Most students will return to in-person schooling this fall, and teachers around the country are feeling the pressure to get their classes back on track.
In many places, a model known as acceleration is being billed as the way to ameliorate less-than-ideal learning conditions from this past school year. Generally speaking, the idea is to provide 鈥渏ust in time鈥� supports, or scaffolds, to help students access their usual grade-level content, rather than going back and teaching what got skipped last year.
It鈥檚 a compelling idea, and one that鈥檚 been broadly embraced by a number of national education groups.
But what about an entering 1st grader who鈥檚 only learned phonics lessons on a computer screen, or in-person through masks? Or a student navigating the rocks and shoals of freshman year Algebra 1 who still has difficulties plotting points on a graph? Or a teacher whose English-learners are coming in running the gamut of proficiency levels?
In this special report, Education Week decided to pick three specific problems of practice centered on students who are entering key transition points: in foundational literacy and numeracy; in 9th grade algebra, which research connects to later success in high school; and in English-language acquisition鈥攊ncluding for students who may be brand new to American schools.
Our reasons for the focus on these touchpoints are twofold. For one, teachers must fine-tune their plans based on the specifics of the content and of their learners. There鈥檚 no recipe for acceleration that will work in every single instance.
鈥淪upporting unfinished learning is complex but doable work, and decisions that matter live in the details of instructional decisions,鈥� said Emily Freitag, the CEO of Instruction Partners, a nonprofit that works with schools and districts on teaching and learning.鈥�淚 see the zeitgeist trying to simplify the equation, but it鈥檚 an unsimplifiable equation. You have to get granular.鈥�
Secondly, unlike social-emotional learning or character education, learning in these three areas typically doesn鈥檛 happen outside of school classrooms. Most parents are not equipped to teach foundational reading systematically; algebra is almost always formally taught.
鈥楳eet Kids鈥� or 鈥楤uild a Bridge鈥�?
Education Week wanted to know what acceleration might look like in those subjects, and what we learned helps to clarify some of the confusion around the term. For one thing, the general definition of acceleration doesn鈥檛 apply here: It doesn鈥檛 mean going faster. Sometimes it means going slower.
鈥淚f unit two on multiplication and division in 4th grade typically takes 25 days, you might need 30 days on that unit so that you can embed additional supports within the unit,鈥� said Freitag. 鈥淚t鈥檚 working through the plan for the year and making more time for the most important content.鈥�
The old adage of 鈥渕eeting kids where they are鈥�? Acceleration, experts say, requires tossing that aside. Instead, teachers can start with the current grade鈥檚 work, then backtrack for students on certain concepts as needed. 鈥淲hat we鈥檝e seen is that when we try to meet kids where they are, we never build a bridge to where they should be,鈥� said Bailey Cato Czupryk, a partner for practices and impact at TNTP, a national teacher-training and policy nonprofit. 鈥淲e just stay where they are forever.鈥�
And sometimes acceleration won鈥檛 work. Take early literacy foundations, which include making sure students have phonemic awareness and systematically learn all their letter sounds: There is no way to skip through those skills.
鈥淚f a kid is not fluently reading, you are going to need to explicitly go in and spend the time to fill in the grade level gaps in an intensive way,鈥� said Cato Czupryk.
But acceleration is also more feasible than most people think. Mathematics learning is not always linear; concepts repeat and become more complex with time. 鈥淪ome walls are load-bearing and some are not,鈥� Freitag said. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have to do the rhombus before you do fractions, but you do have to count backwards before you subtract.鈥�
And there are moments in a students鈥� career where, beyond acceleration, schools should be prepared to bolster supports to prevent course failure鈥攁nd the negative mindsets it can engender.
鈥淣inth grade is where students are figuring out, 鈥楬ow do I do high school? Do I belong in high school? Can I succeed?鈥� said Elaine Allensworth, the director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, who has studied math coursetaking, the importance of the 9th grade year, and algebra credit recovery. 鈥淚t is so much more effective to help prevent students from failing than going back and remediating it later.鈥�
Still, our sources told us, teachers shouldn鈥檛 approach these challenges with an eye only to missed learning or deficits. English-learners, for example, may have picked up more expertise in their home language, which could potentially help them make richer connections to the academic language they鈥檒l be learning in class.
And paradoxically, experts said, acceleration will also require teachers to fill in some of the other gaps that make for supportive, efficient learning environments. First graders may need more help on setting classroom norms and working independently, key parts of the kindergarten curriculum. Entering 9th graders may need to be encouraged to interact with one another and not to be afraid to ask questions, especially in a course like Algebra 1, where talking through misconceptions and 鈥渕aking sense of math鈥� enrich students鈥� abilities to apply the right algorithms.
For each story, we鈥檝e created at least one composite student 鈥渃ase study鈥� built on some of the actual needs and challenges sources have described to us, and then detailed the strategies you can use to adapt learning. We hope you鈥檒l find this unusual approach helpful.
And once you鈥檝e started developing your own acceleration plans this fall and begun teaching, why not reach back to us and let us know how they worked out?
