How It Works

Accelerated School communities use a systematic process to transform their entire school rather than focusing on a particular grade, curriculum, or approach to teaching. No single feature makes a school accelerated. Rather, each school community uses the Accelerated Schools’ philosophy and process to determine its own vision of success for all students and collaboratively work to achieve this goal. The transformation begins with the entire school community taking a deep look into its present situation through a process called taking stock. The entire school community then forges a shared vision to its present situation; the school community identifies priority challenge areas. Groups then set out to address those priority challenge areas, working through an Accelerated Schools governance structure and analyzing their challenge areas using the Inquiry Process. The Inquiry Process is a systematic method that helps school communities clearly understands problems, find and implement solutions, and assess their results.

The philosophy is based on three democratic principles and a commitment to providing powerful learning to all students. The systematic transformation process is a vehicle for getting them from the "here and now" to the school's vision of success for all students.

What is Powerful Learning?

In Accelerated Schools, the best of what we know about education, which is usually reserved for gifted and talented students, is shared with all students. Members of the school community work together to transform every classroom into a powerful learning environment, where students and teachers are encouraged to think creatively and explore their interests, and where they are given the capacity and encouragement to achieve at high levels. Accelerated Schools seek out, acknowledge, and build upon every child’s natural curiosity, encouraging students to construct knowledge through exploration and discovery, and to see connections between school activities and their lives outside the classroom. All of these learning experiences require imaginative thinking, complex reasoning, and problem solving.