At SEED, we’re committed to using evidence-based practices to improve our academic instruction and help our students succeed.
That’s why, last spring, we piloted an Acceleration Academy with students at SEED DC. Acceleration Academies provide targeted instruction in English language arts and math during a school vacation. We learned about this powerful intervention through research conducted on a district-wide improvement effort in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which found that the Acceleration Academies had a significant impact on student achievement and accounted for a larger proportion of learning gains than all the other strategies combined.
Instead of having fun in the sun during their spring break, nearly 40 SEED students participated in the Acceleration Academy. The students spent 20 hours over a five-day period honing their skills and mastering content aligned with the PARCC standardized test.
SEED’s Acceleration Academy worked!
Fifty-two (52) percent of students who participated in the Acceleration Academy improved their raw score on PARCC, compared to 12 percent of students who did not participate in the Acceleration Academy.
Thirty-two (32) percent of students who participated in the Acceleration Academy improved their PARCC performance level (PARCC has five levels of achievement), compared to 12 percent of students who did not participate in the Acceleration Academy.
During our February 2019 winter break, we held another Acceleration Academy at SEED DC and are waiting to see the results.
Going forward, we’re excited about piloting more Acceleration Academies and other evidence-based practices across the network to help all SEED students improve.