Speaking at the National Title 1 Conference in February, Sean Healy, District Lead Teacher for RISE in Jersey City Public Schools Special Education Department, reported that math achievement had increased 24% for students At or Above Grade Level on the ADAM during the 2015-16 school. He credits this improvement to careful planning and implementation of their tiered system of support and using the Moving with Math Foundations program as either a core or supplemental math program for their over 2600 special education students.
Mr. Healy has been guiding his teachers and students on a path of success for the past five years. This large urban district with over 36 Title 1 schools has also shown improvement on state testing surpassing other districts with similar student populations on the PARCC assessment. The only other urban district who performed slightly better was Elizabeth, NJ and they also use the Moving with Math Learning System!
During his presentation, Mr. Healy outlined their district’s efforts and their partnership with Math Teachers Press. He noted that his teachers loved that “Moving with Math provides concrete activities for difficult concepts in an easy to understand format and that students learn to represent and model the abstract math to promote deeper understanding.”
When asked about his teacher’s favorite lessons he said “Most of the fraction lessons, especially at the younger grades, get rave reviews. Students being able to see what a fraction really is and compare different fractions with the models, both the circles and the bars, is very powerful.” These carefully designed manipulative activities are key to building student understanding of number sense, patterns and relationships, the critical concepts necessary to raise achievement.
Mr. Healy noted that the Moving with Math Learning System was a “Perfect fit for New Jersey’s Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) and matched well with the spirit and content of New Jersey’s new standards.” He noted that they were planning expanded use throughout the district and improved implementation with fidelity as future goals and looked forward to continued support and customization from the staff at Math Teachers Press.