The Ascend Teacher
"Before joining Ascend, I taught at another No Excuses school. My students achieved at high levels, but the demands on the faculty were unsustainable. Each night after an 11-hour day at school, I faced hours of curriculum and lesson planning. I loved my work, but it was not compatible with enjoying a family or making a long-term commitment to teaching.
As part of the founding faculty of Brownsville Ascend, I was able to lead my first-grade students to achieve equal or better results at a sustainable pace. I found the professional rewards that drew me to teaching and the balance necessary to continue enthusiastically for years to come."
—Kelly Bowers, co-director and former teacher, Brownsville Ascend Charter School
At Ascend, you’ll find the tools you need to set every student on the path to college. And you’ll work at a sustainable pace with colleagues who share your determination to close the achievement gap.
The SABIS educational system provides a systematic approach to building skills and knowledge in each subject; students learn point by point, establishing a solid foundation on which to build successive levels of knowledge—from the basics in kindergarten to Advanced Placement classes in high school. In the United States students rapidly fall behind their international peers because they have been promoted grade to grade without mastering essential skills at each level. The SABIS International Charter School of Springfield, a 1,500-student racially and economically diverse K-12 charter school deploying the system in Massachusetts, has not only closed the achievement gap at the tenth grade (the last year tested by the state), it has for years graduated every student from high school and enrolled every graduate in college. Our schools are on track to closing the achievement gap.
Many charter school teachers face a Herculean task: In the space of a year, they must remedy years of failed prior schooling. Teachers labor to meet their students’ widely divergent instructional needs, for each child arrives with an accumulation of learning gaps that must first be identified and then filled. Only then can the class successfully master grade-level material. As if that weren’t enough, teachers must forge many of their own tools for the job-pacing charts, curricular materials, and assessments.
Teaching with the SABIS educational system is different. Without relying on small class sizes, teachers can achieve exceptional results routinely while working at a sustainable pace. That’s because learning gaps haven’t been allowed to form and all students in the class are similarly prepared. What’s more, our teachers have the tools to spot and fill any incipient gaps right away. A meticulously engineered sequence of books and corresponding assessments is available in every core subject, from kindergarten through grade 12. And pacing charts lay out a detailed plan for meeting state standards—and closing the achievement gap.
In an Ascend school, you will work a longer day than that of district schools—for additional pay—but follow the same school calendar. Two planning periods a day allow time for lesson preparation, which frees our teachers’ evenings. The SABIS tools will allow you to be dramatically more productive, accomplishing more with your students in less time.
