Accelerated Christian Education

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Accelerated Christian Education
Motto	Reaching the world for Christ, one child at a time
Formation	1970
Type	Christian Education
Headquarters	Nashville, Tennessee
Membership	Worldwide
Official languages	English, Spanish
Website	aceministries.com

Accelerated Christian Education is an American educational products company. It produces the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) school curriculum. The home office is in Nashville, Tennessee with a customer service and distribution center in Lewisville, Texas.^[1] According to a study, by 1980 there were over 3,000 Christian Schools in the United States associated with ACE.^[2] A European representative states that the ACE program is, “being used in thousands of schools and many thousands of home schools in over 100 different countries worldwide”.^[3]

Contents 1 History 2 Statement of Faith 3 Curriculum 3.1 Structure 3.2 Academic content 3.2.1 Kindergarten 3.2.2 Elementary grades 3.2.3 High School subjects 3.3 Teacher and Administrator Training 4 Usage 4.1 Homeschooling families 4.2 Private schools 4.3 Student Conventions 5 Criticism 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] History

Accelerated Christian Education was founded in 1970 by Dr. Donald Howard and his wife Esther.^[4] They set about developing a Bible based curriculum, which was adopted by a number of private Christian schools. He traveled extensively to promote ACE schools, viewing the establishment of ACE schools around the world as a new form of missions--he called it educational missions. According to information on the Accelerated Christian Education website, Dr. Donald and Esther Howard opened the first school to use the ACE program in Garland, Texas.^[4] They started with 45 students. By 1971, they had added 6 new schools.^[4]

[edit] Statement of Faith

The Accelerated Christian Education statement of faith holds the following beliefs:^[5]

• The plenary, verbal inspiration of the Bible, equally and in all parts and without error;

• The one God, eternally existent Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Who created man by a direct, immediate act;

• The preexistence, incarnation, virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, ascension to Heaven, and second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ;

• The fall of man, the need for regeneration by the operation of the Holy Spirit through personal faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour on the basis of grace alone, and the resurrection of every person to either eternal life or eternal damnation;

• The spiritual relationship of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, living a life of righteous works, separated from the world, and witnessing of His saving grace through the ministry of the Holy Spirit;

• The Biblical mandate of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission for all Believers to proclaim the Gospel and to disciple all nations.

[edit] Curriculum

According to the curriculum section on their website, the ACE “program is individualized and nongraded”^[6] and “designed to allow students to work at their own level of achievement”.^[6] They state that their “core curriculum is an individualized, Biblically-based, character-building curriculum package”. The program allows students to advance through high school.^[6]

The Accelerated Christian Education curriculum is based on a series of workbooks called PACEs, which stands for Packets of Accelerated Christian Education.^[3] Each subject has 12 PACEs per grade level.^[6] The basic subjects of ACE are Math, English, Science, Social Studies, and Word Building (spelling and word usage).^[6] Test Keys are published for corresponding PACEs.^[7]

ACE states that, “Before printing, all curriculum is checked by quality control personnel to assure the highest standard of accuracy and academic excellence. For additional verification, much of the curriculum is field tested.”^[8]

[edit] Structure

When a student enters the ACE system, their academic ability is diagnosed, and any learning gaps are addressed.^[9]

A PACE is equivalent to three weeks of work. Students set goals of how much work they will do in each subject each day, putting the responsibility for their progress on the student. As the student works individually through the PACE, they do a series of reviews, and at the end sit a preparatory test. They then sit a PACE test. The pass score for a PACE test is 80%, however, if a passing score is not achieved then the student must retake the test until they pass (achieve >= 80%).^[9].

[edit] Academic content

[edit] Kindergarten

The kindergarten curriculum prepare children for reading. Children who are ready to read progress through the "ABC's with Ace and Christi" reading program. The program uses songs and stories to teach the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.^[10]

Once students are able to read at a reasonable level, they are able to work with little assistance from their teacher, or supervisor, as the ACE curriculum calls them. The supervisor is expected to motivate and supervise the student, monitor their progress, and mark their work.^[11]

[edit] Elementary grades

Elementary school students study the basic subjects, creative writing and art.^[6].

