As American students post lackluster results in math compared to their counterparts abroad, concern is growing that the country may lose its technological prominence.
In 2022, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) logged a 13-point decline in math among U.S. students compared to the 2018 exam. The PISA showed that Singapore students performed the best in math, followed by Chinese Taipei, Macau (China), Hong Kong (China), Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Estonia, and Canada.
Similarly, in 2023, American College Testing (ACT) revealed that only 20.8% of test takers met benchmarks for success in college-level classes in all subjects, with average mathematics scores falling to 19.0 compared to 19.3 the year prior.
“The hard truth is that we are not doing enough to ensure that graduates are truly ready for postsecondary success in college and career,” said ACT CEO Janet Godwin in a press release. “These systemic problems require sustained action and support at the policy level. This is not up to teachers and principals alone — it is a shared national priority and imperative.”
The alarm bells have been sounding off over American students’ lackluster academic performance for quite some time. The authors of a 2012 report on U.S. Education Reform and National Security sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations issued a grave warning:
“Educational failure puts the United States’ future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk. … [It] will not be able to keep pace — much less lead — globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long.”
Last September, The Hechinger Report (HR) reported that declining math scores presented a national security issue.
“This is not an educational question alone,” said Josh Wyner, vice president of The Aspen Institute, according to HR. “It’s about knowledge development, environmental protection, better cures for diseases. Resolving the fundamental challenges facing our time requires math.”
The issue is clear in North Texas, where two of the largest public school systems — Dallas and Fort Worth ISDs — have been putting up lackluster academic results.
For instance, the 2021-2022 accountability reports from the Texas Education Agency showed that only 43% of Dallas ISD students scored at grade level or above in reading, and 39% scored at grade level or above in math. Students at Fort Worth ISD performed even worse that year, with 38% achieving at grade level or above in reading and just 25% in math.
Currently, Dallas ISD is one of around 400 school systems around Texas testing out a new math curriculum called Eureka Math, yet it remains to be seen whether it will yield better results.
The solution to the country’s problems with math is not clear. As previously covered in The Dallas Express, experts disagree on whether the science of math should be legislated, as has recently been the case for reading.
“A lot of effort and money has been put into conceptualizing literacy as extremely important, extremely lacking amongst our kids, and worth investing in, and it hasn’t been the same case for mathematics,” said Kirby Schoephoerster, program manager for the National Math Foundation, per The Hill.
“But there is work being done to alleviate that, [and] put math up on that same level of importance. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is in motion.”