Accelerated Christian Education is an American company which produces the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) school curriculum structured around a literal interpretation of the Bible and which teaches other academic subjects from a Protestant fundamentalist or conservative Evangelical standpoint. Founded in 1970 by Donald and Esther Howard, ACE´s website states it is used in over 6,000 schools in 145 countries. ACE has been criticized for its content, heavy reliance on the use of rote recall as a learning tool and for the educational outcomes of pupils on leaving the Accelerated Christian Education system both in the US and the United Kingdom.
Video Accelerated Christian Education
History
Accelerated Christian Education was founded in 1970 by Donald and Esther Howard. They set about developing a biblically literalist educational curriculum with Donald Howard traveling to promote ACE schools around the world as a new form of "educational mission".
The first school which used the ACE program opened in Garland, Texas and started with 45 students. By 1980 there were over 3,000 Christian schools in the United States associated with ACE, reaching 8,000 during the 1980s.
In 1996 ACE opened a three-story facility in Lewisville, Texas to handle its growing operations. Esther took over control of ACE the following year. She remains as ACE's President, and Duane Howard, one of the couple's sons, currently serves as Vice President. In 2007 ACE moved its corporate offices to Hendersonville, Tennessee. The Lewisville facility remains as ACE's distribution center.
As of January 2017 there are 26 schools using the ACE curriculum registered in the United Kingdom. In October 2016 ten schools graded by British parliamentary education inspectors OFSTED were revisited following concerns of mistreatment raised in British press, nine of which were subsequently re-graded as 'inadequate' or 'requires improvement' by the watchdog.
Maps Accelerated Christian Education
Curriculum approach
According to the curriculum section on its website, ACE's "core curriculum is an individualized, Biblically-based, character-building curriculum package" and is based on a series of workbooks called PACEs (Packets of Accelerated Christian Education). At the beginning of each PACE is an overview, a scripture to memorize, a character trait to strive toward, and information on what, if any, supplies the student will need. Each subject has 12 PACEs per grade level. The basic subjects of ACE are math (yellow), English (red), Literature & Creative Writing (light red), Word Building/Etymology (purple), science (blue), social studies (green), Old and New Testament (orange). Children in the Philippines also study Filipino (pink), and Araling Panlipunan (brown). A new student is given a placement test and the results place the student at appropriate levels by subject. Students are required to set daily goals for work completion and are generally expected to finish a given PACE within two to three weeks (depending on the school). Students are given reviews at certain points in a PACE (called "check-ups") and a test at its culmination. The passing score for the test can be from 80% to 90%, also depending on the corresponding school. Students who fail must take what measures the school provides to pass the PACE.
Distribution and promotion
Schools using the curriculum are not allowed to describe themselves as 'ACE schools' or use the ACE logo although schools are expected to sign an agreement and follow the ACE Procedures Manual and Administration Manual.
The program can be used by homeschooling families and private establishments; ACE provides instruction and structure for operating a "Christian school". ACE's website advises that schools are not required to use the entire curriculum and may augment it with other resources although this incurs a financial penalty as the school loses its discount.
The company also sells home schooling and distance learning curriculum materials through its Lighthouse Distance Academy.
ACE provides annual one-day training sessions called Christian Educators' Conventions (CEC) for administrators, supervisors, and monitors. These are provided in locations around the United States. The sessions focus on understanding and properly implementing the ACE program. For Learning Center Supervisors a four-day workshop is provided annually. The workshop is organized like an ACE classroom, allowing the supervisor to experience the ACE system as a student and learn how to implement the system.
ACE student conventions
Schools that use the ACE curriculum may participate in the student conventions and the top-placed participants are able to proceed to the International Convention. This convention is usually held at a university campus, such as Indiana University in Bloomington (1990), the University of North Texas in Denton (1991), Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff (1993), and Purdue University in Indiana (1994). The All Africa Student Convention takes place in South Africa once a year at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The All Africa Student Convention not organized or hosted by ACE United States but by Accelerated Christian Education South Africa, which is a separate organization providing the ACE curriculum to African schools.
The conventions also offer "Events of the Heart", which allow students with mental and physical disabilities to participate. When the conventions first started, a parade in the hosting city would accompany a convention. In 1981, over 3,000 students and sponsors marched in New York City to celebrate the opening of the convention at Rutgers University. Student conventions offer speakers. Past speakers have included David Gibbs from the Christian Law Association, Ben Jordan and William Murray.
Criticism
Use of rote recall
The curriculum's emphasis on rote recall has been criticized by educational researchers. David Berliner described the teaching methods as "low-level cognitive tasks that emphasize simple association and recall activities, as is typical of instruction from workbooks... the materials make heavy use of behavioral objectives, programmed learning, and rewards." D. Flemming and T Hunt in a 1987 article in the education journal Phi Delta Kappa analyzed the ACE curriculum, concluding that "If parents want their children to obtain a very limited and sometimes inaccurate view of the world -- one that ignores thinking above the level of rote recall -- then the ACE materials do the job very well. The world of the ACE materials is quite a different one from that of scholarship and critical thinking."
Race and apartheid
The ACE curriculum includes controversial content in relation to race. Social Studies (World History) PACE 108 stated,
"Although apartheid appears to allow the unfair treatment of blacks, the system has worked well in South Africa .... Although white businessmen and developers are guilty of some unfair treatment of blacks, they turned South Africa into a modern industrialized nation, which the poor, uneducated blacks couldn't have accomplished in several more decades. If more blacks were suddenly given control of the nation, its economy and business, as Mandela wished, they could have destroyed what they have waited and worked so hard for."
ACE Social studies PACE also attempts to play down the role of slavery in the American Civil War, stating that god created the war to punish people for religious apostasy.
In addition, the curriculum has been criticized for its depiction of racially segregated churches and schools.
Content
Science is presented in the ACE curriculum through the framework of Young Earth Creationism (YEC). For example, in Biology 1099, the existence of the Loch Ness monster is presented as a fact (as a plesiosaur), and used as a so-called proof against the theory of evolution. Textbooks published in Europe removed this reference in July 2013.
Textbooks used in the curriculum assert that abortion is wrong, evolution is false, and homosexuality is a choice. They teach that wives must be subservient to their husbands and that one can avoid AIDS by being abstinent until marriage.
The ACE curriculum in "Science 1096" asserts that solar fusion is a myth, describing it as "an invention of evolution scientists."
Educational outcomes
In 2017, research into the International Certificate of Christian Education, the school-leaving qualification provided by ACE in the UK, found that it failed to prepare students for university level education. Professor Michael Reiss of University of London stated "My particular problem with ACE is the awful nature of the curriculum they provide to their students." The study by Scaramanga and Reiss concluded that the curriculum fails students as it is heavily based around memorizing information rather than analyzing and understanding it.
Having researched comparative performance on the American College Test between public school students from one school and ACE students from another private school in the same geographic area, one college student wrote in her thesis in 2005 that "a significant difference was found between the public school graduates' scores and the ACE graduates' scores in all areas of the ACT (English, Math, Reading, and Composite Score), except the area of Science Reasoning. Overall, the ACT scores of the ACE graduates were consistently lower than those of the public school students." The author also noted that "the current study did not account for variables such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, or parent's level of education. These variables may impact ACT scores and therefore need to be considered in future research," nor was demographic information of the public school used for comparison.. Furthermore the sample size of graduates from ACE was disproportionately small in this analysis.
See also
- Responsive Education Solutions
- Shekinah Christian Training Center
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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