Acceleration Imperative

The Acceleration Imperative: A Plan to Address Elementary Students’ Unfinished Learning in the Wake of Covid-19In school districts and charter school networks nationwide, instructional leaders are developing plans to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year. To help kick-start their planning process, we are proud to present The Acceleration Imperative, an open-source, evidence-based document created with input from dozens of current and former chief academic officers, scholars, and others with deep expertise and experience in high-performing, high-poverty elementary schools.

The Acceleration ImperativeA Plan to Address Elementary Students’ Unfinished Learning in the Wake of Covid-19.

Fordham Institute Resource: The Fordham Institute released The Acceleration Imperative this week, an open-source, evidence-based document created with input from dozens of current and former chief academic officers, scholars, and others with deep expertise and experience in high-performing, high-poverty elementary schools to help address unfinished learning in elementary grades. This resource is a living document that will continue to evolve with the input of readers. Practitioners can download and use it as a starting point or an aid for their own planning purposes, share their comments and experiences, and suggest edits for it on a new wiki-style website, www.caocentral.wiki. Fordham Institute put this in the public domain, with no rights reserved, so feel free to use it at will.

Summarizing the principles:

1. Many students—especially the youngest children in the highest-need schools—will need extra help coming out of the pandemic, particularly in such forms as extended learning time, high-dosage tutoring, and expanded mental-health supports.

2. That extra help should complement but cannot replace what students need from schools’ core programs. Tutoring cannot substitute for high-quality curriculum and mental-health services can’t take the place of a positive school culture. No amount of extended learning time can compensate for not making optimal use of the “regular” school day. So while education leaders must address the particular needs of students related to the pandemic, they may also need to reboot their school improvement efforts. Implementing a high-quality curriculum is job No. 1.

3. To make up for what’s been lost, we need to focus on acceleration, not remediation—going forward rather than going back. That means devoting the bulk of classroom time to challenging instruction, at grade-level or higher, and giving all students access to “the good stuff”: a rich, high-quality curriculum in English language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, the arts, and more.

4. Our decisions should be guided by high-quality research evidence whenever possible.

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