CTB/McGraw-Hill Research Documents Value of Yearly ProgressPro in Driving Student Achievement

CTB/McGraw-Hill's leading Research department has released a white paper that documents a positive relationship between student performance on a state-level high stakes examination and the use of Yearly ProgressPro™, the company's assessment, instruction, and intervention program.

The study was based on an evaluation of student performance on the Utah Criterion-Referenced Test (CRT) during the 2006 school year, in which 30,000 students in Grades 1-6 from the Granite School District participated. The research showed that student participation and performance in the Yearly ProgressPro program was associated with higher performance on the state test.

"Yearly ProgressPro has really helped our students achieve Adequate Yearly Progress and given teachers the tools they need to drill down on concepts to analyze the data. The instructional modules then allow teachers to individually remediate or accelerate student learning. It's been phenomenal," said Karen Sterling, Associate Director of School Services, Granite School District. "The ability of Yearly ProgressPro to be aligned to each state's curriculum is unique and powerful. Our students are learning and retaining more information because they are being assessed with Yearly ProgressPro on the same curriculum they face on the state assessment."

The white paper, "Examining the Relationship Between Yearly ProgressPro Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) and Student Results on the Utah Criterion Referenced Tests (CRTs)," was created to investigate the relationship between student performance on Yearly ProgressPro CBMs and the Utah CRT. Positive correlations between performance on Yearly ProgressPro CBMs and performance on the Utah CRT support the use of Yearly ProgressPro CBMs as an early indicator of subsequent performance on the state assessments. In addition, students who took Yearly ProgressPro had higher average CRT scores than students who did not take Yearly ProgressPro. Thus, the Yearly ProgressPro CBM assessments may provide not only useful practice and additional instructional activities, but also may be useful assessments to support instructional practice in preparation for the state CRT. A copy of the white paper is available at http://www.ctb.com/media/mktg/ypp/other_media/YPP_Granite_study_vE_sg.pdf.

"This study demonstrates that research-based assessment and intervention programs can make meaningful, measurable improvements in student achievement," said Ellen Haley, president of CTB/McGraw-Hill. "Yearly ProgressPro is a classroom tool that gives teachers specific, frequent feedback on student progress, and enables focused, on-the-spot intervention to enhance student performance on state-level assessments."

Yearly ProgressPro is an online progress monitoring system built on 25 years of research in CBM methodology, proven to be a highly effective method for improving student learning. CBM continually assesses mastery across the curriculum during the year to measure not only progress, but also knowledge retention and skills over time. Yearly ProgressPro helps administrators and teachers track Adequate Yearly Progress, a key component of federal accountability legislation. Yearly ProgressPro was also a winner in the Software & Information Industry Association's 20th Annual Codie Awards for the best elementary education instructional solution for Mathematics, and a finalist for best secondary education instructional solution for Mathematics.

A powerful component in many school districts' Response to Intervention programs, Yearly ProgressPro is uniquely suited for Tier 2 and Tier 3 progress-monitoring interventions. For more information about Response to Intervention solutions, go to http://www.ctb.com/RTI.

Yearly ProgressPro provides educators with the classroom tools they need, all linked to an easy-to-understand data management system that allows them to track trends in student performance:

-- Assessments -- Curriculum-Based Measurement assessments, providing detailed diagnostic information on students' academic progress on a defined set of skills, and Classroom Assessments, a simple-to-use assessment creator which gives educators the ability to quickly and easily create customized assessments.

-- Instructional Resources -- instructional exercises for each of the skills assessed, consisting of a set of instructional screens that introduce or explain a given skill, a guided practice set where students can walk through problems with assistance, and a unique set of problems to review and evaluate students' progress on a given skill.

-- Reports and Analysis -- a comprehensive data management system allowing educators to trend and track student performance in real time. The system measures individual students' skill strengths and weaknesses and can track whole class performance on specific skills or skill groupings.

Additional features include automated recommendations and assignments that support instructional focus, and reporting tools that generate reports by skill, student, class, district, and student demographics. For more information about Yearly ProgressPro, go to http://www.ctb.com/YearlyProgressPro.

About CTB/McGraw-Hill

As the nation's leading publisher of standardized and standards-based achievement tests for pre-school, elementary, middle, high school, and adult education, CTB/McGraw-Hill LLC offers a broad range of assessments, software and services. CTB/McGraw-Hill LLC is part of the Assessment and Reporting group of McGraw-Hill Education (MHE), a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP). MHE is a leading global provider of print and digital instructional, assessment and reference solutions that empower professionals and students of all ages. McGraw-Hill Education has offices in 33 countries and publishes in more than 60 languages. Additional information is available at http://www.ctb.com/.

  Media Inquiries
  Kelley Carpenter
  Director, Communications
  (831) 393-7196
  kelley_carpenter@mcgraw-hill.com

SOURCE: CTB/McGraw-Hill

CONTACT: Media Inquiries
Kelley Carpenter
Director, Communications
(831) 393-7196
kelley_carpenter@mcgraw-hill.com

Web site: http://www.ctb.com/
http://www.ctb.com/RTI
http://www.ctb.com/YearlyProgressPro