[edit] High School subjects

• English and literature (Pilgrim's Progress and biographies of notable Christians.)^[12]
• Social studies
• Science
• Language (Spanish, French, etc.)
• Government
• Health
• Music
• Art
• Accounting

[edit] Teacher and Administrator Training

ACE provides annual one day training sessions for administrators. These are provided in different locations around the country. The sessions focus on understanding and properly implementing the ACE program.^[13] For Learning Center Supervisors a four day workshop is provided yearly.^[13] 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.

[edit] Usage

[edit] Homeschooling families

Many children that use the home school curriculum find time for internships, apprenticeships and vocational exploration. They can complete the curriculum in much less time than the average child uses in the public school setting. Many homeschooling families add their own lessons in the arts, science, sports, etc., as well as excursions and extracurricular activities.

[edit] Private schools

Before a school is started, ACE instructs school administrators on how to open the school - giving them " a detailed 'blueprint' for operating a Christian school". Schools are not required to use the entire ACE curriculum and may augment it from other sources.^[14]

[edit] Student Conventions

Schools that use the ACE curriculum may participate in the student conventions. Since 1976, Regional conventions have been held throughout the world and the top placed participants are able to proceed to the International Convention. The International Convention is usually held at a university campus, such as: Indiana University in Bloomington (1990), North Texas University in Denton, TX (1991), Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff (1993), Purdue University in Indiana (1994). ACE holds an annual International Student Convention for High School students designed to develop leadership skills with students. The conventions augment the curriculum by requiring students to prepare to compete in dramatic, artistic, and athletic events^[15][16]. The conventions also offer "Events of the Heart" which allows for students with mental and physical disabilities to participate. When the conventions first started a parade in the hosting city would accompany it. In 1981 over 3,000 students and sponsors marched in New York City to celebrate the opening of the convention at Rutgers University.^[17] Student conventions also offers speakers. In the past speakers such as David Gibbs from the Christian Law Association, Ben Jordan and William Murray (Madeline Murray Ohare's son).

Events include:

Academic Achievement

• 100 PACEs completed
• Spelling
• Chess
• Science Exhibits
• PACE Bowl

Artistic Events

• Music Composition
• Short Story Writing
• Photography, PowerPoint
• Metalworking
• Sketching

Athletics

• Track and Field
• Basketball
• Volleyball
• Archery

Christian Oriented

• Preaching
• Golden Scripture Memorization

Dramatic

• One Act Play
• Radio Dramas
• Interpretation for the Deaf

[edit] Criticism

Many aspects of the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum have come under criticism from educational researchers.

• D. Flemming and T Hunt of the educational journal Phi Delta Kappa wrote in a 1987 article regarding the emphasis on rote learning.

"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"^[18]

• Former President of the Division of Educational Psychology for the American Psychology Association and former President of the American Educational Research Association, David Berliner cites a study by Speck and Prideaux (1993) which notes the wide use of association and recall activities in the ACE curriculum, as well as other workbook based curriculum. "^[19]

Speck and Prideau (1993) state,"The work consists of low-level cognitive tasks that emphasize simple association and recall activities, as is typical of instruction from workbooks. Despite the reviling of B. F. Skinner by the Christian Right, the materials make heavy use of behavioral objectives, programmed learning, and rewards.^[20] "

• Having researched comparative performance on the ACT 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,

"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."^[21]

• In the past, ACE has included controversial material in its curriculum. For example, a section from a high school packet regarding Apartheid in South Africa states as follows:

"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."^[22]

[edit] See also

• Homeschooling
• Mountains Christian Academy
• Totara College of Accelerated Learning

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Accelerated Christian Education Official Website
• American Home School and Tutoring Centers A.C.E. Correspondence and Tutoring
• Christian Education Europe A.C.E. Europe Representative
• Educational Psychology Meets the Christian Right: Differing Views of Children, Schooling, Teaching, and Learning by David C. Berliner