Improving 2024 STAAR Math Achievement in Texas Schools

Study Background

This report looks at how STEMscopes Math influences school-level performance on the 2024 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) math test. The main goal was to see if using STEMscopes Math increased school math outcomes. We also tested differences in math outcomes across student subgroups and whether the impacts of STEMscopes Math are uniform across student subgroups.

What We Did

To test the impact of STEMscopes Math, we compared STAAR math outcomes by school (average scale scores and “Meets grade level expectations and above”) for schools using STEMscopes Math and schools using other math curricula. To make sure that schools were comparable, we matched STEMscopes Math schools to non-STEMscopes Math schools based on several characteristics such as the percentage of students from different ethnic/racial backgrounds, the school size, and the percentage of students receiving special services, to name a few. This ensures differences are due to STEMscopes Math and not to other school factors.

Key Findings

All students: We ran analyses by grade (6^th, 7^th, and 8^th). Schools that used STEMscopes Math showed improvements in student average scale scores and the percentage of students meeting grade-level benchmarks or higher. These findings were significant and most noticeable for 7^th and 8^th graders, and for certain groups of students (please see Figures 1-3 below).
Student subgroups: In 7^th and 8^th grade: low-income students in STEMscopes Math schools had higher average scale scores compared to their peers in non-STEMscopes Math schools. This, in turn, was associated with significantly higher “meets grade level or more” percent passing rates. We also saw significantly higher average scale scores and “meets” passing rates for: 7^th grade White/Caucasian students, and 7^th grade males. We saw significantly higher average scale scores for 8^th grade males and females too, but not significantly higher passing rates. We saw significantly higher passing rates for 6^th grade English Language Learners, 7^th grade females, and Hispanic/Latinx students but not scale scores. Finally, we saw significantly higher average scale scores and passing rates for African American/Black students in 8^th grade.
Are the effects of STEMscopes Math uniform? We already have some evidence from the student subgroup analyses that suggest that different grades and different student groups may take more advantage of the STEMscopes Math program than other grades and groups. We further confirmed these findings in 6^th grade such that English Language Learners in STEMscopes Math schools had higher passing rates than not just their peers in non-Math schools, but also relative to non-ELLs, resulting in an accentuated effect of STEMscopes Math for this subgroup. Likewise, in 8^th grade African American/Black and Hispanic/Latinx students also had a more accentuated increase in passing rates relative to their peers in non-STEMscopes Math schools and to White/Caucasian students. This offers some evidence that STEMscopes Math may be particularly helpful for students who are not always served well under other curricular models.

2024 STEMscopes Math Texas Middle School Reserach Study Summary Fig 1

2024 STEMscopes Math Texas Middle School Reserach Study Summary Fig 2

2024 STEMscopes Math Texas Middle School Reserach Study Summary Fig 3

Conclusion

These results provide ESSA Tier 2 “moderate” evidence that STEMscopes Math increases math outcomes. As this was the first report to focus on Texas’ middle schools, we included many types of schools across the state with quite a bit of variation between grades in what types of schools were included (e.g., the 6th grade analyses included many elementary schools with grades preschool through 6th, while the 7th and 8th grade analyses focused much more on middle schools due to how schools are structured in Texas). Despite all this variation, the results were encouraging. We plan to dig into these results more in the future and look at larger trends across time. Nevertheless, these results indicate promising evidence of STEMscopes Math’s effectiveness in improving middle school math outcomes and mirror study findings found previously with elementary schools. These findings also show promise that STEMscopes Math may potentially be leveraged to move toward greater educational equity and ensure that all students can excel and succeed in math.

STEMscopes Math Program Evaluation Texas Middle School Efficacy Study

Comparing 2024 STAAR Math Achievement for STEMscopes Math and Non-STEMscopes Math Schools in Texas

Study Background

What We Did

Key Findings

Conclusion

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