In recent years, our knowledge of the developmental curve of students with learning disabilities and other special needs has grown. As a result, private special needs schools have sprung up across the country to help students with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and other learning differences. These schools help students by providing them with small class sizes, specially trained teachers, and a curriculum that caters to their cognitive and social needs. Read more about how special needs schools help children.

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Holy Angels Catholic School, a pre-K though 8th grade Catholic school in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, is one of the largest African-American Catholic schools in the nation. Started in the 1880s by Irish immigrants, the church and school now serve the African-American families who began to settle in the neighborhood in the 1920s through 1950s. Formerly led by African-American priest George Clements, who originated the One Church-One Child program to help families in Catholic churches adopt African-American children, the school still caters to working families with extended hours and a rigorous academic program that prepares students to prepare Catholic high schools in the area.

Photo: Tending a community garden in Bronzeville, 1971/Robert Abbott Sengstacke, Getty Images

Cleveland, Ohio is home to a number of private schools, including Montessori schools, Catholic schools, schools for children with learning differences, and single-sex schools. Private schools in the city date back to the founding of Western Reserve College and Academy in 1826, which later became Case Western Reserve University and the separate Western Reserve Academy. Read more about private schools in Cleveland, Ohio.

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Private schools offer fascinating upper-level history classes that often culminate in an AP exam (though some schools do not offer AP classes). These classes are often taught at a very sophisticated level and ask students to synthesize and analyze a great deal of historical information and to write about it in a concise and clear way. Performing well in high-level history classes means that students have to practice good study habits; they have to keep up with their reading, annotate and analyze their text, and read as much as they can outside of class. As a reward, they will be able to learn a subject that touches on eery other academic discipline. Read about other ways to succeed in private school history classes.

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