In 2007, Minnesota’s Saint Agnes School, located in central St. Paul, was on the verge of default. With rapidly declining enrollment, an institution which for more than a century had been considered a cornerstone of Catholic primary and secondary education, was now struggling just to keep its doors open.
In other words, a classical education is available to the children of almost any family willing to pursue it.
But today, the school is once again thriving, its student census more than doubled to 835 and its campus benefiting from $20 million in recent improvements. A 2024 finalist for Hillsdale College’s prestigious Henry Salvatori Award, St. Agnes has become well known among education reformers for daring to follow what in 2007 was still an unconventional turnaround strategy: not adopting some new fundraising plan or marketing strategy but fundamentally restructuring its curriculum.
The school not only offered…
