Q. Do Waldorf schools provide a good, solid education in the standard academic subjects: arithmetic, English, history, and so on?
A. Historically, Waldorf and Steiner schools have generally provided inferior academic instruction. The problem is most acute in the lower grades — Waldorf schools provide almost no early childhood education in the usual sense, postponing reading and arithmetic until at least age seven. Thus, Waldorf students usually enter the middle or even higher grades lagging behind their counterparts at other schools. Defenders of Waldorf education say Waldorf students catch up and even surpass their counterparts eventually, but the evidence is not strong.
Waldorf schools may be able to provide reasonably solid academic instruction in the middle and upper grades if they make this a priority, and some strive to do so. But Waldorf schools have a deep problem teaching the sciences, because their belief system — Anthroposophy — contradicts many of the findings of modern science. Likewise, instruction in other fields of knowledge may be weakened by an underlying distrust of mainstream scholarship. Finally, the Waldorf "class teacher" system — under which nearly all subjects are taught by a single teacher year after year as his/her students rise from grade to grade — virtually ensures that some subjects will be taught poorly, since few if any teachers are truly qualified to teach so many subjects at so many grade levels.
After leaving a Waldorf school, a student may need remedial academic work. Sometimes parents can provide this through homeschooling. Many schools and colleges also offer remedial classes. And there are both free and for-profit remedial services identifiable through Internet searches. It is doubtful, however, that remediation can fully compensate for educational neglect during a child's formative years.
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