Accelerated Christian Education

Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) is a publisher of Christian homeschool literature. The company is based in Hendersonville, Tennessee with a warehouse at its former headquarters in Lewisville, Texas.

ACE was founded in 1970 by Donald and Esther Howard. Mrs. Howard took over as head of the company in 1997.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Educational Philosophy
* 2 Criticism
* 3 References
* 4 External links

## Educational Philosophy[edit]

ACE operates from a Biblical literalist, Young-Earth Creationist philosophy, similar to the majority of Christian homeschool products.

They differ, however, in that they do not publish traditional textbooks. Instead, for each subject ACE produces a series of smaller texts, called Packets of Accelerated Christian Education (PACEs), which are to be studied on a self-paced basis.

Character development is a key component of each PACE, enforced by a series of comics featuring characters who age-progress as the students progress.[2] The characters all have surnames with some character trait, similar to the naming convention used in Pilgrim's Progress:

* The two major characters are Ace[3] Virtueson and Christi Lovejoy. They are always portrayed with proper, desired Christian behavior.
* Two antagonists, Susie Selfwill and Ronny Vain, are always portrayed with non-Christian behavior.[4]
* The other characters are portrayed as exhibiting proper or improper behavior depending on the context, though the improper behavior is not to the extent of the main antagonists and is quickly corrected by the end of the strip.

## Criticism[edit]

Though Christian homeschool literature is generally criticized by liberal Christianity and atheists,[5] simply based on its content, some portions of ACE literature are rightly criticized. Most notably is the racial segregation of the characters in three separate communities, with no crossover between them: Highland (white characters), Harmony (black characters), and Heartsville (Hispanic and Asian characters).[6][7]

## References[edit]

1. ↑ ACE deliberately chooses to ignore the fact that Donald Howard was forced out of the company as a result of numerous sexual scandals, ultimately resulting in the couple's divorce. See https://www.patheos.com/blogs/leavingfundamentalism/2014/09/15/a-very-fundamentalist-sex-scandal/ for the actual story.
2. ↑ http://www.pacesuccess.net/wp-content/uploads/Meet-the-ACE-Characters-eBook.pdf
3. ↑ Pronounced "AY-CEE".
4. ↑ At the very end of the curriculum, Susie is killed in a car accident; though Ronny did not cause the wreck he was driving illegally.
5. ↑ Jonny Scaramonga, a former ACE student from the United Kingdom who is now an atheist, is the most notable critic.
6. ↑ http://www.pacesuccess.net/wp-content/uploads/Meet-the-ACE-Characters-eBook.pdf
7. ↑ This is despite ACE's claim that it will not knowingly sell its curriculum to any Christian school which practices racial segregation.

## External links[edit]

* Accelerated Christian Education