Achievement gap study: PACE special education students do as well as other students in 8th grade math

Schools have been working for years to eliminate the achievement gap between special education students and those without IEPs.  A study by UNH doctoral candidate Carla Evans has found amazing achievement gains in 8th grade math among special education students at PACE schools compared to students in non-PACE schools.  In fact, she found that:

PACE students with IEPs do better in 8th grade math than they had before.

Carla’s study also shows that the competency based learning in PACE schools shows up in their performance on traditional standardized tests.

The next step is to see whether she finds the same kinds of results in English Language Arts in 8th grade and in ELA and math in the other grades.   These results are, on their face, very impressive.

Here is Carla’s presentation:

 

You can follow along on the slides below:

4/13//17 Update: We changed the bolded statement abve from “about the same as non-IEP students” to the current statement because, although the data appears to support the former statement, this more conservative summary a more reliable statement about what schools can expect to see on a day-to-day basis.