User talk:ASplus

Accelerated Schools are communities of staff, parents, students, district office representative, and local community members working together to create the best schools for all children so that every child has the opportunity to succeed as a creative, critial,and productive member of our society (Hopfenberg, Levin, and Asssociates, 1993).

History: The Accelerated Schools Project was launched at Stanford University by Dr. Henry M. Levin as a comprehensive approach to school change, designed to improve schooling for children in at-risk situations. 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 San Francisco 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. As the results of this work were published, the word spread about accelerated schools and more schools began to express an interest in joining the Project.

In 1988, the Dr. Levin assisted the state of Missouri in launching five new schools, which were followed shortly by an additional 25 in Illinois. In order to provide quality support to this growing network of schools, in 1989, the National Center for the Accelerated Schools Project began to establish a systematic plan for expansion. This strategy included extension of the project to middle schools, planning and initiation of regional satellite centers, and the development of the training model that would enable trained coaches to work with schools across the country. In 1990, the first accelerated middle school was launched, as well as the first four satellite centers, with systematic training workshops provided by the National Center for school coaches and teams. These 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.

In 1996, there is a major research effort underway to create an entire accelerated school district. Throughout this growth, the National Center has worked to be reflective and to continually learn from the lessons gained by experience. Striving to maximize and increase this learning, we have begun research projects to examine the most effective ways to evaluate the progress of accelerated schools, and to enable teachers to use powerful, active learning modalities in their classrooms. A major component of these projects is the garnering of feedback and data from the schools and centers which are parts of the accelerated schools network. This sharing and communication furthers the knowledge of the National Center as well as the collective knowledge of the accelerated schools community.

In 2000, under a new director, Mr. Gene Chasin, the Accelerated Schools Project moved its headquarters from Stanford University to the University of Connecticut, one of the leading institutions dealing with gifted and talented instruction. This enable the Accelerated Schools Project to work with closely with the Neag School's National Center on the Gifted and talented (NRC/GT) headed by Dr. Joseph Renzulli and his colleague, Dr. Sally Reis.

In 2003, Accelerated Schools Project(ASP) changed its name as Accelerated Schools plus (AS plus). it is a shift in the development of the ASP mission to provide effective accelerated learning strategies for all students. AS plus expands on the previous ASP Premise by providing enhancements to its teaching and learning services, facilitation, ongoing assessment and development of accelerated learning strategies in the classroom, and sharing successful strategies developed by individual provider centers with all of its centers nationwide.

The National Center trains coaches, follows up with schools located across the country, and works with local accelerated schools. In order to create a learning network, the National Center coordinates communication and regional conferences with local provider centers, conducts research designed to further our knowledge about effective change, develops evaluation and assessment instruments, and disseminates information through traditional and technology-based methods.