Scholastic Math Inventory (SMI) Measures Students’ Math Skills and Delivers Reports to Help Teachers Target Instruction

NEW YORK, N.Y., June 29, 2010 – Schools can now use classroom computers to quickly measure students’ math achievement, track their progress and receive immediate feedback to help differentiate instruction.

Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL), the global children’s publishing, education and media company, today announced the release of Scholastic Math Inventory (SMI), its first-ever computer-adaptive math assessment based on MetaMetrics®’ Quantile Framework® for Mathematics. Built on the model of the highly regarded Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), the program responds to the National Math Advisory Panel’s recommendation for schools to use assessments that track and report student progress toward preparation for success in Algebra. The National Math Advisory Panel, at the request of the White House, made a series of recommendations in 2008 on math instruction policy in American schools.

“The National Math Panel has made it clear how important it is for students to master the skills they need in order to learn Algebra, which is a critical gateway to future academic and career success,” said Margery Mayer, president of Scholastic Education. “SMI gives teachers the tools they need to better monitor students’ progress, get instant data on students’ skills, and then tailor their instruction to get them the extra help they need.”

Designed to be administered 3-5 times a year, SMI monitors student growth in grades 2-8—benchmarking their progress, determining what students are ready to learn, and delivering reports to help teachers provide appropriate intervention. As a computer-adaptive test, SMI adjusts to the student’s performance to quickly assess his or her skills in one 40-minute class period.

SMI draws from a bank of more than 5,000 multiple-choice questions aligned with the five content areas recommended by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM): Number and Operations, Geometry, Algebra, Measurement, and Data Analysis and Probability. Students can complete the assessment in under 40 minutes, and then SMI produces a Quantile® measure of student achievement for the teacher.

With SMI, teachers can:

• screen students, within a Response to Intervention (RTI) framework, to determine which of their math skills might require intervention;
• receive immediate actionable reports on student achievement in real time;
• connect student achievement to math objectives built into the curriculum;
• group students based on their level for differentiated instruction; and
• help students understand their growth toward Algebra readiness.

“The Quantile Framework is unique in that it places both the student and the math skill or concept on the same developmental scale to support differentiated instruction,” said Malbert Smith III, Ph.D., president and co-founder of MetaMetrics. “With Quantile measures from SMI, educators can be sure that they are providing the right level of instruction at the right time and allow students to see their growth over time. The value of SMI to classroom teachers will only increase as we work to align the Quantile Framework with the new Common Core Standards this summer.”

The Quantile Framework was created in 2004 by MetaMetrics, an educational measurement and research organization located in Durham, N.C. The Quantile Framework is a scientifically designed system for measuring student achievement and the difficulty of math tasks. When achievement and task difficulty are matched, students will have the optimal probability of acquiring the targeted math skills and concepts.

For more information about Scholastic, visit our Media Room at http://mediaroom.scholastic.com.

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Contact: Dina Paul-Parks, Scholastic, 212.343.6424 / dpparks@scholastic.com