The Impact of Indiana’s System of Benchmark Assessments on Mathematics Achievement

Abstract

Benchmark assessments have become increasingly common in education research the last few years. We use high quality data from a large-scale school-level cluster randomized experiment to examine the effects of mClass and Acuity benchmark assessments on mathematics achievement in 59 schools in the State of Indiana. Results indicate that the treatment effects are positive, but not consistently significant. The treatment effects are smaller in lower grades (i.e., kindergarten to second grade), but larger in upper grades (i.e., third to eighth grade). Significant treatment effects are detected in grades 3 to 8, especially in fifth and sixth grade mathematics.