for our students and future Waldorf teachers, so that they can consult different perspectives in their everyday dealings with children and adolescents and learn to ask the appropriate questions.