Founded 2003
About Great Hearts America
Our Story
The Case for a Classical Education
In the autumn of 2003, a small group of parents and educators in Chandler, Arizona, opened a school on a simple and demanding premise: that the greatest books ever written are not too difficult for children — that children, properly guided, will rise to meet Homer, Plato, and Augustine with genuine wonder and intellectual hunger.
That school was Chandler Preparatory Academy. It enrolled 96 students in its first year. Twenty-two years later, the Great Hearts network spans 47 academies across Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana — educating more than 30,000 students who read primary texts, not summaries, not excerpts, not modern retellings, at no cost to their families.
The name "Great Hearts" is drawn from the classical tradition itself. Aristotle called the highest human excellence megalopsychia — greatness of soul. The great-hearted person does not seek recognition or reward, but pursues virtue as a natural expression of who they are. Our schools exist to form precisely this kind of person: one who loves truth not for what it earns but for what it is.
We are not preparing students for the next examination. We are preparing them for a life of meaning — for the examined life that Socrates declared the only one worth living.
Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry · January · Limbourg Brothers, c. 1412–16 · Musée Condé, Chantilly
Lawrence Alma-Tadema · A Reading from Homer, 1885 · Philadelphia Museum of Art
Our Motto
Veritas · Bonitas · Pulchritudo
We pursue truth wherever it leads — through Socratic dialogue, primary texts, and the long tradition of Western philosophy. No subject is taboo. Every claim is subject to examination.
Education in the classical tradition is education in virtue. We do not merely inform the mind — we form the character, teaching students to love what is truly worthy of love.
Beauty is not decorative but instructive. Through art, music, poetry, and architecture, students learn to perceive order and proportion — and to produce it.
A Record of Growth
Twenty-Two Years in the Tradition
Chandler Preparatory Academy opens in the East Valley of Phoenix, Arizona — the first Great Hearts school — with 96 students.
Three additional Arizona academies open. Great Hearts establishes itself as the leading model for classical public charter education.
Great Hearts Texas is established. The first Texas academies open in San Antonio, extending tuition-free classical education beyond Arizona for the first time.
The network crosses 25 academies. A national headquarters is established in Phoenix to support a growing community of families across two states.
Great Hearts Louisiana opens in Baton Rouge. The Western tradition now reaches students in three states.
47 academies. 30,000+ students. The Western tradition, still taught — tuition-free.
Jean-Léon Gérôme · Pygmalion and Galatea, ca. 1890 · Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rembrandt · Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, 1653 · Metropolitan Museum of Art
Classical education is not about memorizing the past. It is about forming citizens capable of governing themselves, of deliberating well, of knowing what justice requires — and choosing it.