CCSP’s Math Turnaround Draws Statewide Attention

Four weeks into the new school year, the classrooms at Community Charter School of Paterson (CCSP)  — founded by NJCDC — were already humming.

Students weren’t simply solving math problems. They were talking about math: using mathematical vocabulary, explaining their reasoning, and digging into the work. Their teachers came prepared with purposeful questions, strong visual supports, and a clear sense of where they wanted students’ thinking to go.

To the education leaders visiting on September 25, it looked less like the fourth week of school and more like the fourth month. That was exactly what they had come to see.

CCSP recently hosted a Math Labsite Day for New Jersey charter school leaders, offering classroom observations, conversations with teachers and school leadership, and discussion of what strong math instruction looks like in practice. Hosted in partnership with K12 Coalition and Lavinia Group, the event centered on the research outlined in How We Solve America’s Math Crisis: A Systemwide Approach to Evidence-Based Math Learning, a white paper developed by K12 Coalition and Bellwether. At CCSP, visitors could see many of those research-backed practices in action.

For CCSP CEO Ira Griffith, the timing couldn’t have been better. “We also just got our state test scores back,” he said. “Our math proficiency in spring of 2022 was 7%. Math proficiency in 2026 was 38%, where we also had our third, fourth, and eighth grade exceed the state’s proficiency averages.”

A Climb Years in the Making

The results build on a trajectory that has increasingly set CCSP apart. Last year, an analysis by the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association ranked CCSP second in the state for student growth in English Language Arts and math. More recently, Advocates for Children of New Jersey’s Paterson Kids Count 2026 report found that among CCSP third graders, 59% met or exceeded expectations in math on the NJSLA, compared with 23% of third graders across Paterson Public Schools.

Behind those numbers is a deliberate, years-long effort to rethink how math is taught — and how students and educators see themselves as mathematicians. Since 2022, that work has included a partnership with Lavinia Group, which provides instructional leadership support to CCSP’s teachers and school leaders. “I think what I’m proud of is that we are building a math culture across all levels,” Ira said. “It’s focused on teacher development, focused on student habits, and closing student math achievement gaps.”

CCSP revised its math curriculum and structured its scope and sequence so concepts and standards build on one another. It has also prioritized hiring educators with strong math backgrounds.

Teacher continuity is a big part of the story, too. “The reason why our math scores are going up is because we have educators who are teaching the same content over multiple years, so they’re getting better at their content area,” Ira explained. “Because of that, they’re able to better know how to teach it.”

And there’s another ingredient that’s harder to capture on a spreadsheet. “It’s cool to be good at math at our school,” Ira said. “Our kids are really eating it up.”

What Visitors Saw

That culture was on display throughout the visit. The white paper identifies several components of effective math instruction, including building students’ “math identity” and their belief that math is doable, balancing conceptual understanding with procedural fluency and real-world application, and building knowledge logically and cumulatively. At CCSP, visitors saw those ideas move from paper to practice.

According to feedback after the visit, observers were struck by teachers’ preparation and the focus inside classrooms. “We put a high premium on teachers really doing the student work and doing the student thinking,” Ira said.

That preparation helps teachers anticipate how students might approach a problem and use purposeful questioning to push their thinking further. Visitors also noticed anchor charts and other visual supports that reinforce concepts throughout lessons. Taken together, those practices add up to something larger than any single curriculum or technique: a schoolwide culture around math.

More Than a Test Score

The results of that culture show up in state assessments. But Ira says some of its most meaningful effects are harder to quantify. “It looks like students being more confident in math,” he said. “It looks like students being interested in careers and activities outside of school that are about math.”

That curiosity extends beyond the classroom. Ira pointed to social media, where students think about followers, engagement, marketing, and the algorithms that determine what people see. “All of those are mathematical ideas that kids are thinking differently about,” he said. “The thing that is not seen in the test scores is just the confidence.” That confidence is especially meaningful in a city where children can too often encounter assumptions about what students in an urban school district can achieve.

CCSP’s answer is to set the bar high — and give students and educators alike the support to reach it. “We have high expectations for kids, but we also have high expectations for adults,” Ira said. “We are unwavering about how kids can achieve as long as we set the conditions to provide support and also the accountability for learning.”

It is an approach that has helped lift CCSP from 7% math proficiency in 2022 to 38% today. And now it is bringing other educators into CCSP’s classrooms to consider what they might carry back to their own schools.

Asked to distill the reason for that success into one idea, Ira didn’t point to a test, textbook, or teaching technique. His answer was simpler. “Adults rowing in the same direction,” he said. “And that is for student success.”