I CAN Learn® Results for Orleans Parish Schools
2001-2002*
Peggy C. Kirby, Ph.D., Evaluator
Three Orleans Parish Middle Schools - Fannie C. Williams, Livingston, and Woodson - used the I CAN Learn® program in the 2001 -2002 academic year. The school system provided LEAP mathematics scores for 843 eighth grad students in these schools. The students at Livingston and Woodson were all enrolled in a general math course entitled Mathematics 8. At Williams, 110 of the students were enrolled in an advanced class entitled AEP Mathematics 8 Honors and the remaining 334 students were enrolled in the regular Mathematics 8 course. On the basis of class rosters received from a remote reporting system, students were identified as belonging either to an "I CAN Learn®" class or a "traditional" class. The chart below indicates the percentage of students in each class type by course.
Table 1
Students Enrolled in I CAN Learn® and Traditional Classes By Course
| All Students | # | % |
| Traditional | 595 | 70.6 |
| I CAN Learn® | 248 | 29.4 |
| Total | 843 | 100.0 |
| AEP Mathematics 8 Honors | ||
| Traditional | 53 | 48.2 |
| I CAN Learn® | 57 | 51.8 |
| Total | 110 | 100.0 |
| Mathematics 8 Students | ||
| Traditional | 542 | 74.0 |
| I CAN Learn® | 190 | 26.0 |
| Total | 732 | 100.0 |
Comparisons indicate that, regardless of school or course, students in I CAN Learn® classes significantly outperformed students in traditional classes on the 2002 LEAP Mathematical test. Table 2 presents the mean scores of the I CAN Learn® and traditionally-taught students.
Table 2
Mean LEAP 2002 Mathematics Scale Scores for I CAN Learn® and Traditional Students
| All Students | Mean | N | SD |
| Traditional | 268.90 | 595 | 49.856 |
| I CAN Learn® | 282.39 | 248 | 39.596 |
| Total | 272.87 | 843 | 47.447 |
| School 1 | Mean | N | SD |
| Traditional | 274.01 | 296 | 42.840 |
| I CAN Learn® | 284.89 | 148 | 41.469 |
| Total | 277.63 | 444 | 42.651 |
| School 2 | Mean | N | SD |
| Traditional | 266.94 | 174 | 60.270 |
| I CAN Learn® | 278.48 | 82 | 39.040 |
| Total | 270.63 | 256 | 54.568 |
| School 3 | Mean | N | SD |
| Traditional | 259.54 | 125 | 48.135 |
| I CAN Learn® | 279.67 | 18 | 22.607 |
| Total | 262.08 | 143 | 46.144 |
| Mathematics 8 | Mean | N | SD |
| 0 | 265.89 | 542 | 50.632 |
| 1 | 272.74 | 190 | 39.415 |
| Total | 267.67 | 732 | 48.041 |
| AEP Honors | Mean | N | SD |
| 0 | 299.70 | 53 | 25.707 |
| 1 | 314.00 | 57 | 17.757 |
| Total | 307.17 | 110 | 22.962 |
The average I CAN Learn® student scored more than 13 points higher than the average traditionally-taught student. I CAN Learn® students outperformed traditionally-taught students by at least 10 points in all schools. I CAN Learn® students outperformed traditionally-taught students in both the regular and honors classes. Independent samples t-tests revealed that all differences in math performances between traditional and I CAN Learn® students were statistically significant (p<.01)
The minimum passing score for LEAP mathematics is 297. In traditional classes, 70.6% of the students failed LEAP math. This compared to 58.1% of students in I CAN Learn® classes.
The correlation between the number of lessons completed in the I CAN Learn® program and the LEAP math scale score was .465 (p<.001), indicating that the farther a student progresses in I CAN Learn®, the higher the math achievement score.
*Note that this report does not compare students by free/reduced lunch or special education classification as these data were not available.
Indisputable evidence exists that socioeconomic status is highly correlated with student achievement. As such, no program can claim to be effective if its evaluation data do not consider socioeconomic status. Free/reduced lunch status is used as a reasonable proxy for socioeconomic status in evaluations of school programs. However, evaluators rarely have access to such information as it is protected by federal guarantee of confidentiality.
The I Can Learn® program was shown to be effective (t= -3.8, p<.001) in three New Orleans middle schools when 8th grade students' test LEAP mathematics test scores were compared for I CAN Learn® and traditionally-taught students. The informed critic might argue that differences were due, not to the program, but to possible socioeconomic differences in the two samples. To allay these concerns, the evaluator would have to demonstrate that the two groups were essentially equal in terms of the percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch. The district could not provide student-level data but did provide data that approximately 5% more students received free or reduced-lunch in the traditional classes (about 95%) than in the I CAN Learn® classes (about 90%). Although there was no way to identify which students received free or reduced lunch, the evaluator deleted the top 5% of student scores from the I CAN Learn® group only and recalculated the statistical comparison. This strategy compensates for the minor group differences on socioeconomic status. Group differences were again statistically significant (t=-2.9, p<.01) The I CAN Learn® group mean of 279.3 exceeded the traditional group mean of 268.9 by 10 points on the LEAP math scale score. This evidence strongly suggest that I CAN Learn® is more effective, even after accounting for small group differences in free/reduced lunch.
A second criticism might be that special education students were overrepresented in the traditional group. Again, the district was unable to provide individual student data but did provide the number of special education students (non-gifted) for both groups. Six of the 249 (2.4%) I CAN Learn® students received special education services. Fourteen of 595 traditionally-taught students received special education services. Because 2.4% of each group received special education services, the findings can still be attributed to the I CAN Learn® program.