A student wearing headphones smiles and waves during an online lesson

Academic Acceleration

The Challenge

You’re setting measurable proficiency goals and framing the work as acceleration rather than remediation. Chicago Public Schools is committed to acceleration opportunities for students in grades 4 through 12, a strategy it calls Equitable Acceleration Pathways.1 Hillsborough County Public Schools brands its strategic plan Accelerate Hillsborough.2 The vocabulary has shifted, and the work beneath it is harder than the language suggests: identifying where each student actually is, addressing gaps, and keeping students moving toward grade-level expectations at the same time.

How Edmentum helps K-12 leaders move students forward, not just catch them up

Students don’t all start in the same place, so acceleration starts with precise knowledge of where each student is. Exact Path Insights gives educators that picture and tracks progress toward state proficiency across the year.

That knowledge only matters if it changes what happens next. Depending on what a student needs, that’s personalized instruction targeting their specific skill gaps, grade-level standards, or live, educator-led tutoring for students who need more intensive support.

You shouldn’t have to choose between addressing unfinished learning and keeping students connected to grade-level work. Multiple levels of support, one goal: measurable progress toward grade-level expectations.

Know where students are, with data you can trust

Psychometric | Assessment Quality

Exact Path Insights assessments predict student performance on 28 state summative assessments, as well as the ACT®, SAT®, and PSAT®, at levels exceeding the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) strong correlation threshold. Exact Path identifies student needs regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, economic status, or multilingual learner classification.3

Exact Path exceeds strong NCII-rated correlations for 28 state and 3 national tests
  1. AL: 0.79
  2. AR: 0.76
  3. AZ: 0.79
  4. CA (SBAC (8 states)): 0.76
  5. FL: 0.77
  6. IA: 0.79
  7. IN: 0.83
  8. KY: 0.78
  9. LA: 0.82
  10. MT: 0.83
  11. NC: 0.82
  12. NH: 0.85
  13. NJ: 0.84
  14. OH: 0.83
  15. OK: 0.75
  16. PA: 0.82
  17. SC: 0.76
  18. TN: 0.80
  19. TX: 0.78
  20. VA: 0.83
  21. WI: 0.82
  22. ACT: 0.86
  23. PSAT: 0.78
  24. SAT: 0.77

NCII strong correlation threshold

3

Psychometric | Assessment Quality

NCII: Convincing Evidence From Kindergarten to Grade 12

NCII maintains the Academic Screening Tools chart, which states and districts use to compare screeners against national technical standards.4 Most tools on the chart stop at grade 8. Exact Path Insights is one of only three screening assessments with high school ratings in both English and Math.4 The chart gives districts an external review of Exact Path Insights’ high-quality technical characteristics, including classification accuracy, reliability, and validity, in reading and mathematics grades K-12. Our ratings don’t just span the full continuum of grades—they also demonstrate strong evidence of technical quality with 85% of ratings at NCII’s “convincing evidence” threshold, and zero “unconvincing evidence” ratings.4

States approve Exact Path for screening and intervention

This year, Exact Path added 13 state assessment and intervention approvals, bringing the total to 44 state and national list approvals, demonstrating our rigor, validity, and alignment with standards.

State approval indicates that a resource meets state expectations of demonstrated quality and rigorous evidence. Oklahoma approved Exact Path under its Strong Readers Act as a K-3 screener for reading deficiencies and dyslexia risk, and separately approved Exact Path Math as a universal screener, including characteristics of dyscalculia. Kentucky approved it as a K-3 universal numeracy screener. Rhode Island approved it as a supplemental intervention in literacy and math, K-12.5

44 approvals across state and national lists

Shaded states hold one or more approvals. Some states appear once on the map but hold multiple approvals. National list approvals are not state-specific.

