Educators will no longer have to wonder which elementary school mathematics curricula are most effective. A mathematics curriculum authored by professor emeritus Karen Fuson came out on top in a new large-scale study of early mathematics programs. Researchers at Mathematica Policy Research studied the effectiveness of four early mathematics programs at disadvantaged schools. They found achievement was significantly higher with Fuson's curriculum, Math Expressions, and a curriculum called Saxon Math than it was with two other widely used curricula, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space and Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics.
Not only did Math Expressions and Saxon Math outperform the other curricula overall, but the two also resulted in higher achievement for all subcategories of students. These included students in schools that had low math scores and students in schools with high levels of poverty.
Fuson, a preeminent education researcher, developed the Math Expressions curriculum while she was at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy (SESP). The curriculum was based on 10 years of research she did with more than 200 teachers and 5,000 students in both urban and suburban schools. Fuson, who retired from Northwestern in 2003, had been a faculty member at SESP since 1975.
Mathematica's national study was designed to compare the effects of the four popular curricula on math achievement in disadvantaged schools. The research was conducted with first graders in 39 schools that started participating in the larger study of 110 schools nationwide during the 2006–07 school year. "Achievement Effects of Four Early Elementary School Math Curricula" was commissioned by the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences.
The study is the largest ever to employ an experimental design for comparing various mathematics curricula. Schools within each of the participating districts were randomly assigned to the four math curricula, and then math achievement was assessed for each of the four groups. For an average-performing student, percentile rank increased nine to 12 points with Math Expressions or Saxon Math over the other two curricula.
According to Houghton Mifflin, the publisher of Math Expressions, "Using an approach that emphasizes in-depth, sustained learning of grade-level concepts and mastery of skills, Math Expressions brings K–5 students to fluency with word problems, math drawings and accessible algorithms." The curriculum is designed for kindergarten through grade five.
The complete Mathematica study report is available here.
Last Modified: 11/10/09