Meadowlane Elementary
Miami-Dade County
Hialeah, FL
(Pearson Digital Learning SuccessMaker)

“SuccessMaker has met all our needs. It’s an integral, necessary part of our education program. I don’t know how anyone could choose anything else because there’s nothing else out there like it. SuccessMaker is it.”

— George Kovachy, Principal of Meadowlane Elementary School 

• Over the 1999-2000 school year, Meadowlane Elementary increased three performance grades in the Florida state accountability program— from a “D” to an “A” using SuccessMaker.
• Mean FCAT math scores in 2000 rose 39 points over mean FCAT scores in 1999, and mean FCAT reading scores in 2000 rose 21 points over mean FCAT scores in 1999. 
• In 2000 52% of students were at Achievement level 3 and above In 1999 only 32% of students were at Achievement level 3 and above. In mathematics, the percent of students at Achievement level 3 and above increased from 18% in 1999 to 37% in 2000.

Challenge
In 1999 Meadowlane Elementary received a “D” in the Florida state accountability program. The school needed to improve student achievement on state and national tests and in the classroom.

Solution
Meadowlane Elementary implemented Pearson Digital Learning SuccessMaker courseware in 1994. All students in kindergarten through grade five use the self-paced, interactive courseware daily. Kindergarten, first and second grade students work on SuccessMaker math and reading courses for a total of 14 to 20 minutes a day, while third, fourth and fifth graders spend 30 minutes a day on the courses. “The courseware provides one-on-one instruction that allows each student to progress at his or her own level,” says Van Gross. “It allows students to go forward or back, without feeling embarrassed about how they’re performing — it’s just between the student and the computer.”

Meadowlane’s technology coordinator and teachers align SuccessMaker curriculum with Florida’s Sunshine State Standards, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT). “We can set the strands in the SuccessMaker math and reading courses to address specific content areas that are tested,” said Donna Van Gross, Meadowlane Elementary’s technology coordinator. We find that students who are successful in SuccessMaker math and reading courses are successful in those areas on the FCAT as well.”

Meadowlane Elementary established a school-wide goal that every student achieve at least 70 percent proficiency in the courseware each day. Van Gross and the teachers regularly monitor student performance and growth using the SuccessMaker management system, which is seamlessly integrated into the courseware. Using the system’s assessment tools and on-demand reports, they can easily see which students are and are not meeting the school-wide goal, identify areas of weakness, and provide targeted practice and intervention. 

Results
From 1999 to 2000, Meadowlane Elementary improved three performance grades — from a “D” to an “A” — due to significant improvement in student performance on the FCAT. Fifth grade students’ mean scores increased 42 points from 1999 to 2000. 

FCAT scores are organized into five achievement levels, with Level 1 being the lowest scoring group and Level 5 the highest. From 1999 to 2000, Meadowlane saw a dramatic decrease in the number of fifth graders in Level 1 and an increase in the higher scoring groups. 
 

Reading	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
1999	49%	18%	23%	8%	1%
2000	36%	11%	30%	19%	3%
Math	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
1999	59%	22%	12%	6%	0%
2000	27%	29%	25%	11%	7%

From 1999 to 2000, fifth graders’ scores on the SAT also rose significantly, with average gains of 19 points in reading and math. Average scores in reading jumped from 33 to 52, and average scores in math climbed from 47 to 66.

What made such dramatic improvements possible from one year to the next?

“It was a combination of things,” said Van Gross. “We rewrote the entire school curriculum in the grades that were tested. We aligned the SuccessMaker reading and math curriculum with our state standards and tests. The reports from the SuccessMaker management system showed teachers exactly what areas students had problems with and helped them implement instruction to improve those areas. We had great accountability among our teachers and great support from our principal. All those things together really helped us achieve our goals.” Kovachy agrees. “We’ve done many things at our school to move from a ‘D’ to an ‘A.’ One of them was improve our use of the SuccessMaker program. We sat down with the teachers and planned out exactly what we wanted to do to bring up the skills of our students, and then talked about how SuccessMaker could help us do that. SuccessMaker played an integral part in our efforts.”
 

For more information on how Pearson Digital Learning can help you achieve results, visit http://www.pearsonedtech.com or call 888/627-5327; Canada and other international locations: 800/400-6192.

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