Press Release

Scientific Study Demonstrates that New Century Education Program Improves Educational Achievement of Middle and High School Students

(June 27, 2006, Piscataway, New Jersey)

New Century Education Corporation is pleased to report that a gold standard research study has demonstrated a statistically significant difference in educational achievement for students who were exposed to the New Century instructional program.

The study, conducted by Cometrika and in partnership with the Grant Joint Union High School District in Sacramento, California, showed that seventh and ninth grade reading students enrolled in the New Century program achieved dramatically greater gains on both the California Standards Tests (CST) and the California Achievement Tests, Sixth Edition (CAT/6). In mathematics, 7th grade students enrolled in New Century gained 8.6 points on average on the CST while control group students’ scores declined 3.3 points.

New Century Education and the Grant Joint Union High School District contracted with an independent research firm, Cometrika, to conduct this study of New Century’s reading/language arts and mathematics intervention. Cometrika, a firm headed by Dr. Franklin Boster, was selected for its experience in conducting scientific evaluations in various education settings. The Cometrika evaluation, conducted during the 2004/2005 school year, conforms to the U. S. Department of Education Institute of Education Services’ What Works Clearinghouse requirements for scientific evaluations of education programs.

Dr. Larry Buchanan, Superintendent of Grant Joint Union School District, was recently recognized as California’s “Superintendent of the Year” by the Association of California School Administrators.

“This study confirms the choice we made when we evaluated New Century versus other software providers. New Century is our premiere multimedia instructional software system.”

According to Karen Brandhorst, President of New Century, “Dr. Buchanan is recognized as one of the top ten “Technology Savvy Superintendents” nationally, and we are proud to be selected as the assessment and instructional software that runs in the district.” Jim Griffin, Chief Executive Officer of New Century Education, adds that “The strong positive results are even more significant in light of the fact that the study was conducted over the course of a full year in an extremely diverse district with 30 percent or greater attrition. These results substantiate the contribution of the New Century program in raising achievement among underperforming students.”

The Sacramento area has experienced a large influx of immigrants and Grant District’s student population is racially diverse. Forty-three percent receive free and reduced lunch benefits and 38 percent are English Language Learners, with 31 different languages spoken in the home. The progress measures used in the study were the California Standards Tests and the CAT6, NCLB accountability measures which apply to all California school districts. The majority of students in the Grant District perform below average on norm referenced tests such as the CAT6 when compared to a national group. Students were selected for the study from the district’s strategic population—those students performing one or two levels below their chronological grade level.

Frank Boster, President of Cometrika, compares the results of this study to those of other scientific evaluations of education programs. “It is relatively easy to show significance with near tests, i.e. pretests and post tests which test a narrow set of skills and occur within a relatively short time frame. It is far more unusual to demonstrate gains of this level of significance with far tests which cover grade level expectations spanning an entire year.”

New Century Education provides instructional software to help students of all ages and ability levels achieve proficiency in core curriculum subjects. The New Century Instructional System combines software based curriculum, integrated assessments, and valuable teacher and administrator reports. The program’s structured approach to individualized learning, its assessment and monitoring, and its curriculum are the products of New Century’s rich educational publishing experience and expertise and its original research in learning behaviors and motivations. New Century Education offers educators a complete program solution including software installation, technical support, training and staff development. Headquartered in Piscataway, New Jersey, the company has a national network of support personnel dedicated to on-site service delivery.

Grant Joint Union High School District serves approximately 13,000 junior high and high school students in Sacramento County. The district’s board, administration, faculty and staff are committed in their mission to create the optimum environment for student achievement. The Grant Joint Union High School District has made tremendous strides over the past five years to improve the quality of education of its students and to improve the overall efficiency of district operations. Its “Education First” school board adopted a five year strategic plan to improve the quality of instruction for all of the children in the district.

To view complete study, click here.

Contact: Janice Harrison, New Century Education Corporation, 732-981-5562 or marketing@ncecorp.com