International Maths Challenge

Math education outcomes in the United States have been unequal for decades. Learners in the top 10% socioeconomically tend to be about four grade levels ahead of learners in the bottom 10%—a statistic that has remained stubbornly persistent for 50 years. To advance equity, policymakers and educators often focus on boosting test scores and grades and making advanced courses more widely available. Through this lens, equity means all students earn similar grades and progress to similar levels of math. With more than three decades of experience as a researcher, math teacher and teacher educator, we advocate for expanding what equity means in mathematics education. We believe policymakers and educators should focus less on test scores and grades and more on developing students’ confidence and ability to use math to make smart personal and professional decisions. This is mathematical power—and true equity. What is ‘equity’ in math? To understand th...

  Bob Moses, who helped register Black residents to vote in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, believed civil rights went beyond the ballot box. To Moses, who was a teacher as well as an activist, math literacy is a civil right: a requirement to earning a living wage in modern society. In 1982, he founded the Algebra Project to ensure that “students at the bottom get the math literacy they need.” As a researcher who studies ways to improve the math experiences of students, we believe a new approach that expands access to algebra may help more students get the math literacy Moses, who died in 2021, viewed as so important. It’s a goal districts have long been struggling to meet. Efforts to improve student achievement in algebra have been taking place for decades. Unfortunately, the math pipeline in the United States is fraught with persistent opportunity gaps. According to the Nation’s Report Card—a congressionally mandated project administered by the Department of Educati...