Movin’ on up

Hi,

Last week, Forge Prep was featured in the Wall Street Journal. (hope that gift link works. If not, try this)

It’s pretty unheralded for a pre-launch school.

Katherine, the article’s author, shared that she heard of us because a parent in a messaging group she is part of wrote “That there is a lot of buzz in Chatham about Forge Prep.”

So whoever that parent was, thank you.

The lead of the article is below. Plus a bit more on Ivory tower windbags below that.

How will we know if Forge is working?

Understandably, we get this question a lot from parents.

We have a simple framework we use.

You can judge us (or any school) with 2 questions.

1. Do students want to be here? We call this the Sunday Night Test? Do students feel like Monday is worth showing up for?

2. Are students actually getting better? This is not effort. Not attitude. Not participation. It's whether students can do something today they could not do a month ago? If we cannot point to the exact thing, the answer is no.

With those 2 axes, you're left with 4 types of schools:

• The Fun Trap --- Kids love it. Nobody's stretching them. Coasting.

• The Grind Factory --- Grades look great. The kids don't.

• Collapse --- Both are broken at once. This is where a lot of traditional school quietly lives.

• The Target --- Students want to be here and are measurably better than a month ago.

I've seen a lot of schools pick one axis and call it a day. It's either the kids are engaged or it's rigorous.

It's rarely both.

Our whole job is to move our students into that top-right corner and keep them there.

BTW, it is worth saying that we will not always be there (in the upper right).

There will be some weeks of hard practice, i.e., the kind athletes and musicians experience. But even then, the student knows why they're doing it and what it builds toward.

So that's our bar.
Do they want to be here, and are they getting better.
Everything else is noise.

Note: we know the axes are interdependent. A student who is excited for school is more likely to be developing and growing. That's sorta the point. Engagement done right can and should drive performance.

ChatGPT study debunked

In 2025, a Nature journal featured an article which boldly concluded:

"continuous use of ChatGPT should be ensured to support student learning, with a recommended duration of 4–8 weeks for more stable effects"

This paper was breathlessly cited by folks in edtech, AI and the research community. It now has 359 citations.

And it was wrong.

It quietly got retracted with Nature writing that they "decided to retract this article due to concerns relating to discrepancies in the meta‑analysis....the identified issues undermine the Editor’s confidence in the validity of the analysis and the conclusions drawn from it. The authors have not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction."

So many people are going to miss this retraction and just remember that Nature once said AI is good for learning

It is not.

Spread the word.

Vibes ≠ Expertise

I ❤️ these blowhards who dress up their vibes as expertise.

In the WSJ article about Forge Prep, a Stanford University Graduate School of Education professor said our model "might" narrow our student body and "can inadvertently" diminish teachers.

No research.
No facts.
Just feelings.

The same ed schools that architected our current failing system are quick to invent hypothetical harms from new schools, while never auditing the system they've helped build.

So before Stanford GSE predicts our future crimes, I'd suggest they audit their own record first.

Two more facts for the professor:

• Our guide salaries start at $100k, materially above avg NJ salaries. We've had 1200+ teachers apply for a Guide role at Forge since Feb so it appears many are eager to be "diminished"

• Compare our students on socioeconomic diversity with any private school you want. We know talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not, and that is why 1/3 of our inaugural class received financial aid to make Forge even more accessible.

Chart crime

I don’t care how hot it is in NJ.

Forge Prep students will never commit a chart crime like this.

I guarantee it.

Most summer book reading lists are garbage

Do you know why?

Because adults pick award-winning books that they think kids 'should' read instead of what kids actually want to read

So I put together a list of books middle schoolers actually love based on 100s of interviews with applicants to Forge Prep and the books they mentioned to me:

▪️ Harry Potter series
▪️ Percy Jackson series
▪️ The City of Ember
▪️ The War That Saved My Life
▪️ The Mysterious Benedict Society
▪️ The Boys Who Challenged Hitler
▪️ Wayside School
▪️ The Last Kids on Earth
▪️Restart (Gordon Korman)
▪️ Unplugged (Gordon Korman)
▪️ Diary of a Wimpy Kid
▪️ Dog Man
▪️ Captain Underpants
▪️ Hilo
▪️ Tiger Rising
▪️ I Survived series

It's really important to get young people to love to read, and these books highlight what they like:

▪️ young people solving real problems
▪️ adventure and mystery
▪️ humor
▪️ hidden worlds
▪️ competence earned through doing things

Even when bad things happen, the story isn't about the struggle/hardship.
It's about what the characters do next.

If we want kids to become lifelong readers, we should stop asking, "Which books are important?"

And instead look for books with the things they like so we build their muscle for reading in the middle school years.

If you have a. middle schooler and a book they loved that you’d recommend, please reply and lmk.

What should we name this hall?

We have this big amazing hall at Forge.

We asked students what to name it and right now, my personal favorite submission is The Badger Den.

But I’m curious to see what our students ultimately settle on.

Can’t wait for the school year to begin.

Go Honey Badgers!!!

Stay cool out there. Go Spain!

Forge ahead,
Anand

Co-founder, Forge Prep

P.S. Admissions for this year (26'-27) are closed but they will be opening for next year soon (27-28).

We’re also adding 9th grade with the launch of our high school.

If you’d like to get first access to campus tours and/or the application, set up time with our team here.

If you want to learn more about admissions and what we look for, take a look here.