CHICOPEE, Mass. (AP) — A Chicopee (CHI'-koh-pee) school is ending a three-year experiment with an all-girls math class after finding no evidence that it improved the students' academic performance.

The principal of the Edward Bellamy Middle School, Matthew Francis, said he created the voluntary class for eighth-graders to see if the girls would do better in math if they felt less intimidated and less in competition with boys.

Francis tells the Republican newspaper (http://bit.ly/12zJN4U ) that the program is being discontinued after it met with "mixed success." He said three years of data showed no measurable improvement in performance by the participants in the class, compared to students who were in ordinary classrooms with boys and girls.

Francis now hopes to launch a new "looping" program in which seventh and eighth grade students would keep the same teachers for both years.

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Information from: The Springfield (Mass.) Republican, http://www.masslive.com/news/