After two years of post-COVID math recovery in Texas, proficiency levels in grades 3-5 hit a plateau in 2023-24—except for students using Texas’ HQIM ST Math program, who defied this trend and grew for the third consecutive year. Even more remarkably, these Texas schools and teachers once again used ST Math’s unique visual approach to lift students across the entire performance spectrum, from the lowest performers to the highest, with 12.1% growing at least one proficiency level. How did this happen?
In 2021, Texas had taken a bold step forward. Recognizing the need for high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) that could drive high adoption, productive use, and scalable impact, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) partnered with ST Math, providing licenses at no cost to districts. By 2023-24, ST Math was used in 263 districts and 2,468 schools, spanning urban, suburban, and rural communities.
Crucially, TEA required rigorous evaluation of ST Math’s impact each year. MIND Research Institute, the program provider, conducted an ESSA Tier 2 quasi-experimental analysis, tracking student cohorts for three years using a dose-striated, matched comparison methodology. The results have been remarkably consistent: across all student subgroups and at all performance levels, ST Math students outperformed their non-ST Math peers. The outcomes have been replicable, scalable, and equitable.
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How did this happen? Because ST Math provides a unique approach—one that benefits every single student. Unlike conventional math “supplements” that attempt to patch gaps in instruction, ST Math is a crucial complement to core materials, offering two essential missing ingredients:
Without these, up to half of students often internalize failure in their conventional yet incomplete learning environment, leading them to believe, “I’m not a math person.” But it’s not their fault; it’s never been about ability, it’s about the right environment.
Meanwhile, even high-performing students may clear a low bar of procedural fluency without developing conceptual depth. ST Math’s patented, language-free spatial-temporal puzzles break this mold, supporting students at every level. The digital “virtual manipulatives” in ST Math puzzles are as meaningful as physical manipulatives like building blocks, yet because they are digital, they follow rigorous, TEKS-aligned mathematical laws and standards.
These concrete representations—free of language or symbols first—ensure minimal cognitive load. And with a video game ethos where mistakes fuel learning every student is challenged to solve each puzzle and move forward at their own mastery pace.
But having the right learning science isn't enough—it must reach every student, at scale. That’s where, beyond product effectiveness, implementation and equity come in.
Implementation is the foundation of any program’s success. A major challenge with EdTech is whether all students can achieve meaningful participation, or if program access and progress are skewed toward certain groups. ST Math proactively validates equity at the implementation stage—ensuring Special Education, English Language Learners, economically disadvantaged students, and gifted learners all engage and productively achieve sufficient and effective usage levels.
Without clear district-level accountability, implementation is often spotty and uneven. Texas’ Math Innovation Zone model has pioneered oversight strategies to ensure meaningful student usage at scale.
Looking ahead to 2024-25, TEA’s national leadership in implementation measurement and accountability at scale further ensures that ST Math isn’t just another “licensed tool” available to a scattering of some students—it’s a scalable, high-fidelity solution applied seriously to all. Empirical analysis confirms that in districts with strong implementation practices, all schools across the entire district achieve similar, strong implementation levels.
While Texas grades 3-5 overall saw flat or declining math proficiency in 2023-24, ST Math students continued to grow. The results were particularly striking at both ends of the performance spectrum:
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Most programs struggle to show effectiveness across all performance extremes—but ST Math does this as its hallmark, reinforcing its ability to support a wide range of learners without being limited to remediation alone, and lifting students at all levels of math achievement.
Texas' statewide investment in ST Math is proving to be a model for sustainable educational improvement. The formula is clear:
By selecting a learning-science-embedded program and directly driving district-level implementation management, Texas is leading the nation in state-driven support for math learning. The results speak for themselves: even in the face of statewide stagnation, ST Math students kept growing.
Texas isn't just supporting math learning—it’s pioneering a national blueprint for evidence-driven, equity-focused education. And that’s what makes ST Math a unique and indispensable part of Texas' math success story.
Andrew R. Coulson, Chief Data Science Officer at MIND Research Institute, chairs MIND Education's Science Research Advisory Board and drives and manages all research at MIND enterprises. This includes all student outcomes evaluations, usage evaluations, research datasets, and research partnering with grants-makers, NGOs, and universities. With a background in high-tech manufacturing engineering, he brings expertise in process engineering, product reliability, quality assurance, and technology transfer to edtech. Coulson holds a bachelor's and master's degree in physics from UCLA.
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