ST Math Research Underscores Elevated Academic Achievement for Texas Students

Five years of research reveals repeated acceleration for elementary and middle school students on STAAR assessments with exceptional benefit for SPED learners

IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- MIND Education, the leader in neuroscience-driven mathematics instruction, released the findings from MIND Research Institute's dual research effort in Texas. The two studies—the annual Texas Education Agency (TEA) Longitudinal Study and the new Matched Comparison Study (MSC)—both confirm that students using ST Math are achieving significant, equitable, and longitudinal academic growth and outpacing matched students not using ST Math. Altogether, the studies analyzed more than 187,000 Texas students, completing one of the most broad and longitudinal looks at visual math learning in action.

Annual TEA Longitudinal Study (Grades 3–5) 
The annual TEA Longitudinal Study offers a clear picture of ST Math's long-term effectiveness across the elementary years, with a fifth consecutive year showing positive results on the STAAR statewide assessment. The findings show that when students in every subgroup use ST Math consistently from grades 3 through 5, they show improvements each year in math performance levels. One of the most striking outcomes is the ST Math hallmark of dramatic reduction in low performance: among students who engaged with the program across all three years, only 2.3% remained at the "Did Not Meet" performance level.

The gains were not weighted towards any single group; in fact, the study demonstrated strong equity outcomes across all demographics. African American students, for example, saw approximately 8.5 percent more reaching the "Meets" or "Masters" performance levels, while ESL students experienced increases of 10.0% in "Meets" and 10.2% in "Masters." Taken together, these results underscore a central finding: when implemented with fidelity across urban, suburban, and rural districts, ST Math reliably drives robust gains across all subgroups, and even helps reverse declines.

Matched Comparison Study (MSC) (Grades 4–8) 
The new Matched Comparison Study expands the evidence base up from elementary and into the middle grades, offering the first complete dataset demonstrating ST Math's impact from Grade 4 through Grade 8. Across this full span, students using ST Math outperformed their matched peers, gaining more than six percentage points in their "Meets"/ "Masters" rate and adding 26 more scale score points – clear indicators of accelerated learning.

The study's most remarkable finding emerged among Special Education students, with 38.5% of middle school SPED students advancing at least one performance level. For SPED students moving out of "Did Not Meet," the effect size reached 0.86, an unusually large and meaningful impact in math intervention research. The analysis also showed that the more students used ST Math, the more they gained—improvements are solid at around 750 puzzles and essentially double by about 1,500. Ultimately, the MSC study confirms that ST Math also strengthens middle school STAAR math achievement at readily achievable usage targets.

The combined results of both studies provide broad evidence that ST Math delivers replicable, equitable, and longitudinal growth by enabling visual, conceptual understanding. The program's unique and patented design ensures that every student can access on grade-level,  rigorous math content.

Since 2020, TEA has partnered with MIND Education to provide educators and K–5 students free access to ST Math. This strategic, statewide adoption – currently reaching more than 1.3 million students – has enabled the state to deliver a high-impact, neuroscience-driven solution that provides clear evidence of acceleration and equitable outcomes.

"Our fifth year of data in Texas confirms the effectiveness of visual learning at a massive scale. The ST Math model – spatial-temporal puzzles requiring mastery but also giving students a low floor, high ceiling – is the science behind this growth," said Andrew Coulson, Chief Data Officer at MIND Research Institute. "When you find a 0.86 effect size in middle school SPED students moving out of the lowest performance level, you're revealing more than a metric. You're seeing evidence that our approach provides a level playing field for every student in access, in growth and in building confidence in themselves as math learners."

To learn more about ST Math Texas, visit: https://www.mindeducation.org/st-math-texas.  

About MIND Education
MIND Education engages, motivates, and challenges students towards mathematical success through its mission to mathematically equip all students to solve the world's most challenging problems. MIND is the creator of ST Math, a pre-K–8 visual instructional program that leverages the brain's innate spatial-temporal reasoning ability to solve mathematical problems; and InsightMath, a neuroscience-based K-6 curriculum that transforms student learning by teaching math the way every brain learns so all students are equipped to succeed. Since its inception in 1998, MIND Education and ST Math has served millions and millions of students across the country. Visit MINDEducation.org.

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SOURCE MIND Education