More K-5 students met their reading and math growth targets.

Does growth in teaching show up in student growth?

A midsize urban district in Texas, 14 elementary schools, partnered with engage2learn to coach alongside its teachers on instructional practice. The question for 2021-2022 was whether that growth in practice was moving student growth in reading and math.

Coaches and leaders learn together, and the growth is badged

engage2learn and every instructional coach worked through the Coaches Academy’s train-the-trainer model together, and school leaders joined executive training and coaching. The district and each school chose four core best practices, among them differentiation and scaffolding, assessment and formative feedback, and small group instruction, and teachers earned progress and mastery badges as they showed the skills in their classrooms.

Learning Experience Design (LXD) Research, a third-party evaluator, compared the badges teachers earned with their students’ NWEA MAP Growth results: 309 teachers and about 5,800 students.

Significant gains in reading and math

Students of teachers who earned four or more mastery badges were significantly more likely to meet their projected growth targets in reading and in math than students of teachers with none. The math effect held in every grade, K-5.

The study meets the standard for ESSA Level 3 promising evidence.

60%

of students met math growth targets when their teachers earned 4+ mastery badges, against 33% with none

60%

met reading growth targets with 4+ mastery badges, against 38% with none