Franklin Township Public School District is a suburban district in Somerset, New Jersey, with 6 elementary schools and 3 secondary schools. The district has a current enrollment of over 7,600 students in Grades K–12. The professional staff includes 641 teachers, with approximately 552 support personnel and administrators.
Thirty-eight percent of the students are Black and the remaining student body consists of students identified as Hispanic (27%), Asian (18%), White (15%), or other (2%). Forty-seven percent of the students are eligible for free/reduced-price lunch and 6% percent of the students have an Individualized Education Program (IEP).
New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) is a test taken by Grade 3–8 public school students in the spring. The test covers subjects such as ELA, mathematics, and science and measures performance based on the Core Curriculum Content Standards.
At Grades 3–5, the math NJ ASK comprises multiple choice, short-answer, and open response items covering four domains equally distributed across the tests: Number & Numerical Operations, Geometry & Measurement, Patterns & Algebra, and Data Analysis & Probability.
In New Jersey, students’ test scores can be categorized into one of three levels of mastery: Level 1: Partially Proficient, Level 2: Proficient, and Level 3: Advanced Proficient. Students scoring at Advanced Proficient and Proficient are said to have mastered the New Jersey learning standards.
To determine if HMH GO Math! had an impact on learning, student NJ ASK 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 Proficient or higher was greater in 2014, after using GO Math!, than the previous year with an average gain of over 10%.
This one-year examination of the implementation of GO Math! © 2012 at Franklin Township Public School District revealed that the program was associated with increased mathematics achievement.