Aloha State News

Curriculum expert Cathy Duffy has reviewed the Acellus Academy homeschooling curriculum known as Power Homeschool, and has good things to say.

“Power Homeschool courses have done a nice job coupling video lessons presented by excellent teachers with online student responses to ensure learning. Courses keep students engaged because teaching segments are short and questions follow immediately. Students have to pay attention to answer the questions,” Duffy wrote. 

“Courses are generally of high quality in spite of some shortcomings, such as lack of cumulative review in math and lack of full lab activity options for high school science. Those looking for secular course material that aligns with national standards should find Power Homeschool an option well worth considering.”

Curriculum expert Cathy Duffy

Duffy has been reviewing homeschooling curriculum since 1994.

Her review looked at multiple grade levels: first grade, fourth grade and ninth grade, to get an idea of what students in each grade level might experience.

For first grade students, she noted that part of the teachers’ work is motivating students, and explaining why they need to learn math, reading and other skills. The reading instruction uses phonics and teaches sight words, as well as identifying the main character in a story. The social studies course focuses on elements like helping other people, following directions, and some figures in American history. Students also learn about reading a calendar and helping family members and others. The science curriculum uses hands-on activities as well as diagrams.

In the fourth grade curriculum, Duffy discusses the language arts course, which includes phonics, grammar, literary analysis and more. 

“The course reviews phonics in detail but with an emphasis on using phonetic knowledge for spelling. Spelling lessons are presented under the special lessons tab as well as through videos,” she writes. Duffy also looks at math in the fourth grade.

The math curriculum uses a review of place value and simple addition and subtraction; it uses games occasionally to review multiplication concepts, and introduces division and fractions in the first half of the course, adding decimals, introductory geometry, factors and prime numbers in the second half. It also teaches concepts such as rounding, estimation, mental problem solving, measurement, money and time telling.

For ninth grade students, the curriculum Duffy looked at included several courses such as algebra 1, biology and U.S. History. The algebra course was enjoyable, because of the instructor. In the biology course, Duffy had some criticism about how heavily it focused on evolution, genetics and related topics.  

“In fact, almost everything taught in the second semester is taught in relation to or in support of the theory of evolution – topics such as cells, cellular reproduction, genetics, DNA, RNA, genetic mutations, Darwin, inherited variations, evidence for evolution, natural selection and vestigial structures,” Duffy wrote in her review. “While the Next Generation Science Standards require that evolution be taught as one of the key underlying theories for learning science, this course prioritizes that topic more than do most general biology courses.”

The ninth grade U.S. History course “covers a huge amount of material beginning with the Enlightenment and its influences on the formation of our country and continuing up through World War II,” she said. 

It manages to cover this wide range with a topical approach and flexibility in how students complete work. There are special lessons that students present on, and many of these topics could be use as presentations, position papers or speeches for homeschool students.

In English, students explore literature, grammar, vocabulary and composition skills, although there are no actual compositions outside the Special Lessons section. 

“For literature, short stories and literary excerpts are used rather than complete novels so that all course components can be included within the lesson material,” Duffy wrote.

There are shortcomings, she said, but the content is generally of high quality: 

“Power Homeschool is an option well worth considering,” she wrote.