Actor Will Smith has turned in his homeschooling hat and is helping fund a school he feels will meet the needs of his children and others, called New Village Academy (NVA), which sounds like a great thing.

There's only one teeny little catch, Scientology is never mentioned but hints of it abound on the NVA website. My antennas went up with this passage:

Upon completion of a subject chapter such as in math, the teacher sends the student to "Qual", where he/she is given an test in various forms. If the student scores anything less than 100%, the Qualifications teacher will sit down with the student and go over the part of the exam that was not fully understood and make sure the student understands all of the words and concepts in the chapter. The teacher will also make sure the student did not skip any concepts which would inhibit learning. This is done to help students so that they gain 100% certainty.

If a student is having difficulty in class in a particular subject, the teacher may send the child to Qual for assistance in finding out why the student is not progressing. Qual staff will intensively work with the student to determine what is going on and work with them one-on-one until they have grasped the subject matter and are ready to move on.

I have a degree in education and know how rare and fantastic individualized help can be for students. I've also read up on Scientology and the wording used to describe this assessment program sounds suspect. Quals? 100% certainty? What's up with the strange terminology?

Celebrity website Celebitchy did some digging and found that five out of the seventeen teachers listed at NVA have completed Scientology courses, the language arts program uses the literature created by Scientologists and used in the Scientology-run schools for children of their members, and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's concepts, key phrases and unique words abound on the school's website.

Even the school's mission statement: "We believe that an individual's survival and prosperity are inextricably bound to the rise and fall of his or her family, social groups and humankind." mirrors Hubbard's statement on ethics: "Dishonest conduct is non survival. Anything is unreasonable or evil which brings about the destruction of individuals, groups, or inhibits the future of the race."

Educating your child according to your religious beliefs is fine and something that parochial schools do on a daily basis. However, parochial schools clearly state that they are a religious organization and what that particular religion is, usually in the name of the school. Not mentioning a school has ties with Scientology is pretty awful and doesn't do much to dispel the rumors of Scientology being a cult.

It's also not the way a legend should behave, Will.