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“Achievement Effects of Four Early Elementary School Math Curricula: Findings from First Graders in 39 Schools.” Roberto Agodini, Barbara Harris, Sally Atkins-Burnett, Sheila Heaviside, Timothy Novak, and Robert Murphy, February 2009. Educators and policymakers have long debated which textbooks and their associated instructional approaches have the greatest impact on student learning in key subjects. Mathematica’s large-scale federal study of the effectiveness of four early math programs brings new clarity to what works in the early grades. The study, the largest of its kind ever to use an experimental design to study a variety of math curricula, includes a total of 110 schools. This report is based on the first cohort of 39 schools that began study participation during the 2006-2007 school year. Researchers found that achievement was significantly higher in schools assigned to Math Expressions and Saxon Math than in schools assigned to Investigations in Number, Data, and Space and Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics. In addition, the better performing programs led to higher achievement for several student subgroups, including students in schools with low math scores and students in schools with high poverty levels.

"Design for the Evaluation of Early Elementary School Mathematics Curricula." Roberto Agodini, John Deke, Sally Atkins-Burnett, Barbara Harris, and Robert Murphy, January 2008. Many U.S. students enter elementary school with poor math skills. Students from different socioeconomic backgrounds also differ in math performance, with students from poor families lagging behind those from more affluent families. These differences grow over time, resulting in substantial differences in math achievement by the time students reach fourth grade. This report presents the evaluation design for Mathematica’s large-scale, national study that is comparing the effects of four early elementary math curricula on improving student math achievement in disadvantaged schools. Experimental methods are being used to evaluate the relative effects of the curricula, using a school-level random assignment design.

Future Reports

The study recently released a report on the relative effects of the curricula for the first 39 schools that participated in the study during the 2006-2007 school year. A follow-up report is planned that will present results based on all 110 schools participating in the evaluation, and will include results for both the first and second grades based on the 2007-2008 school year. The follow-up report is expected in Fall 2009. The study also is supporting curriculum implementation and data collection during the 2008-2009 school year in a subset of schools, in which implementation was expanded to the third grade. A third report presenting third grade results is expected in September 2010.