NAEP, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, showed fourth and eighth graders in the United States scoring lower in math in 2024 than they did before the pandemic. But the sobering truth is that national math scores have been on the decline for over a decade. The achievement gap is widening, and on the TIMSS international assessment, American students rank considerably lower than the top 10 countries in math. We sat down with TNTP’s President, Crystal Harmon, to talk about the state of math education—where we are as a nation, why it matters in students’ lives long term, and how it can be improved at scale.
How should we understand the 2024 NAEP results and the current state of math education in this country?
These results send an urgent message to take coordinated action, but they’re also not surprising. We know the pandemic exacerbated existing gaps in achievement, and we shouldn’t aspire to simply “bounce back” to levels before the pandemic because schools weren’t serving all young people effectively then either. The NAEP scores offer a valuable tool for assessing our current moment and seeing where we need to focus.
The good news is, we know what it takes to accelerate learning. In our latest report, The Opportunity Makers, we studied schools where students who started out behind grade level caught up, gaining at least 1.3 years of learning each year—potentially life-changing gains. We saw common practices across these schools, particularly practices that created consistency and coherence. TNTP’s toolkits and action guides are an excellent starting point to support educators and leaders in implementing these practices in any school in the country.
Why does math matter in the long term? What are the connections between learning math in school and later opportunities in adulthood?
We know that what happens in the classroom has a lasting impact on students’ lives. A recent study from Urban Institute suggests that math achievement is more predictive of earnings at age 30 than the same students’ scores in reading, the quality of their peer relationships, or even their health. Students who pass Algebra I attend college at almost twice the rate of students who don’t take or don’t pass Algebra I. So we’re not just talking about learning outcomes in math—we’re talking about life outcomes.
And the job landscape continues to evolve. Recent data also show that STEM-related jobs are expected to grow at rates 3.5 higher than non-STEM jobs. And median salaries in math-related careers are also higher. Giving young people a strong foundation in math today helps to prepare them for the workforce of tomorrow.
What role do school and system leaders play in building that strong math foundation?
The most important thing leaders can do is to ensure that educators are consistently using high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) throughout the school or system, day in and day out. Using HQIM in this way reduces variation across classrooms so that all students get consistent access to grade-level content. Critically, HQIM are designed to help students build skills and concepts across grade levels so their proficiency grows over time. Once students are having rich, rigorous engagement with grade-level content, the momentum builds, but leaders need to set their sights on reaching goals over multiple years, not just within a single school year.
I spoke on a panel last December at an event hosted by the National Math Improvement Project, an incredible group of urban districts focusing on math instruction. We talked about the importance of helping kids develop a “math mindset,” the belief and confidence in their capacity to learn math.
In The Opportunity Makers, we found that when school teams got to know each student and supported them individually, then students had a clear path to improvement and the confidence to walk it. Many schools are not actually oriented around the experiences of individual students and instead think about them in groups—groups that clearly indicate what we believe students can and can’t do. But in the schools that accelerated learning, each student was doing the same grade-level work as their classmates with access to different scaffolds or supports. Demonstrating high expectations for every student does more than build positive relationships; it has measurable impact on student learning, and this is especially true for students who start out behind.
What needs to change in order for math instruction to improve across an entire system?
It might feel like an audacious goal, especially if you are leading a large district or state system. Like everything, it’s about taking the first step forward. Audit the use of HQIM in your system: Are they being used with consistency and integrity? It’s one thing to have the materials; it’s another to use them. I say this with love: Unboxing a new product is not professional development.
Once you collect that data, you can assess what else is happening in classrooms. Are each of your districtwide mandates in service of systemwide coherence? Identify the structures, systems, and routines that no longer align. Our research gives system leaders much-needed permission to simplify. Don’t keep adding more and more initiatives—do less, but do it better.
Then, set a goal for each grade level to get more kids to proficiency. We often say algebra is the gatekeeper for students, but the reality is, their earlier understanding of fractions often determines how students are sorted into those that “can” and “can’t” do math. If we aren’t getting enough kids into algebra by ninth grade, it’s likely a problem that starts in middle-school math, or even fourth- and fifth-grade math. So it can’t be an eighth- or ninth-grade solution—it has to be an every-grade solution.
You’re a fundamentally different district if 80 to 90% of your kids are passing seventh-grade math or fifth-grade math. Let’s not hope students are ready for algebra by the time they get to ninth grade. Let’s use data to make sure they are ready.
Contact TNTP to learn how we can help you build systemwide coherence to strengthen math instruction in your district or system.
