The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been developed in response to the criticism that students in the U.S. are graduating from high school without being college and career ready and that they are falling behind their counterparts in other countries in key subject areas. In this work, the authors report the results of an efficacy study that…

This study investigates, through a cluster randomized trial, the impact of "Math in Focus," a core mathematics program modeled after instructional approaches used in Singapore, on third- through fifth-grade students' achievement in mathematics. The program is currently being used in more than 400 school districts in the United States.…

Prior research suggests that summer learning loss among low-income children contributes to income-based gaps in achievement and educational attainment. We present results from a randomized experiment of a summer mathematics program conducted in a large, high-poverty urban public school district. Children in the third to ninth grade (N = 263) were…

Recent work that has examined the impact of what are variously called periodic, interim, benchmark, or diagnostic assessments, typically administered three or four times during a school year, has produced mixed findings. For instance, one study reported small significant effects in mathematics in grades 3-8, but not in reading (Carlson et al.,…