\n<\/p>\n
Nationally, graduation rates have rebounded from their dips during the height of the pandemic. But high school math proficiency is much lower.<\/p>\n
That mismatch means schools are likely sending graduates out into college and the workforce without the math skills they need to succeed, argues a new analysis from the Collaborative for Student Success, a nonprofit advocacy organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the type of thing that a lot of people intuitively understand,\u201d said Chad Aldeman, an independent education analyst who authored the research.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know that graduation rates are doing well, maybe hitting highs in their state. There\u2019s also been a lot of coverage of the math declines. This won\u2019t shock people,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat will shock people, and what shocked me, was the size of the gap.\u201d<\/p>\n
While most states have graduation rates between 80-95%, math proficiency is most often below 50%. (There\u2019s a wide range in how states measure high school math proficiency, with states relying on different tests taken in middle school, 9th, 10th, or 11th grades.)<\/p>\n
Math test scores are only one signal of students\u2019 readiness for post-secondary life. Most states require that students complete prescribed numbers of courses across a variety of subjects, with only six requiring that students pass state exit exams.<\/p>\n
But the gap means that diplomas may be giving students false assurances about their readiness for higher education, Aldeman said. \u201cFor kids who are in the college-ready track or mean to be on the college-ready track, these scores really do matter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The concern over math skills is \u201cwell-placed,\u201d said Robert Balfanz, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education and the director of the Everyone Graduates Center there.<\/p>\n
National data have shown high school math scores continuing to fall below pandemic-era dips.<\/p>\n
Still, graduating from high school has never been a standalone signal of college readiness, Balfanz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re always going to have kids getting diplomas who just met the minimum requirements,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless we say we\u2019re going to raise the minimum so that you can\u2019t leave high school unless you\u2019re college ready, we\u2019re always going to have a gap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Math teachers say they feel this tension, between ensuring that their students are prepared for next steps and understanding that post-graduation pathways might look different for everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen an explosion since the pandemic of lower numeracy, lower math skills,\u201d said Sarah Murmann, a high school math teacher at Crystal Lake South High School in Crystal Lake, Ill.<\/p>\n
Her current students were in 7th grade during COVID-era remote learning. Some of them are missing basic algebraic skills. They struggle to graph a line or explain what slope means.<\/p>\n
Some of these students might not be \u201cgraduation-ready,\u201d she said. But others have the math foundations they need to work toward filling these skill gaps, she said. \u201cI still think they can be ready for the outside world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if students haven\u2019t met a proficiency standard on an 11th grade math test, for example, a high school diploma still offers some important signals, Balfanz said. \u201cYou have the perseverance to take all of those classes and do passing work. That\u2019s not nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
This \u201cacademic consistency\u201d is a predictor of success in postsecondary education, Balfanz said. Also key is some measure of academic ability, but that doesn\u2019t have to be represented in state test scores, he said. It could look like success in an Advanced Placement course, he offered as an example.<\/p>\n
Raising student math achievement is an important goal, but the solution isn\u2019t to hold back all students who don\u2019t meet a state\u2019s proficiency benchmark, in Balfanz\u2019s view. Graduating from high school provides real benefits, he said\u2014adults with high school diplomas have better health and earn more on average than those without.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a point Aldeman acknowledges. \u201cUnlike other gaps, you wouldn\u2019t necessarily want, as a policy, that this would be 0,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want kids to graduate. And some states set the bar really high for math proficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an essay for The 74, he outlined other options states could use to narrow the gap\u2014measuring math proficiency through standardized end-of-course tests so that testing is aligned to what students learned during the year, or awarding different types of diplomas for students who are and are not college-ready.<\/p>\n
The latter suggestion concerns Balfanz, who said that lower-scoring students are already often blocked from taking the kind of higher-level courses that could help them demonstrate readiness for college-level work. \u201cIf we start with differentiated diplomas, we\u2019re just going to go back to the old tracking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, though, the problem doesn\u2019t begin in high school, said Aldeman. States should aim to strengthen math instruction earlier in the pipeline, he said. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s already a growing focus, with at least 10 states passing legislation requiring or recommending early screening and intervention for math difficulties over the past four years. <\/p>\n
In many states, Aldeman said, proficiency rates are highest in 3rd grade. \u201cIt\u2019s not that kids are getting worse or forgetting math, it\u2019s that the bar rises and they can\u2019t meet it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nationally, graduation rates have rebounded from their dips during the height of the pandemic. But high school math proficiency is much lower. That mismatch means schools are likely sending graduates out into college and the workforce without the math skills they need to succeed, argues a new analysis from the Collaborative for Student Success, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[535,3848,949,4693,4737,334],"class_list":{"0":"post-48491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-college","9":"tag-graduates","10":"tag-high","11":"tag-math","12":"tag-ready","13":"tag-school"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}