When Avenues: The World School opened in 2012 in Chelsea, it was supposed to revolutionize education.
One mom who enrolled her 4-year-old that first year was floored when her son asked for water in Mandarin.
Greenberg wrote that Avenues would be “the most important new school ever opened.”
After once talking of building 20 campuses around the world, it ended up with three.
It was the third time the school had been sold.
They said the focus on dual-language learning came at the expense of core subjects.
In 2023, after four years at the school, she pulled him out.
Having him learn Mandarin without a native-speaking nanny or heavy tutoring was increasingly unfeasible, she said.
Avenues is an innovative school that achieves exceptional student outcomes using research-backed practices."
But some people said Avenues had failed to achieve an impossible vision.
They want the whole nine yards."
“Even now,” Levey added, “Avenues is not part of that club.”
The search for a competitive preschool often starts when your child is just a year old.
In an increasingly high-end city, private school remains a remarkably spartan affair.
If there are elevators on campus, students are often forbidden to use them until senior year.
It was amid this landscape that Avenues burst onto the scene.
Whittle had made a careercommoditizing education.
In 2003, Liberty Partners bought The Edison Project for $174 million.
A decade later, Liberty sold the company, reportedly taking an 85% loss.
At the time, this was a welcome philosophy in New York City.
“This is just a straightforward service provider.”
Sejal Shah enrolled both her daughters after touring the school in 2012.
Avenues' timing couldn’t have been better.
Still, Whittle made clear that he had no interest in being another Dalton.
“If that’s all we are, this was a waste of time.”
Whittle’s run at Avenues was relatively short-lived.
(A person close to the company said the loans had nothing to do with purported financial struggles.)
In February 2015, Whittle left the school.
Two years later, the parent company sued him and foreclosed on his Hamptons home.
In 2018, Fisher bought out the last minority investor, gaining full control of Avenues.
The typical New York City private school grows incrementally.
The facility embodied Whittle’s idea of education as a luxury good.
Many parents were drawn to Avenues' modern approach to elite academia.
“Why would you choose an unknown entity for top dollar with no proven track record?
You had to believe in something bigger.”
The school’s biggest academic selling point has always been its language immersion program.
Originally, 2-year-olds at Avenues were taught in a combination of English, Spanish, and Mandarin.
Science would then be in English, with music and art taught in Mandarin.
By sixth grade, the dual-language component tapers off because, in theory, students are highly proficient.
For some, the bilingual program turned out to be more than they’d bargained for.
“They were telling us to get him a tutor and potentially a Mandarin-speaking babysitter,” she said.
“We started realizing that it’s not practically possible.”
“It just felt like we had to outsource everything,” she said.
She also became exceedingly frustrated that he completed assignments mainly on his school-provided iPad.
She decided to transfer her son out for eighth grade.
The spokesperson separately said that Avenues graduates were “thriving at leading colleges and universities.”
Not all parents or even teachers are convinced of the efficacy of Avenues' methods.
She believed Avenues students' writing suffered because they learned in English only half the time.
The Avenues spokesperson said they did not recognize the teacher’s characterization.
The mother who transferred her daughter out of Avenues during high school expressed similar reservations.
No school, no matter how lauded, can be perfect for every student.
One mother recently transferred her daughter from Avenues to a more traditional privateschool for sixth grade.
But who knows if the basics of education are even necessary 10 years from now."
A temporary Silicon Valley location served 70 students during the 2022-2023 school year.
“And that didn’t happen,” the former administrator said.
“Did they make mistakes?
Hell yeah,” and “their mistakes cost them their vision,” she added.
“I did have some parents reach out to me after the sale,” Whittle said.
“And I think overall, it is going to be quite good for Avenues.
They’re a capable, thoughtful group.
They have global reach, which I think is important to the student body.”
Meanwhile, the school has taken steps to appeal to a broader swath of families.
Some parents see Avenues' flexibility as a plus.
“But I do think that they’re constantly improving themselves.”
Rellie’s younger son, who’s now a senior, is staying put.
Avenues says its enrollment has remained consistent.
Avenues may not have become exactly what Whittle imagined.
Depending on whom you ask, it might not even be a particularly successful academic institution.
“The shots are called at corporate.”
But the school succeeded in at least one way.
“This is why we were bought.”
