ABSTRACT
In 1988, a team of external examiners visited Edgewood Academy, a private high school
in the independent tradition,1 for the purpose of assessment as required by the National
Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). Clearly, this team, bent on ascertaining the
merit of Edgewood Academy, admired what it had observed and studied over the course
of several days. They were not being sardonic. Their point was not the school’s enormous
affluence but how well they thought it was being put to use. At Edgewood Academy, it is
“pretty to see what money can do.”
