How to Improve Student Math Performance in the City of Chicago School District 299

Geometry can be fun but a little tricky too. Can you identify the defining attributes of a triangle? How about some non-defining attributes? Now, put together a lesson on defining and non-defining attributes of triangles for your students. Make it engaging and fun! They’re 1st-grade students entering the world of state math standards in Chicago SD 299 School District. The Illinois State Math Standards, like those across the country, are demanding and can be frustrating for students who can feel overwhelmed and fall behind.

In 3rd grade in Chicago Public Schools SD 299, students use the distributive property to multiply whole numbers, solve 2-step word problems, begin to study fractions, as well as learn about measurement with simple data. By 5th grade they’re looking at decimal numbers to the thousandth, using strategies based on place value to divide 4-digit numbers, and studying the volumes of geometric figures. In 7th grade, students are solving real-world math problems with rational numbers, studying linear equations, describing the relationships between geometrical figures, and learning about probability. By 8th grade, they’re solving pairs of linear equations, looking at functions, understanding geometrical congruence and learning about patterns in bivariate data.
These math standards can be challenging for any student, especially English Language Learners. Additionally, the abstract nature of algebra may mean middle school students can’t see the relevance of mathematics outside the classroom. Students may feel they have to learn too much in too short a time and can become discouraged and disengaged.

The City of Chicago SD 299 is the 4th-largest school district in the country, after New York, Los Angeles, and Miami-Dade. It had over 320,000 students as of the 2023-2024 academic year and includes over 630 schools - including district-run, charter, contract, and SAFE schools. The student-teacher ratio is approximately 15, with slightly over $12,000 per-student instructional spending. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that there are nearly 23,000 teachers in Chicago Public Schools SD 299, with nearly 16,000 elementary teachers (they do not separate out middle school teachers).

In the 1830s and 1840s, funding for public schools in Chicago was meager and conditions were makeshift until mayor Woodworth pointed out the need for a better public school system in 1848. The first superintendent was appointed in 1854, in charge of 34 teachers and about 3,000 students. Many students in Chicago at that time attended private or parochial schools rather than public schools.

At the start of the 20th century, influential thinkers from the Chicago area like John Dewey and Francis Parker brought progressive education methods to Chicago schools. The first woman to be superintendent of a large city school system was Ella Flagg Young who led the Chicago school district from 1909 to 1915. She was also the first woman president of the National Education Association.

In the 1920s parochial schools were brought under the control of Cardinal Mundelein who standardized their curriculum and educational policies. In the 1930s under the New Deal public works program, new schools were built. During the 1937 polio outbreak in Chicago, Superintendent William Johnson and Assistant Superintendent Minnie Fallon used radio broadcasting to provide classes to elementary school students - an early example of distance learning.

Of its 477 elementary schools, Chicago Public Schools has 415 traditional elementary schools, 53 charter elementary schools and 1 contract elementary school, as well as 3 specialty schools and 5 early childhood centers. Local school councils in CCSD are made up of: a principal, 2 teachers, 1 non-teaching staff, 2 community residents, and 3 high school students along with 1 elementary student. Alternative schools may include advocates and education experts on their local school councils.

The diverse student body identifies as follows:

• Hispanic/Latinx 47.3%
• Black/African-American 34.2%
• White 11.3%
• Asian 4.7%
• Multi-racial 1.8%

Staff (all staff including teachers) at Chicago Public Schools identify as follows:

• African-American 32.7%
• White 31%
• Hispanic 28.8%
• Asian 3.5%
• Multi-racial 1.1%

The Chicago Public Schools 2024-2025 Calendar is available in English, Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Chinese, and Urdu.

At West Belden - a public charter school run by Chicago International Charter Schools - Prodigy Math helped teachers meet the personalized learning goals West Belden uses for their students. In a school with more advanced students as well as a significant number of English Language Learners, individual learning needs vary across the diverse student body, making it vital that students can learn mathematics at their own pace.

Learners at CICS West Belden often have diverse needs. They sometimes struggle with motivation and independent learning, and Prodigy Math helped these students feel engaged. An additional bonus was that teachers found they could align Prodigy’s assignments and reports  with a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP), for students with special needs. Teachers also found that they could use Prodigy’s assignment tools to pinpoint problems ELLs - English Language Learners - were having with specific questions in Prodigy Math.

Keeping more advanced students engaged with their math studies was also made easier because Prodigy’s adaptive algorithm responds to how well a student answers the platform’s math questions. As a result, more advanced students were able to progress at their own pace and level up their math skills.

Overall, students at CICS West Belden were able to answer over 140 math questions correctly per month on average and master more math skills than students at similar Distinctive Schools in the district. As a result of using Prodigy, teachers at West Belden also gained additional data from the platform’s reports that made lesson planning and  day-to-day teaching decisions more informed and easier to carry out.

Prodigy is a web-based digital learning platform that embeds math questions within an engaging online game. It provides reports on students’ progress for teachers and parents in the dashboard. It can be played at home or school on any device with an internet connection.

A key feature of Prodigy is that a student’s level is determined by the answers they give. The learning platform responds adaptively, giving each student an individualized pathway with skill-building math questions that challenge and encourage them. Prodigy Math keeps students playing and answering questions, building skills day after day both in class and at home on their various devices.

Exposure to math really matters because math learning is cumulative and every task builds towards a deeper understanding. Thus, the challenge for a teacher is keeping their math students engaged. As students move through Prodigy Math, they gain a better understanding of the mathematical concepts they need to know. This is important because if a student has trouble with math in elementary school, middle school math can become an even tougher challenge. A supportive game-based learning platform is essential to ensure students don’t get left behind.

Teachers said they realized that Prodigy Math helped them fill the gaps that students were facing. More than this, they realized that this was a way to keep students engaged with their math practice. Using Prodigy, several studies showed that:

• Students' enjoyment of math on average was shown to have improved after only a few months usage.
• The more students used Prodigy Math, the more their math scores were demonstrated on average to correlate with higher grades.
• A higher percentage of accurate answers to Prodigy Math questions tended to correlate to better scores in math exams.
• In a study, public school students in New Jersey who used Prodigy, were shown on average to make significant progress adding math skills every month.

Finally, progress monitoring with frequent reports through the Prodigy dashboard allows teachers to intervene and support math students in far more effective ways. They are able to adjust their strategies based on the reports Prodigy provides them. And parents get to see their children’s progress mastering new skills by using the parent dashboard and by receiving weekly reports.

With over 2 million active daily users, Prodigy Math is an engaging learning tool that, when used by teachers, kids and parents, makes math learning a fun experience for students, rather than a stressful task.