In many ways, what happened with math instruction in the United States mirrors better-known problems with how our children have been taught to read.
As outlined in the deeply reported Sold a Story podcast, American reading instruction shifted from teaching phonics and reading fundamentals through rote practice to a more “vibes-based” approach centered on sight words and “balanced literacy” delivered in cozy classroom book corners. We chose to believe that exposing kids to good books would be enough to teach them to read and to love reading. It didn’t work.
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Good books are necessary to make good readers, but they’re not even close to sufficient. Literacy rates cratered across the country as this new pedagogy was implemented. By 2022, National Association of Educational Progress data showed that roughly one third of America’s fourth and eighth graders failed to read at basic level. The pioneer of the balanced literacy movement, Lucy Calkins, fell from grace, and the tide began to turn on reading instruction styles.
Our trouble with math education is similar. This story hasn’t been as deeply reported yet, but it follows the same cultural trajectory. It even has a similar antihero, Jo Boaler, a professor of education at Stanford University, is seen by some in education as a ”beacon of hope.” But her critics allege that she “made bold assertions with scant evidence” which they feared would “water down math and actually undermine her goal of a more equitable education system.”
Boaler wrote a book called Math-ish that aims to help students find “joy, understanding and diversity in mathematics.” Influential in developing the pedagogical shifts that informed Common Core standards—and even in how teachers are trained to teach mathin states, like Texas, that haven’t adopted Common Core—Boaler aimed to help students experience math instruction more “broadly, inclusively, and with a greater sense of wonder and play.”
That certainly sounds more delightful than a worksheet—even akin to the reading corners with twinkle lights and beanbag chairs. But seasoned math teachers told me they see it as a dereliction of duty. (The local educators I interviewed weren’t allowed to speak on record per school district policy.)
Students can’t explore the beauty and mystery of math if they don’t understand the fundamentals, said one math teacher. Setting students up for failure because we haven’t taught them the basics isn’t loving and supportive, said another.
And especially in public schools, as students flounder, gaps in equity grow rather than shrink. Students in families with more financial resources pay for expensive private tutoring to teach the basics neglected in the classroom. Students whose families can’t afford tutors’ rates fall further and further behind.
I interviewed parents, teachers, and Matt Friez, a member of my school district’s Board of Trustees, to inform this story, and for all their frustrations, they aligned on a lot. While they have real differences of perspective, they all know that fixing math education is a daunting challenge. And they agreed on some initial steps for improvement.
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The first step is honesty. For Ebony Coleman, a local parent who was horrified to discover just how far behind her eighth-grade daughter had fallen in math, this is paramount. Last summer, she began her “Math Ain’t Mathin’” grassroots campaign to make math achievement a high priority for the district. She went door to door and talked to over 100 other parents here in the Midland Independent School District (MISD). She found that only 20 percent of parents thought their children were below grade level in math. In reality, district statistics suggest that upwards of 60 percent are falling behind.
Coleman wants parents to take greater responsibility for proactively seeking solutions, but she believes that must start with teachers and district administrators being more forthcoming about student performance. (I reached out to Midland ISD for comment but did hear back before publication.)
Friez agrees. “I want every campus to publish data so that everybody knows exactly what is going on, who is on track and who is off track,” he said, “down to you seeing clear data for your child.”
Armed with the truth, the next step is to focus on the fundamentals. The teachers I spoke with told me they want to see more paper and pencils and fewer Chromebooks in math classrooms, to see their fellow teachers get out from behind their desks and roam the classes, actively monitoring student work and catching computation errors in real time. But with all the other responsibilities and expectations that have been added to teacher workloads and the ways reliance on digital tools has become a professionally acceptable option, these teachers recognize that for some of their colleagues, reverting to an older teaching style feels unrealistic.
Similarly, parents and students alike want to reduce reliance on video lessons and digital tools and increase high-quality direct instruction. All my sources agreed we must bring back rote memorization of basic math facts like the multiplication tables and other commonly used patterns, like the correlation between common fractions and percentages.
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Rather than simply buying new curricula, one veteran teacher said she’d like to see the district return to a district-wide, collaborative, grade-level approach to lesson planning, something that worked well in the past. In that model, teachers within the district who have demonstrated results in the classroom work together to create a district-wide plan to meet state standards. It includes collaborative lesson planning and in-person teacher training on instructional methods, formalizing and expanding the guidance veteran teachers already give their colleagues when they can. This model helps ensure every student receives quality instruction, even when assigned a less experienced teacher.
The math educators I interviewed are not naive or in denial about the scope of this problem. They know the task in front of them is gargantuan. When only 30 percent of students in the district are on track in math class, as is the case in Midland, it’s easy to lose heart.
On the afternoon I met with a group of teachers, we convened in a local coffee shop. When one of the teachers was picking up her latte, she glanced behind the counter and caught sight of a former student, now in his early 20s and a part owner of this new business.
He came bounding to the front of the café, embracing her in a huge hug. “You remember me!” she said, laughing. “Of course!” he boomed. “You were my fifth-grade math teacher!”
When it came time to leave, she nodded back at him. “There’s so much about the system that is so broken. But I keep working at it because of kids like that,” she smiled. “Look at him now! He owns and runs his own business! He’s a productive member of society! He’s building something good for our community!”
“I can’t change the world for everyone in the district or the state or the nation,” the teacher added. “But I can do my best to make a difference for the kids God brings into my school.”
This is part three of a three-part series on math education in America. Read parts one and two at these links.