  • Prior year approval
  • New approval
5
  • Students made substantial gains in ELA because of Targeted Skills Instruction. They score nearly an entire performance level higher on their state test, were 2.5 times more likely to meet their state’s test expectations, and made a 20 percentile point improvement to their ranking on their state’s test. Sources 6 and 7.
ESSA Tier 1 and Evidence for ESSA

Causal | Strong Evidence

Targeted Skills Instruction improved students’ reading achievement

This year, Edmentum met the highest bar in education research for the first time.6

An evaluation of Targeted Skills Instruction, our high-impact tutoring program, met the ESSA Tier 1 standard for strong evidence and the What Works Clearinghouse 5.0 standards without reservations.6 In a large New Jersey district, students scoring at or below the 25th percentile were selected for tutoring. Among students near that cutoff, those who received Targeted Skills Instruction improved because of it, gaining an average of 16.79 points on the state ELA assessment. That moved them roughly 20 percentile points ahead in reading and made them 2.5 times more likely to read at grade level compared to similar peers.7

Comparative | Moderate Evidence

Students using Exact Path Proficiency alongside Growth scored higher than students using Growth alone

A 2024–25 Florida study met ESSA Tier 2 requirements and What Works Clearinghouse standards with reservations. Middle school students using Exact Path Proficiency together with Exact Path Growth scored significantly higher on Florida's FAST assessments in both ELA and mathematics than students who used neither. Students using Growth alone also outperformed non-users, but the combination was associated with the largest gains.8

Compared with students who did not use Exact Path, students who used Growth only were 9 weeks ahead in ELA and 7 weeks ahead in math; students who used Growth and Proficiency were 26 weeks ahead in ELA and 9 weeks ahead in math.
8

Comparative | Moderate Evidence

Correlational | Promising Evidence

Positive Exact Path results hold from kindergarten through grade 10

Four ESSA-rated studies found positive effects on state testing associated with Exact Path across the K-10 grade span in math and reading. One finding of particular note from this series of studies: 19 percent of high schoolers who started below grade level reached proficiency by spring, compared with 11 percent of non-users.9

Comparative | Moderate Evidence

Correlational | Promising Evidence

Adolescent literacy: Exact Path reading evidence extends into the middle grades

Grades 6–8 students in five Texas districts who completed at least one Exact Path skill scored higher on the spring 2024 STAAR Reading assessment than students who did not use it.10

In grades 4–5, completing more Exact Path skills was associated with higher spring 2024 STAAR Reading scores.11

Customer-Reported | District-Measured Outcomes

A district reports: more data, more teacher confidence

East Central Independent School District reports higher student engagement, increased teacher confidence, and more data-driven instructional planning since implementing Exact Path.13

“[Exact Path] gives the teacher freedom to be able to monitor all of that and facilitate the different things that the kids need.”
Deborah Goforth — Instructional Technology Specialist, East Central Independent School District, Texas

Our Approach | Stated Intent

Our goal isn’t more screen time.
It’s more purposeful learning time.

A student who is behind has the least time to spare, which is why every digital experience we build clears three gates before it earns that time: a clear instructional purpose, grounding in evidence, and a design that amplifies educator expertise rather than replacing it. Targeted Skills Instruction live tutoring is delivered through a screen, but what the student experiences is human instruction, immediate feedback, and individualized support.

This year we added 15,000 standards-aligned lessons to Exact Path Proficiency, along with family and caregiver reporting, and goal-setting and progress-tracking reports.14

Move seamlessly from assessment to action with 15,000 standards-aligned lessons to target support to meet each student’s needs.

Awards and recognition

Exact Path won Tech and Learning Awards of Excellence: Best of the Year in both Primary Education and Secondary Education, Tech and Learning Best of Show at ISTELive 2025 in both Primary and Secondary, and The Tech Edvocate Award for Best Personalized/Adaptive Learning App or Tool. It was a finalist in the EdTech Digest Cool Tool Awards for Best Adaptive Learning Solution and Best Math Solution, a BETT Awards finalist in Assessment, Planning, and Progress Monitoring, and shortlisted for the Global EdTech Prize in the Majors category.15

Targeted Skills Instruction, Virtual Tutoring, won Tech and Learning Best of Show at ISTELive 2025 in both Primary and Secondary. It was a finalist in the EdTech Digest Cool Tool Awards for Best Tutoring Solution and in The Tech Edvocate Awards for Best Tutoring/Test Prep App or Tool.15

Award badges: The Tech Edvocate Awards 2025 winner; Tech and Learning Awards of Excellence Best of 2025 winner in Secondary Education and in Primary Education; The EdTech Awards Cool Tool finalist 2026; Tech and Learning Best of Show winner badges for Primary and Secondary Education; and BETT Awards 2026 finalist badge.

Examine the evidence for acceleration