Using an HLM Growth Curve Analysis to Determine the Impact of the Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership on Increasing Student Achievement in Mathematics

Author: Cindy M. Walker

The Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) system is comprised of nearly 200 elementary, middle, and secondary schools.  The Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership (MMP), which just completed year five of implementation, seeks to improve mathematics education and learning across the K-12 system. The MMP involves mathematics faculty and mathematics educators in collaboration with PK-12 educators in strengthening district curricula, student assessment measures, and re-designing pre-service and in-service teacher preparation focused on the needs of an urban district.
The Partnership embraces four major goals in order to improve student achievement:

• Comprehensive Mathematics Framework
• Distributed Leadership
• Teacher Learning Continuum
• Student Learning Continuum

Since the second year of funding the internal evaluation team has administered an online survey to all MPS employees at the K-8 school level who have the potential to positively affect student achievement in mathematics.  This survey was designed to measure various aspects of educators' daily responsibilities that would likely be affected by MMP activities and, in turn, affect student achievement in mathematics in a positive manner. The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate how a growth curve HLM analysis was used to link variables created from the online survey to in student achievement gains in mathematics in MPS, using three years of achievement data obtained from the state mandated standardized test.