'We're graduating people who can't do basic arithmetic'

"We're graduating people who can't do basic arithmetic," Matt Friez, a Midland, Texas school board member tells Carrie McKean, whose children go to district schools. Scores start dropping in third grade and nosedive in fifth grade. “By the time you get to junior high, 60 to 70 percent of our kids in all our junior highs are two-plus years behind in math. That is just completely unacceptable.”

It's not just Midland, writes McKean in Christianity Today. "Fourth and eighth grade math scores peaked nationally in 2013. After that, scores modestly declined across the country until the pandemic — and then plummeted." 

"Ubiquitous screens, classroom chaos" and "a dearth of qualified teachers" contribute to the problem, she writes in part two of the series. Part three calls for honesty about how students are doing -- not inflated grades and happy talk -- and a return to the fundamentals.

California may require schools to screen children for math difficulties in the early grades, following the example of Alabama, the only state with rising elementary math scores, reports John Fensterwald on EdSource.

“California is facing a real and urgent math achievement crisis," said Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, D-San Diego, the primary author of the math screener bill. “Students who miss foundational math skills in grades K through 2 rarely catch up.”

If the bill passes, schools would have to notify parents of their child's math progress "and offer services and support, including small-group tutoring, intensive instruction, or further testing," reports Fensterwald.

"By some measures, proficiency in math by fourth grade is a clearer predictor of school performance than reading," he writes. On California's 2025 tests, only 37 percent of students overall -- 26 percent of low-income students and 20 percent of black students -- scored at grade level in math. Nearly half of students tested at grade level in English Language Arts. Math proficiency was highest for third graders (46 percent) and lowest for 11th-graders (33 percent).

The Alabama Numeracy Act, passed in 2022, mandated early screening and intervention for math difficulties and provided math coaches to every K-5 public school, he writes. "By 2024, Alabama was the only state in which fourth grade math scores significantly improved over pre-Covid 2019 scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress."

Nine other states now require or recommend early math screening and intervention, reports Sarah Schwartz in Education Week. Other states, including Louisiana and Texas, have launched new teacher training.

Canada has a math problem, writes Anna Stokke a University of Winnipeg math professor, in the Financial Post. Math scores have been falling for over a decade on international tests. "In several provinces, this slide is equivalent to having lost two or more years of schooling since 2003."

The first step is to emulate England by requiring schools to check students' mastery of the times tables by the end of fourth grade, she writes. Students who don't know the times tables have difficult learning more advanced math.

Universal math screeners in K-8 could catch problems before students get too far behind. "Much of math is cumulative, with each new concept relying on mastery of earlier skills, so knowledge gaps compound quickly." Screening is a low-cost, high-impact strategy.

Stokke also calls for teachers to use explicit, teacher-led instruction, which "a large body of research" has shown to be "more effective, especially for beginners and students who struggle." Unfortunately,  "Teachers have been encouraged to rely on inquiry- or discovery-based approaches not supported by high-quality research," she writes. In addition, provinces should adopt high-quality standardized testing and use the results to improve teaching and learning.

Math teachers have been told for a long time now that they need to persuade students that they are "math people," despite all evidence to the contrary. It's good to have a positive mindset. But it's hard to sustain without knowing the multiplication tables.