Middle school math placement and progression are topics that are part of an active policy and practice discussion in California and elsewhere. Beginning in the 2008/09 school year, California's State Board of Education recommended that students complete algebra I by the end of grade 8. Between 2003 and 2009 the proportion of grade 8 students…

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) in North Carolina recently addressed the issue of advancement in and equitable access to advanced mathematics. Under a recent policy, WCPSS uses a SAS-generated predicted probabilities of students' success in obtaining a passing score on the NC Algebra I End-of-Course (EOC) exam, to determine…

This current paper uses data collected as part of an efficacy trial funded by a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) National Center for Education Research (NCER) (See Symposium Justification and Paper #1 for a more complete description of the focus of the broader study). Since participation in the study was voluntary, students…

Recently, the authors have been exploring the use of propensity score methods for developing evidence of program impact. Specifically, they have been developing evidence (after one year of implementation) of the effects of the Math Science Partnership in New York City ("MSPinNYC2") on high school students' achievement--both in terms of…

This study seeks to demonstrate a method for treatment effect estimation in a multisite observational study where the treatment is highly selective and the assignment mechanism varies across sites. The method is demonstrated by addressing three primary research questions about the effect of 8th grade algebra: (1) For students who take algebra in…