Photo Source: Forge Prep
Anand Sanwal grew up in New Jersey and built a career spotting patterns early – first in technology, then in business. But it wasn’t until he became a parent that one pattern became impossible to ignore. While nearly every industry he tracked evolved at breakneck speed, schools looked much the same as they had decades ago. Watching his own children move through the system, Sanwal began to wonder why education seemed frozen in time…and what it would take to change it.
That solution eventually became Forge Prep, a new private school opening this fall on the campus of a former Catholic school in Livingston, New Jersey. The school will launch with roughly 30 founding families and is designed to grow deliberately, ultimately serving up to 400 students across middle and high school grades. The goal isn’t just expansion, but culture-building, allowing the environment to evolve alongside the students themselves.
🎧 Our full conversation is available on this week’s episode of The Montclair Pod. Below is a summary of the conversation.
From Tech Executive to Building a New School
Two years ago, Sanwal stepped away from his role as CEO of CB Insights, the data company he founded and led for more than a decade. He had spent years talking casually about what wasn’t working in education, but eventually reached a moment of reckoning: it was time to stop diagnosing the problem from the outside.
To understand schooling from the ground up, he retrained as a Montessori adolescent teacher. That experience, standing in front of students rather than analyzing systems from afar, reshaped his thinking. Education, he realized, wasn’t just under-optimized. It was still built around assumptions from the industrial era.
Forge Prep emerged from a simple but radical premise: if you were designing a school today, without legacy constraints, what would it actually look like?
Entrepreneur Anand Sanwal is the founder of Forge Prep, a new private school in Livingston, NJ, slated to open this fall. [Photo Credit: CB Insights]
A Century-Old Model Under Strain
Modern classrooms, Sanwal argues, still rely on an outdated structure: a teacher delivering information from the front of the room, students absorbing it just long enough to pass a test, then moving on. Even when students struggle, families often internalize the blame, he said, assuming something is wrong with the child rather than the system.
After conversations with nearly 300 families, a clear pattern emerged. Dissatisfaction was widespread, though the reasons varied. Parents described curricula heavy on memorization and trivia, with little connection to real-world application. Large class sizes limited personalization, forcing students to move at the same pace regardless of need. Those who struggled fell behind. Those who excelled grew bored.
Despite decades of reform efforts, the basic architecture of school has remained largely unchanged for nearly a century. And, increasingly, the cracks are showing.
Incentives That Resist Change
Public education, by design, resists rapid transformation. Funding structures, labor agreements, staffing models, and curriculum mandates all make meaningful reform slow and politically fraught. Change is possible, although rarely easy.
At the center of the challenge is incentives, Sanwal believes. In many cases, funding formulas shape behavior more than educational outcomes. Schools may receive additional resources when students enroll in advanced courses, even if those students aren’t ready. The result can be predictable: frustration, failure, and diminished confidence, all in service of maintaining revenue streams rather than meeting student needs.
While some districts outperform others, increased spending alone has not consistently translated into better outcomes. In states like New York and California, investment has climbed while proficiency rates have remained stubbornly low.
The “Erosion Cycle” Facing School Districts
When districts face major financial shocks — whether from enrollment declines or unexpected deficits — recovery is rarely quick. Sanwal’s analysis of Montclair’s roughly $20 million budget gap draws on patterns seen elsewhere: fixed costs remain, while funding drops. Buildings, transportation and staffing can’t be downsized overnight.
The result is often a cycle of blunt cuts rather than strategic reform. Programs families value most — arts, athletics, gifted education, specialized services — are often the first to go, even though they help retain enrollment. Voters may hope a single referendum will reverse the slide, but history suggests recovery typically takes years, sometimes more than a decade.
That reality, Sanwal argues, is important for families to understand. Even short periods of diminished educational experience can have lasting effects on children.
Leadership Beyond Blame
School crises are often framed as failures of leadership or competence. In reality, new administrators frequently inherit systems already under strain. In Montclair’s case, Sanwal describes what he’s heard publicly from district leaders as pragmatic and measured — an attempt to stabilize, not rewrite history.
But managing decline is different from reversing it. True reinvention, he argues, requires leaders willing to challenge entrenched norms and withstand backlash. Unlike upgrading a website, reforming a school system is slow, disruptive and deeply personal. Progress unfolds over years, not months.
Reimagining School to Attract Families
Districts hoping to stem enrollment losses need to offer more than solid academics. Literacy, numeracy, and core subjects are essential, but they are no longer differentiators. What families increasingly look for is preparation for an uncertain future.
At Forge Prep, that means rethinking the student-teacher relationship, how knowledge is built, and how time is used. Teachers serve as long-term guides, staying with students for multiple years and acting as coaches rather than lecturers. Learning is personalized, skill-based and paced to the individual rather than the group.
The school abandons traditional class periods in favor of project-based learning that integrates disciplines. Civics might be taught through drafting and attempting to pass a local ordinance. Biology could take the form of a public health campaign. Academic standards are embedded in the work, not separated from it.
Later start times, shorter summers and flexible scheduling reflect research on adolescent development and learning retention. Teachers are paid significantly more, with technology and AI handling administrative tasks to keep overhead low.
Preparing Students for the Future
Forge Prep plans to admit students regardless of ability to pay, supported by families aligned with its mission. Expansion beyond Livingston is already on the roadmap, with future campuses planned in New Jersey, Texas and California.
Graduates will leave with what Sanwal calls a “proof transcript” — a portfolio of real-world projects demonstrating competence and initiative, rather than traditional grades alone. Students may pursue college, join the workforce or launch ventures of their own, with Forge investing directly in student startups.
Trying to select a school based on a specific future job, Sanwal argues, is a losing strategy. The better goal is to develop adaptable, confident problem-solvers, students who believe they can shape the world, not just navigate it.
Early Interest from Montclair Families
Interest in Forge Prep has grown, including from Montclair families navigating uncertainty in the public school system. Early decision applications closed January 15, and conversations with local parents prompted Sanwal to take a closer look at the district’s challenges.
The interest, however, extends beyond any one town. Even in districts with strong reputations, families are increasingly seeking alternatives that offer something fundamentally different.
COSTS, SCALE AND URGENCY
Schools are expensive, largely due to real estate and staffing costs. Forge’s model invests heavily in teachers while keeping administration lean, expecting per-student costs to decline as the school scales. While the first cohort is costly, long-term efficiencies could bring tuition well below New Jersey’s average public-school spending, estimated at around $25,000 per student.
Underlying all of this is a sense of urgency. Despite record spending, national proficiency rates remain alarmingly low. Structural inefficiencies – from transportation contracts to bureaucratic inertia – persist largely outside public view.
