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Welcome to the Southwest Center for Accelerated Schools Project.
The National Center for Accelerated Schools Project
at the University of Connecticut has designated the College of Education’s
Department of Educational Administration at the University of Texas
at Austin as the official Southwest Center for Accelerated Schools.
The Center provides technical assistance to schools in Texas, New
Mexico, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
What is
an Accelerated School?
No single feature makes a school accelerated. Rather
each school community uses the Accelerated Schools’ philosophy
and process to determine its own vision, understand its challenges
and collaboratively works to achieve its goals.
The philosophy is based on creating unity of
purpose among all members of the school community to work together
toward a common set of goals that will best benefit all students;
empowering every member of the school community to take part
in a shared decision-making process and to take responsibility
for his/her actions; and identifying and building on the strengths
of the entire school community.
The systematic transformation process begins with
the school community taking stock of its present situation.
The entire community then forges a shared vision of what
it wants its dream school to be. By comparing the vision to its
present situation the priority challenge areas are identified.
Through the creation of accelerated governance structures, school
communities work to address their priorities using the inquiry
process, a systematic problem-solving process.
Instead of viewing children as at-risk, we believe
they are caught in a mismatch in which the experiences they bring
from their homes, families, and communities are different from those
on which traditional schools are based. Children caught in this
mismatch are often put into remedial tracks with low expectations
where they fall further and further behind. Instead of slowing down
the progress of “low achieving” students, Accelerated
Schools work to create Powerful Learning situations that
motivate all students to grow and succeed. The best of what we know
about education, which is often reserved for gifted and talented
students, is given to all students.
What
is Powerful Learning?
The education we now provide for so-called gifted
children is what actually works best for all children. Every learning
experience is most effective if it contains three interrelated dimensions:
appropriate challenging content, instructional strategies based
on best practices, and an appropriate learning environment. Students
learn best when the content of the learning situation is relevant
to their own lives, when connections are made among subject areas
and when the learning situation builds on strengths and experiences,
including cultural backgrounds. The learning that occurs is much
more meaningful when children actively participate in real life
events that build upon their previous knowledge and experience.
This is Powerful Learning.
Accelerated
Schools - A National Movement
Background and History
The Accelerated Schools Project was launched at
Stanford University by Dr. Henry Levin as a comprehensive approach
to school change, designed to improve schooling for children in
at-risk communities. During his research Dr. Levin was perplexed
by the practice of "remediating" certain students, despite
the fact that it rarely helped them make it into the educational
mainstream. Struck by the inequity of this system, he proposed a
new kind of school, where staff, parents, students, district office
representatives, and local community members would work together
to accelerate learning by providing all students with the challenging
activities that have traditionally been reserved for students identified
as gifted and talented. His viewpoint was that children caught in
at-risk situations have exactly the same characteristics and potential
of all children, including curiosity, desire to learn, imagination,
and need for love, support, and affirmation. Consequently, accelerated
schools are designed to bring all students into the educational
mainstream by building on their natural strengths, and by having
consistently high expectations for them, regardless of their background.
In 1986, Dr. Levin first tested his idea that all
students will thrive in an atmosphere of high expectations and engaging
curriculum by working with two pilot elementary schools located
in the Bay Area. These two schools both had high populations of
at-risk students, with large numbers of minority children who qualified
for free or reduced lunches. While the accelerated schools model
was essentially only a concept and philosophy at this time, through
the coaching provided by Dr. Levin's doctoral students from Stanford,
both schools began to thrive. By the third year of working with
accelerated schools, they began to show increases in test scores,
as well as improved student and staff morale and greater parent
involvement.
In order to provide quality support to the growing
national network of schools, the National Center for the Accelerated
Schools Project developed a systematic plan for expansion. This
strategy included extension of the project to secondary schools,
planning and initiation of satellite centers, and the development
of the training model that would enable trained coaches to work
with schools across the country. The training workshops were designed
to incorporate the complete philosophical approach and principles
of accelerated schools with a comprehensive transformation process
including governance, inquiry, and powerful learning.
