argumentative essay by erlisah

Accelerated Program
Jan Richards, Ed. D. ( 2008) argued that accelerated education program is structured to take less time than conventional programs to attain a degree or credential. Accelerated course are often taught sequentially ( one at a time) rather than in the traditional parallel fashion in which several classes are taken at once. Rather than splinting one’s focus between several subject at a time deeper concentration. Accelerated courses have five commons characteristic: “ short duration, more frequent and lengthier lesson, compressed learning information, efficient activities, and intense learning process” ( Serdyukov & Serdyukova, 2004).  In Indonesia,  acceleration program has been introduced since 1989 (Nasichin, 2004). There are 217 number of accerated education school in Indonesia. The goverment budget for acceleration program is about 80.319 billion rupiahs, while the total number of schools that implement acceleration program is 217. Therefore, the government spent 370.13 million rupiahs on acceleration program. (Fahmi et al., 1990). The cost that the goverment has spent is not useless. As we know that accelerated program has curriculum compacting and suported by the students that really smart.  Students in accelerated education program also have a very good skill in their study because they have to face the IQ test before join the accelerated education program.They are not only smart but also have a good commitmet in study.( Akbar and Hawadi,  2002). Consequently, goverment should increase the number of school that have accelerated program.
Accelerated education program can provide accomplishment for students who graduate faster than students from regular school. Accelerated education program will give complete facility to their children because the goverment really supported it by giving the budget. Therefore, students can increase their accomplishment easily. Accelerated education program also allow students to achieve their goals faster through condenses short-duration course (Jan Richards, Ed. D, 2008). As we know that acceleration program have some types of acceleration and the curriculum compacting, advanced placement, combined classes are the steps to support the students achieve their goals faster.
There are many students in accelerated program that satisfied with their learning process. Increase accessibility, flexibility, and convenience of the quality of education, and generally boost student’s satisfaction are the benefits of accelerated learning. (Serdyukov, et al. 2005). Moreover, Noden et al.(2007) found that students following accelerated courses made more progress in Maths than non-accelerated students in comparison schools, in English the progress made by accelerated students was not significantly different from that achieved by non-accelerated students in comparison schools. An observation that do by some students in Padjajaran Universty have proven that accelerated students get the better score in mathematic than students in International Standard School program. Those, accelerated education program have proven their ability in increasing the quality of education in Indonesia.
            Some may argued that accelerated education program have social and emotional outcomes. They said that the students have limited time to learn how to control their emotion and socialize with their friend. However this idea cannot go further than being an immature claim because students who are accelerated tend to report more positive social and emotional feelings than before acceleration (Kulik & Kulik, 1992; Rogers, 2002; Vialle et al., 2001). Using NELS data, Sayler and Brookshire’s (1993) analysis focused on the social, emotional, and behavioral adjustment of accelerated students when they were in the eighth grade. Sayler
and Brookshire compared the mean scores of accelerated students with the mean scores for two non overlapping comparison groups—a random sample of students who reported participation in gifted classes during grade 8 and a random sample of all students. The accelerated students reported no unusual social isolation or severe emotional difficulties and reported fewer behavioral problems than the non accelerated students (Ryan Wells et al.2009). (Vialle et al.2001) also found that students reported high levels of satisfaction academically and emotionally regarding acceleration, especially when they were included in the design and execution of the curriculum plan. Gross (2003) reported that profoundly gifted children (IQ 160 and above) who were radically accelerated had more positive and healthier levels of social self-esteem than their non accelerated counterparts. Based on this type of research, Southern, Jones, and Fiscus (1989) observed that many leaders in gifted education considered the acceleration controversy settled. It proven that accelerated education program also has a good method in forming the social and emotional of the students.

            All in all, accelerated education program is really effective to increase the quality of students in Indonesia. Students will have a good skill in general knowledge, social, and emotional or psychological by using complete facility and effective curriculum compacting. Finally, accelerated education program is really needed. Research across many decades has consistently reported positive effects for academic acceleration (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004; Gross & van Vliet, 2005; Kulik, 2004;Kulik & Kulik, 1992; Vialle, Ashton, Carlon, & Rankin, 2001). Rogers’ (1992) meta-analysis of 314 quantitative or qualitative studies on acceleration found that most showed positive outcomes. As a result, government should increase the number of school that have accelerated education program because it can increase the number of human resources that in the productive age earlier. Consequently, it can develop the quality of education and economy in our country.
References:
Richard, J. Ed. D ( 2008) . The Benefits of An Accelerated Learning     Format in Teacher    Education. Journal of Learning and Teaching.        2-12. Retrieved January, 24 2008 from http://jrichard@nu.edu
Fahmi, M. et al. (2011). Acceleration or Internationalization?A Cost-Effectiveness-Analysis of Improving School Quality in Indonesia. Center for Economics and Development Studies. 1-13. Retrieved   July, 6 2012 from http: //www. Ceds.fe.unpad.ac.id