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"I really believe that SuccessMaker represents the best chance for our school to attain the goal for No Child Left Behind of 100% of our students being proficient or above." Highlights
Profile
While Colorado is considered a "30/30" state, meaning school districts have an average of 30 percent free and reduced lunch and 30 percent ESL students, Pueblo is a "60/60" district confronted with both economic and social hardships. Challenges Pueblo SD 60 faced an array of challenges, many stemming directly from NCLB requirements. They needed to implement solid methods for meeting reporting needs, streamline business processes, and improve access to student information. As they evaluated these challenges, Pueblo SD 60 decided to devote special attention to two immediate priorities focused on the students themselves: improving basic skills and increasing test scores. Solution In 1999, Pueblo SD 60 began working with Pearson Digital Learning to implement the SuccessMaker digital curriculum with the goal of leveraging data to inform instruction and help the district meet AYP requirements. In pursuit of that goal, SuccessMaker was targeted to help set and meet performance expectations for all students, develop individualized data-driven instructional plans and create a more coherent curriculum. Throughout the implementation, professional development was an essential element to Pueblo SD 60's strategy. They wanted to ensure that teachers could not only use the technology, but truly understand what students needed to learn and provide appropriately challenging, individualized instruction to build new knowledge based on each student's prior experience and strengths. With SuccessMaker, they also had selected a system whose embedded assessment would provide useful information to help both teachers and students better focus their valuable and limited class time. At the Elementary School Level SuccessMaker was specifically chosen for the elementary levels because it:
"We considered and finally selected SuccessMaker to address our student's needs and to supplement our math curriculum and our other curriculum primarily because of the alignment we saw between the coursework, the courseware and the Colorado content standards, as well as the defined district K-12 math curriculum," says John Brainard, Director of Math, Data and Assessment for Pueblo SD 60. The district set up each school with a 15-workstation SuccessMaker lab including one administrative station and the necessary infrastructure. They began by having all fifth grade students participate in the program, then expanded system use to the third and fourth grades, and finally to the first and second grades. At the Middle School Level Using SuccessMaker to validate test results, the district created multiple SuccessMaker Labs, each staffed with a certified math teacher. The targeted groups then had two periods of math each day: one for direct grade level instruction, and one for individualized instruction using SuccessMaker. In this way, the district created a unique and innovative collaboration between lab and classroom teachers to optimize instruction. At the District Level As students used the system, the data collected was then leveraged to determine a baseline for each student that established a direct relationship between student performance on the system and performance on the Colorado State Assessments. Results Pueblo SD 60's strategies developed around SuccessMaker have returned positive results all around, from improved instruction to better processes to increased achievement. As originally planned, the district is now able to correlate SuccessMaker and state assessment performance to effectively manage student achievement. "When we did a comparison of the two [performance on SuccessMaker and performance on the state assessment], we saw that there was a strong relationship, which is what we expected. But a side effect has been that it has been an exceptionally powerful instructional tool. By matching the trend lines for SuccessMaker and the state assessments along with the expectation for proficiency, we now have clear targets that teachers can start striving for at the beginning of the year," says Brainard.
According to Dr. Joyce Bales, district superintendent, "The number of students scoring 'proficient' has gone up year to year, and to have 25% of our students 'advanced proficient' is a real success story for our district."
Other highlights include:
Pueblo School District 60: Looking Ahead Due to the success that Pueblo SD 60 has experienced with Pearson Digital Learning's SuccessMaker program, the district has expanded it's implementation to include:
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a Success Story 
Pueblo, Colorado lies along I-25 at the base of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, 110 miles south of Denver. In this community of approximately 150,000, Pueblo School District 60 enrolls approximately 18,000 students at 36 sites: 22 elementary schools, six middle schools, four high schools, one alternative education campus, and three charter schools. The community has an ethnically diverse student population, with 37 percent Caucasian, 3 percent African-American, 58 percent Hispanic, 1 percent Asian, and 1 percent Native American. 
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