The Southwest Center for Accelerated Schools located
at The University of Texas at Austin, College of Education, launched
its first fourteen elementary and middle schools in 1996 and the
first high schools in the nation in 1998. During the past eight
years, the SWCAS has worked with over 150 campuses providing technical
assistance that builds capacity at the school level. Ninety per
cent of these schools are Title 1 schools with most students identified
as at-risk.
The Accelerated Schools Project network has now
expanded to more than 1000 elementary, middle and high schools in
41 states across the country. In 2002 TIME magazine named the Accelerated
Charter School in Los Angeles as their School of the Year. The Accelerated
Schools model is one of ten school reform models supported by the
New American Schools Corporation.
The Southwest Center provides training to coaches
and leadership teams, follows up with schools, hosts regional networking
meetings and conferences, conducts research designed to further
our knowledge about effective change, develops evaluation and assessment
instruments, and disseminates information through traditional and
technology-based methods.
The accelerated schools model is not a set "package,"
but a philosophy about children and learning accompanied by a process
for change. As each school is different, so are the results of each
school's journey towards acceleration. However, all accelerated
schools embrace the same high expectations for their students, and
belief that their community can help those students achieve greatness.
And, since the majority of accelerated schools serve high populations
of students traditionally labeled "at-risk," coming from
minority households and living in some degree of poverty, these
idealistic views are often greatly tested in their implementation.
Despite these obstacles, accelerated schools across the country
have consistently found increases in test scores, levels of staff
and student satisfaction and parent involvement. These results come
from school communities that buy into a philosophy that all children
can benefit from a rich instructional experience and put these beliefs
into actual practice. Accelerated schools work to transform their
cultures internally because each member of the community is involved
in the process, and becomes personally invested in making it a success.
A major component of this project is the garnering
of feedback and data from the schools, which are part of the accelerated
schools network. This sharing and communication furthers the knowledge
of the Southwest Center as well as the collective knowledge of the
accelerated schools community. As we continue our journey, we look
forward to building our understanding of how to best work with accelerated
schools so that all members of the Accelerated Schools Project are
able to help children realize their highest hopes and greatest educational
goals.
Powerful Learning
Lab
Our Powerful Learning Laboratory models effective
instructional practices, personal reflection, and collaboration
as a means to address the needs of children in at risk situations.
The kind of teaching demonstrated in this lab promotes the five
components of powerful learning and is consistent with the Texas
Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Participation in the lab
assists teachers in the development of skills needed to accelerate
the learning of all students.
Participants in the one week lab will engage in
effective powerful learning professional development, team teach
diverse students in a supportive environment and collaborate with
students, colleagues, external coaches and Southwest Center specialist.
They will create powerful lessons built on the TEKS that can be
taken back to their campus to accelerate the learning of all students.
The participants will develop a networking system that provides
on-going support as well as strengthening their formative assessment
skills. All participants earn 15 GT hours and 40 CPE hours.
Visiting
An Accelerated School
If your school is interested in exploring the Accelerated
Schools model, we encourage you to visit an established accelerated
school. Visiting a school gives you a greater understanding of what
it means to transform a school using the accelerated schools philosophy
and process and allows you to see and talk with the people who are
actually involved in such a transformation process.
The Improving Teaching and Learning/Comprehensive
School Reform grant application requires that applicants investigate
the reform model by contacting schools that are currently implementing
the model. This is best done by actually visiting the school but
if it is not possible due to distance or time, the next best option
is to have someone from an Accelerated School visit your campus
to answer questions. In lieu of that it is recommended that phone
interviews be conducted.
Once you have decided that you would like to visit
an established accelerated school, contact the Southwest Center
for Accelerated Schools and we can help you locate a school in your
area and tell you more about the school’s involvement with
the Accelerated Schools Project. You can contact
us.
Although visiting a school is a wonderful opportunity
to observe the accelerated schools model first hand, it is important
to realize that it provides only a brief glimpse of what is really
a five to six year process. Depending on the length of time they
have been involved with the Project, schools will be in different
stages of the process. A school that has only recently established
cadres will be more apt to point to specific individuals who have
changed their teaching practices as compared to a more established
school which has experienced more school wide transformation of
its classrooms.
During your visit, we suggest that you talk with
the principal and any available staff, students and parents to get
a sense of what being an accelerated school has meant to the different
stakeholders at the school. |
