National study finds Investigations students trail those in other major programs

Investigations’ publisher has long touted the program’s effectiveness when it comes to student learning and achievement. But it turns out, there wasn’t one single independent study the publisher could point  to prove that—something cited on the respected federal government website, What Works Clearinghouse.

But there is compelling research that disproves it.

A multi-year study by the Institute for Education Sciences done on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education looked at achievement gains of early elementary children taught math via four different curricula. A third year of the study is already underway, but results have been published for first and second graders.

So far, the news is not good for Investigations.

Some key findings:

• Investigations students’ overall achievement scores started out lower entering second grade and remain there by the end of second grade. What’s more, the actual achievement gains – you know, what the kids actually learned in the year –  trail two other curricula, Saxon and Math Expressions, significantly. (See graph below, and click to view it larger.)

• At the first-grade level, average math achievement of Math Expressions students was 0.11 standard deviations higher than that of both Investigations and Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley students, which is equivalent to moving a student from the 50th to the 54th percentile.

• At the second-grade level, average math achievement of Math Expressions and Saxon students was markedly higher than that of Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley students — the differences in achievement were the equivalent to moving a student from the 50th to the 55th or 57th percentile. Investigations students didn’t fare much better, and considering that their actual achievement by the end of second grade trailed all three programs, the difference might be even more stark.

The study was undertaken with the goal of finding out – with real evidence – whether the type of curriculum used in early elementary math education matters when it comes to achievement and learning. It compares four programs: Math Expressions, Saxon, Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley and Investigations.  Investigations is the pure constructivist program on the list, Scott Foresman is a combination, but primarily with constructivist pedagogy. Math Expressions is a balanced program that uses both traditional math practice and a partial constructivist approach. Saxon is the most traditional of the programs.

The researchers took a hard look at what students should learn in the course of the year and developed a way to measure achievement across dozens of districts, across 330 classrooms at 71 schools. They tested kids in the fall and again in the spring and looked at achievement gains. They controlled for all sorts of variables and carefully crafted their measures to whittle down the impact of each curriculum.

In case you are wondering, none of the study authors or funders have any financial stake in any of these texts, their publishers or the like. So here you have it: A totally independent study looked at four programs… not just four random programs, but rather programs chosen because of their wide commercial use and varied teaching pedagogy. Investigations, Saxon, and Scott Foresman are among the seven most widely used curricula in the United States, making up 32 percent of the curricula used by K–2 educators, according to the study.

So, two years and more than 3,300 students later, the evidence is pretty clear: Investigations students are at the back of the achievement pack by a meaningful amount in first grade and by a significant margin in second grade.

Do Pelham parents want to wait for the third grade results to come out to see how much more the gap widens? Given the clear evidence from this independent study and  Pelham’s own test scores, do we want to continue with a program in our classrooms that doesn’t help our children achieve and leaves them behind their peers?

If you want the highest-quality math for the children of Pelham, click to consider signing the petition to have Investigations replaced in our elementary schools. Here’s the link if you like to cut and paste:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pelhammath/

This also appears on the PelhamMath.com website.