All I know is what's on the web site now, and what was there in the past (and on the news etc.). I have no special knowledge beyond that. I am not about to construct some involved conspiracy theory as I don't have any more info than that.
Here's a few paragraphs from
http://www.nvlacademy.org/_bin/curriculum/educationPhilosophy.cfm five minutes ago:
Another important aspect of our program is that all of our learning experiences are taught using hands on materials and must have a real world application. Our goal for thorough conceptual understanding of ideas, concepts and principles. For example, if a student is learning how to make a robot, he or she needs to see or touch the materials and computer right in front of him or her rather than just imagining how to make it. By providing the Legos to construct the robot, the computer to program the robot and the competition to apply this knowledge in a real-world experience, the students conceptual understanding is deeper and more meaningful.
Our exceptional teachers are taught to teach sequentially, checking for prior understanding. When a student is required to perform a sequence of steps and he comes to a point where he doesn’t understand, the learning curve is too steep. If a teacher is showing a student how to make the robot and the student suddenly is confused, the teacher makes sure to go back to the place the student stopped understanding and re-teach that point. We teach older students to do this on their own – when studying learn to go back with no prompting to restudy their prior steps and the concepts they may not have grasped the first time around.
In addition, NVLA teachers make sure students understand the meanings of all of the words related to the subject, whether in math or in music, or as in the robot example – all of the words related to making the robot. What do the words, electro-mechanic, gears, and system mean? Often students (and adults as well) lose interest and stop paying attention when they get lost in explanations filled with words they do not understand. So many students think they are terrible in math; has the teacher ever defined words such as factor, geometry or exponent?
"Conceptual understanding" (first para) is a big buzzword (or two) in study tech. And In case it's not obvious, para 1 is about "adding mass," para 2 is about skipped gradients, and para 3 is about misunderstood words. These are the famous "3 barriers to study," the bedrock of study tech (I was a professional sup in the SO for many years). I'm not pushing the view that what is written there is wrong or bad, just pointing out that it shows a strong Scn influence.
Paul