Arthur Academies are a set of six charter elementary schools in the greater Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. All of the Academies use the Direct Instruction programs, Reading Mastery Signature Edition and Connecting Math Concepts. The Academies provide extensive teacher training and coaching to maintain high fidelity to the implementation guidelines of the programs. This report examines data from the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) and Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS) on the reading and mathematics achievement of Arthur students from six consecutive school years: 2007-2008 through 2012-2013. The data indicate that at the start of kindergarten, Arthur students had achievement scores that were similar to or slightly lower than those of students in the nation as a whole. However, by the end of their kindergarten year, the situation had reversed, and the average Arthur student scored much higher than peers in the nation. In all cases, the changes over time, relative to the national norms, were statistically significant. This high level of achievement persisted, and even increased, through later grades. In all cases, the percentage of students scoring at high levels was substantially higher than would be expected given national norms.
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