Accelerated Christian Education
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| Motto | Reaching the world for Christ, one child at a time |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1970 |
| Type | Christian education |
| Headquarters | Hendersonville, Tennessee |
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Membership
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Worldwide |
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Official language
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English, Spanish, Filipino (Philippines only) |
| Website | aceministries.com |
Accelerated Christian Education is an American educational products company founded in 1970 by Dr. Donald R. Howard which produces the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) school curriculum. As of September 2013 ACE serves over 6,000 schools in 145 countries. The company is based in Hendersonville, Tennessee (suburban Nashville), with their distribution center located in Lewisville, Texas (in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex). It lists its principles in a "statement of faith" which declares the belief that the Bible is literally true.
Accelerated Christian Education was founded in 1970 by Donald and Esther Howard. They set about developing a biblically literalist educational curriculum that was adopted by a number of private Christian schools. Donald traveled extensively to promote ACE schools, viewing the establishment of ACE schools around the world as a new form of missions, which he called "educational missions".
The Howards opened the first school which used the ACE program in Garland, Texas. They started with 45 students. By 1971, they had added six new schools.
By 1980 there were over 3,000 Christian schools in the United States associated with ACE, reaching a peak of 8,000 during the 1980s.
In 1996 ACE opened a three-story facility in Lewisville, Texas to handle its growing operations.
In 1997, Esther took over control of ACE.
In 2007 ACE moved its corporate offices to Hendersonville, Tennessee. The Lewisville facility remains as ACE's distribution center.
Esther Howard remains as ACE's President, and Duane Howard (one of the Howards' sons) currently serves as Vice President.
According to the curriculum section on its website, the ACE program is "individualized and nongraded." ACE states that its "core curriculum is an individualized, Biblically-based, character-building curriculum package". The material for the classes emphasises reflecting the Christian ideas and principles of the company, including memorising Bible passages and learning creationism.
The program allows students to advance through high school. The Accelerated Christian Education curriculum is based on a series of workbooks called PACEs (Packets of Accelerated Christian Education). At the beginning of each PACE is an overview of what the child will be learning, a scripture to memorize, a character trait to strive toward, and a "heads up" on what supplies the student will need. Each subject has 12 PACEs per grade level. The basic subjects of ACE are mathematics, English, literature and creative writing, Word Building (spelling and word usage), science, and social studies (also known in the Philippines as Araling Panlipunan, Philippine history, and Asian history). Test keys are published for corresponding PACEs. Additional PACEs apply, such as Filipino (Philippines only).
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