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Texas district takes math skills to the next level

A district's dedication to a new math intervention program paid off.

As with so many other school districts around the country, we at Brazosport Independent School District [1] (ISD) in Texas have struggled with ensuring that our ninth-grade students start their high school careers with the foundation in math skills necessary to tackle Algebra and higher level math. Many of our students were entering their freshman year with significant gaps in their skills and had not passed the math portion of the state assessment, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), for several years.

Recognizing that research shows that students who fail Algebra in ninth grade are at a significantly higher risk of dropping out of school, we knew that we needed a proven intervention program to help students fill the gaps and be on track for success in high school, careers, and higher education.

We turned to Ascend Math [2], a complete math intervention program. Ascend combines continuous assessment, targeted instruction, prescriptive tutorials, and powerful reporting tools to give students a direct route to improved math performance. Research demonstrates that Ascend Math closes math gaps of up to two grade levels in a semester. And the results realized by our students support and exceed those findings.

Located on the Gulf Coast, our district serves 13,000 students from a number of nearby small communities. South of Houston and just miles from the beach, Brazosport ISD has two high schools, three intermediate schools, two middle schools, and 11 elementary schools. More than 50 percent of our students are minority, and many are English language learners.

While we are proud of our educational excellence – 10 of our elementary schools have been named “exemplary,” as have both of our high schools – our students continued to be weak in math achievement year after year.

Yet, just increasing the amount of time that students were spending practicing math was not producing the improvement that was so critically needed. Our district chose Ascend Math for the intensive instructional math intervention that would put our students back on track to tackle higher level high school math and be prepared for the rigors of college math courses.

When Ascend Math was first introduced, some of our teachers had doubts. As one teacher said, “Administration made me go to the Ascend training in December. I didn’t want to go. I knew I wouldn’t like it.”

The teacher continued: “Guess what? I immediately saw the value. Ascend was user-friendly and covered all the bases with the study guide, video, practice, review, and assessment. I was so impressed.”

This teacher is just one example of skeptics who were quickly transformed into believers in the power of Ascend Math. We had a teacher who had a class of very low achieving special-education students. Many of them were testing at the third-grade level for math skills. This teacher looked at Ascend as yet another program that she had to learn and implement. That quickly changed. She immediately saw what her students were accomplishing and became one of the biggest promoters of Ascend.

Other teachers worried that Ascend Math would replace them in the classroom. What they realized is that the program made them even more effective teachers because they knew where students needed help and could work with them individually. That’s the key to successfully implementing Ascend Math.

Our teachers particularly appreciate that Ascend Math is a complete math intervention solution. It begins by diagnosing students’ strengths and weaknesses and then prescribes targeted instruction and ongoing assessment.

However, even with a highly effective intervention program such as Ascend Math, it takes time and focus to get students back on track. They didn’t become deficient overnight, and they aren’t going to recover overnight. You have to devote time to the process. Implementing Ascend Math with high fidelity is critical to its effectiveness. Students must use the program at least three times per week.

Our faculty and administration at Brazoswood High School have particularly embraced the new intervention program and have seen our district’s most significant improvement in math skills. Implementation began with special-education students in Algebra I, and expanded to students in a credit-recovery course. Students are using Ascend Math during their regular math class time each day and in an afterschool lab for 50 minutes, two to four times per week. They typically spend six to12 weeks learning with Ascend Math and then return to regular classroom Algebra, poised to succeed.

In these tight financial times, districts might worry about where they will find funding for a high-quality intervention program such as Ascend Math. However, a variety of federal funds are available for just this type of purchase. For example, we used American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Special Education Intervention, and Title I funds to ensure that our students had access to this proven math intervention program.

The improvement in student math skills in our district has been rapid and amazing. At Brazoswood High School, one teacher had 58 general and special-education students, none of whom had passed the math on the TAKS in recent years. That meant, sadly, that 100 percent were predicted to fail the 2010 assessment. After just four months of learning with Ascend Math, 45 percent of those students passed the high-stakes test.

In addition, 60 percent of students realized achievement gains of one-and-a-half grade levels in that short amount of time, and 38 percent saw remarkable gains of two or more grades during the same timeframe.

Nancy Barberry, one of our teachers at Brazoswood High School, said: “I have watched students find success who haven’t succeeded in math in years. They see they can pass. They see they can learn.”

Brazoswood High School associate principal Ron Redden has seen unbelievable progress since implementing Ascend Math. “These students lacked the basic skills to do the content work, and needed to close the gaps before they could move forward. If they’re struggling with basic skills, they can’t move to the next level,” he said. “Ascend moves them past the hurdle. It’s absolutely stunning to see how quickly they’re working through their lessons and seeing success.”

Brazoswood High is also using Ascend Math for primary classroom instruction with its resource class students, some of whom have severe learning disabilities, and is seeing success. “One student started with a score of just 11 percent proficiency and is now between 80 and 90 percent,” said Redden.

Next, we’re implementing Ascend Math at Brazoswood High with students in grades nine through 12 who are struggling with geometry, providing 12 weeks of classroom instruction and use of the afterschool lab.

“With Ascend, they start seeing success right away. Success breeds success, so they gain skills and confidence and push forward. Students who had never had success in math are sailing through the state assessment,” Redden said.

We are also expanding our implementation of Ascend Math to help fill gaps in math skills for students in our intermediate and middle schools. We want all students to be prepared for Algebra when they enter ninth grade, and using Ascend with the middle grade students will help us achieve this goal.

For students who don’t have the foundation for it, algebra is abstract. But once they start filling in the gaps with Ascend, they build confidence and are motivated to learn. They move from having the teachers say, “You can do this,” to, “You are doing this.”

Judy Senter is Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction in the Brazosport Independent School District in Clute, Texas.