Charter School Celebrates 20 Years of Direct Instruction Partnership

The case study explores the use of McGraw Hill Direct Instruction (DI) programs at Verona Core Knowledge Charter School (CKCS), a K–8 public charter school in Verona, Wisconsin. CKCS serves 420 students across two classrooms per grade level, with a diverse student population including 69% Caucasian, 12% Hispanic, 8% Asian, and 22% eligible for free and reduced lunch. The school employs DI programs such as Connecting Math Concepts, Reading Mastery, and Corrective Reading, alongside the Core Knowledge Learning Sequence. 

Instruction is tailored to student mastery levels through flexible grouping and frequent assessments. Outcomes examined include Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) and Stanford Achievement Test-10 (SAT-10) results. MAP data for grades 3–8 indicated 73% proficiency in reading and 81% in math, while SAT-10 results showed significant growth in first-grade students compared to their kindergarten baseline. The findings demonstrate DI’s effectiveness in improving student achievement through research-based methods and skilled teacher implementation.