Last week, the U.S. Department of Education released the results of a study conducted throughout the 2004-2005 school year evaluating the effectiveness of the use of technology in education. The study compares the performance of students using technology to that of students using textbooks only.  The study looked at technology implementations in several subjects and from multiple publishers, including Carnegie Learning. The results were given for the effect of technology in general, and did not assess individual curricula. In brief, the results show that technology has no significant impact on student performance based on scores from pre- and post- tests.

I want to share our thoughts on the findings. First, Carnegie Learning believes in the value of participating in studies like this one. Evaluation can present valuable opportunities to gather important data for our own analysis, to see our solutions through the eyes of an objective party and, most importantly, to apply new knowledge to product development and Professional Development services that improves our solutions and creates greater value for students, teachers, and administrators. Over the past eight years, we have participated in numerous studies, most of which have shown significant improvements in student performance.  One, in particular, resulted in recognition by the Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse. In fact, we announced this week that we are embarking on a new five-year study by RAND Corporation which is funded by $6 million from the U.S. Department of Education and will specifically study the effects of Carnegie Learning’s Algebra I curriculum.

While we will evaluate the data from the Department of Education’s Effectiveness of Education Technology Intervention study more closely over the next few weeks, the initial results corroborate what we have learned in districts across the country:

1) A curriculum’s success is directly related to the level of buy-in from the administration and staff. Carnegie Learning showed stronger results in schools where the staff was enthusiastic, seeking a change, and had a part in selecting the solution.

2) Technology-based curricula have a greater chance of success if a strong technology infrastructure is in place. Hardware shortages and network performance issues frustrate students and teachers. In these environments students spend less time using the software, they lose continuity, and the value of technology-based learning is diluted.

3) Teachers want and need tools to help them help their students. Ongoing Professional Development is critical to a successful implementation of technology-based learning.  As a result of studying our own implementations, in the past two years since this study began Carnegie Learning has expanded our services to teachers beyond initial training to offerings that share best practices year-round.

4) Learning is dynamic; it takes time, and has many variables. Sometimes you can see good results in a year, often you cannot. Two of the three districts that used our curricula in this study have made additional purchases from Carnegie Learning within the past year. Although, the advantages of the Algebra I curriculum did not show up in this study, these districts had enough confidence in the product to work with it in the future.

Finally, our own research shows that differentiated learning is critical to success in math, a subject that requires abstract thinking and individualized problem solving processes. Given the poor ratios of teachers to students in the classroom, we believe that technologies like ours – ones that learn students’ strengths and weaknesses -- offer exceptional teaching and learning tools that, more often than not, increase a student’s chance for success.

I hope that you will take a minute to read this news story from The Everett (WA) Herald in which a Carnegie Learning customer responds to the study in the context of their district’s Carnegie Learning implementation.