Origins of PFA

Partners FOR Acceleration

 

Partners for Acceleration grew out of over 20 years of experience in school reform and school and classroom environment/culture research.

 

Accelerated Schools Project

 

In the 1980s Dr. Henry M. Levin, a world-renowned economist at Stanford University, moved beyond the comfort of academic research and theory to work directly with low-performing schools to “do for all children what we want done for our own children” – accelerate rather than remediate learning. He enlisted help from a group of graduate students and developed the Accelerated Schools Project (ASP). This project was designed to address the inequitable distribution of accelerated learning opportunities that hamper most low-income, minority children. He also found that few schools provided opportunities for shared governance or had systematic decision-making processes in place. ASP was one of the first comprehensive school improvement models and it grew rapidly in the ensuing 20 years, serving over 1,000 schools in the United States and abroad. While housed at Stanford University it developed a service delivery system of satellite centers, placing support staff in local communities to better meet unique state and local needs and accommodate local contexts. One of the early satellite centers was housed at the College of Charleston. This center has served over 30 schools in South Carolina between 1991 and 2007.

 

Dr. Levin left Stanford for Teachers College, Columbia, in 1999 and the Accelerated Schools Project, under the leadership of Mr. Gene Chasin, moved to the University of Connecticut to better partner with Dr. Joe Renzulli and the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. ASP subsequently reconfigured into Accelerated Schools plus (see http://acceleratedschools.net), retaining a commitment to accelerating learning for all children, shared governance, and inquiry-based decision making.

 

School and Classroom Environment Research

 

Dr. Christine Finnan, PFA director, has conducted research on school and classroom culture and environments for nearly 20 years. She and Dr. Levin have published numerous articles on how school reform models, particularly the Accelerated Schools Project, change school and classroom culture. Dr. Finnan has also partnered with Dr. Lorin Anderson to conduct classroom environment research, resulting in the 15 components of Accelerated Learning Environments used by PFA to examine teaching practices in our schools. PFA’s focus on student acceleration grows out of research conducted by Dr. Finnan and her College of Charleston colleague, Dr. Julie D. Swanson, for their book, Accelerating the Learning of All Students: Cultivating Culture Change in Schools, Classrooms, and Individuals.

 

Research on Accomplishment, Belonging, and Engagement

 

A deep and varied literature exists supporting the importance of accomplishment, belonging, and engagement to successful learning, work, and civic interaction. Partners for Acceleration builds on this rich body of knowledge developed in fields such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, education, social welfare, and economics. An example of applying the constructs of accomplishment, belonging, and engagement to a specific population is  Dr. Finnan’s most recent book, The Upper Elementary Years: Accomplishment, Ensuring Success in Grades 3–6. This book, published in 2009, is available through Corwin Press.

 

Relevant References

 

Accelerated Schools Project

 

Education Alliance at Brown University (2005). Implementing for Success: An Analysis of Five CSR Models". Providence, RI: Brown University.

 

Finnan, C. (2006). Enacting curriculum and teaching theory in contexts of countervailing thought: The cases of John Dewey and Accelerated Schools. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, 8(1 & 2), 83–98.

 

Finnan, C. R. (2006). The United States: The Accelerated Schools Project.  In J. C. Lee & M. Williams (Eds.), School Improvement: International Perspectives. New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

 

Finnan, C. R., & Levin, H. M. (2006). Accelerated Schools and the obstacles to school reform. In M. Constas & R. Sternberg (Eds.), Translating Educational Theory and Research into Practice (127–150). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

 

Finnan, C., & Meza, J. (2003). Can a leader change the culture and embed reform? The Accelerated Schools Project in Memphis. In J. Murphy & A. Datnow (Eds.), Leadership for school reform: Lessons from comprehensive school reform designs. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

 

Hopfenberg, W., Levin, H. M. & Associates (1993). The Accelerated Schools Resource Guide. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

 

School and Classroom Environments and Culture

 

Finnan, C., & Levin, H. M. (2000). Changing school cultures. In H. Altrichter & J. Elliott (Eds.), Images of Educational Change (pp. 86-98). Buckingham, England: Open University Press.

 

Finnan, C., Schnepel, K. C., & Anderson, L. W. (2003, Fall). Powerful learning environments: The critical link between school and classroom cultures. Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk (9)4, 391–418.

 

Kennedy, M. M. (2005). Inside teaching: How classroom life undermines reform. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

 

Sarason, S. (1996). Revisiting “The culture of school and the problem of change.” New York: Teachers College Press.

 

Accelerating Learning

 

Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., & Pintrich, P. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Education Objectives. New York: Longman.

 

Finnan, C., & Chasin, G. (2007). Accelerating the learning of low-achieving students: The transformation of a dropout. Phi Delta Kappan, 88(8), 625–629.

 

Finnan, C., & Swanson, J. D. (2000). Accelerating the learning of all students: Cultivating culture change in schools, classrooms and individuals. Boulder CO: Westview Press.

 

Rensulli, J. S., & Reis,  S. M. (1997). The schoolwide enrichment model: A how-to guide for educational excellence. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.

 

Swanson, J. D., & Finnan C. (2002). Accelerated learning for all students. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties.

 

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all students. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

 

Accomplishment, Belonging and Engagement

 

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman

 

Csikeszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.

 

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

 

Finnan, C. (2009). The upper elementary years: Ensuring success  in grades 3–6. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

 

Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods. Berkeley: University of California Press.

 

Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper.

 

Noddings  N. (1992). The challenge to care in schools. New York: Teachers College Press.

 

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

”Cultivating Accomplishment, Belonging, and Engagement ”