Brentwood Union Free School District is a suburban district in Brentwood, New York. The district includes 11 elementary schools and 6 secondary schools with a current enrollment of over 17,000 students in Grades K–12. The professional staff includes 1,000 teachers, with approximately 1,100 support personnel and administrators.
Seventy-nine percent of the students in Brentwood Union Free School District are Hispanic, and the remaining student body consists of students identified as Black (12%), White (6%), Asian (2%), or other (1%). Eighty-five percent of the students qualify for free/reduced-price lunch and 13% percent of the students have an Individualized Education Program (IEP).
The annual New York State Test is taken by all students in Grades 3–8, in the spring. The test includes assessment of ELA, math, and science. The test focuses on how well students have acquired the skills and knowledge described in the state Common Core Learning Standards.
At Grades 3–5, the math New York State Test comprises multiple choice, short-constructed response, and extended response items covering five domains equally distributed across the tests: Geometry, Measurement and Data, Numbers and Operations in Base Ten, Number and Operations-Fractions, and Operations and Algebraic Thinking.
The New York State Test scores are categorized into one of four levels of mastery including Level 1 (Well Below Proficient), Level 2 (Below Proficient), Level 3 (Proficient), and Level 4 (Above Proficient). Students scoring at Levels 3 and 4 are said to excel and demonstrate knowledge, skills, and practices embodied by the New York State P–12 Common Core Learning Standards for Mathematics.
To determine if HMH GO Math! had an impact on learning, NY State mathematics test scores from the spring of 2013, prior to using the program, and the spring of 2014, after one year of usage, were obtained for Grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. These findings are presented in Figure 1.
The comparison of achievement scores revealed that at all grade levels examined, the percentage of students scoring at Level 3 or higher was greater in 2014, after using GO Math!, than the previous year with an average gain of over 3%.
This one-year examination of the implementation of GO Math! © 2012 at Brentwood Union Free School District revealed that the program was associated with increased mathematics achievement.