What Can Be Done to Improve Americaâ€™s Math Performance?

There is no question that the need to improve American studentsâ€™ math scores has garnered much attention on a national level. U.S. Education officials have been pushing reform for years now. We simply arenâ€™t going to be able to compete with our global competitors in knowledge-based fields if we continue to fall short in math and science. So what can we do?

Set high expectations

According to the College Readiness report by ACT, students who take the recommended core curriculum for high school including three years of math achieve higher ACT scores than those who donâ€™t, regardless of socio-economic background, race and gender.¹

But expectations for students to take and succeed at high level math and science courses in high school must be balanced by preparing them well in early years to do just this.

Our expectations for students to succeed at high levels of math and science need to be rooted in deep learning early on and continued support throughout the years, rather than pushing high level curriculum down the pipeline to earlier grades.

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How Math Skills Can Fuel the U.S. Economy

As a result of lost manufacturing and outsource jobs, the U.S. needs to look to the futureâ€”to new opportunities and growing markets to be able to compete globally, and all indicators point to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.

According to research compiled by the Joint Economic Committee Chairmanâ€™s Staff in their report, â€œSTEM Education: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future,â€ technology innovations have fueled the American economy, with some studies crediting over half of our economic growth in the past fifty years coming from improved productivity resulting from innovation. And the trend seems to be continuing. The demand for workers with degrees in the STEM fields is rising and expected to increase according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Education Equity: Involving Students, Parents, Community this Summer

Children from low-income families tend to fall behind their more affluent peers in every stage of life. They are less likely to be prepared to enter school at age 5, achieve academic and social competencies by the end of elementary schools graduate from high school with good grades, no crime involvement, or teen pregnancy, or achievement equivalent income in their twenties.[i]Â

This summer, LifeBound is working to equalize summer learning opportunities for students by assisting communities, organizations, school districts, and individuals in creating a summer learning solution that fits their students’ needs. Early and consistent intervention is key to student success.
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Illiteracy and Poverty in America: Defining the Future of our Students

In America, it doesnâ€™t matter what socioeconomic standing you were born into, we believe everyone deserves an equal chance at an equally fulfilling life. In the land of opportunity, a general sense of optimism for our futures sets us apart from other countries. A 2009 Pew Poll found even after the beginning of the Great Recession, Americans remained optimistic that they would still get ahead.[i]
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Looking Back: How Have Students’ Reading Competencies Changed Over Time

When you visualize the 21^st century classroom, what do you see? A smartboard on the front wall, iPads in every studentâ€™s hands, individualized learning programs on the computer, setting the pace of a lesson while a teacher stands by for questionsâ€¦

Some classrooms have moved into the digital age, however, the 21^st century classroom is more commonly described as overcrowded and underfunded. The student demographic is diverse with disabled, gifted, English language, impoverished, and enriched learners. Teachers are faced with having to teach to all levels of the classroom, and due to lack of time, resources, and bandwidth, they teach to the students in the middle; often leaving those who are falling behind behind and those who are gifted unchallenged.

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released the report â€œA Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reformâ€ inspired by â€œa rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.â€[i] This report, though controversial, did bring to light educational issues we are still fighting today.

The following are some noteworthy statistics from the 1983 report:

Â· Functional illiteracy among minority youth may run as high as 40 percent.
Â· The number and proportion of students demonstrating superior achievement on the SATs have dramatically declined.
Â· Many 17-year-olds do not possess the â€œhigher orderâ€ intellectual skills we should expect from them.
Â· There was a steady decline in science achievement scores of the U.S. 17-year-olds as measured by national assessments of science in 1969, 1973, and 1977.
Â· Between 1975 and 1980, remedial mathematics courses in public 4-year colleges increased by 72 percent.
Â· Too many teachers are being drawn from the bottom quarter of graduating high school and college students.

Sound familiar? Three decades later, minorities are trending toward becoming the majority, while the achievement gap continues to grow; college students are graduating with weak critical thinking skills; studentsâ€™ competency in STEM subjects arenâ€™t keeping up with the amount of job openings in STEM fields; and teachers are now said to come from the bottom one-third of their class.[ii]

[i] â€œA Nation at Riskâ€ By The National Commission on Excellence in Education

[ii] â€œAchievement Gapâ€ http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/achievement-gap/

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The Education Gender Gap: From Grade School to Grad School

Since the 1980s, more women than men have been attending college. Since 1996, more women have been attending and graduating from college.¹ A study in 2008 found the male to female ratio for attending college was 43.6 and 56.4, respectively. The gender gap in education continues to widen in favor of women, but why?

The 2011 PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) found a consistent difference between girls’ and boys’ academic achievement in most countries. Â Fourth grade girls have a much higher average reading achievement than boys, and their 2011 results continue to show this pattern. In the United States, recent research found that girls had an advantage in reading at all grades, from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Â Another study conducted by PISA in 2009 showed that 15-year-old girls performed consistently better in reading than boys.³

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21st Century Writing: More Does Not Always Mean Better

The ability to write well is meant to evolve naturally from a few simple sentences on a first-graderâ€™s notebook to the polished draft of a senior paper, and when it does the entire school experience tends to proceed naturally as well. In the workforce, good writing is the hallmark of a professional that can express himself clearly and display oneâ€™s company/product in an attractive way. This has only become more true in todayâ€™s world, where email, text messaging, and social media have taken over many of the communications that used to be performed by phone or in person.

In fact, the changing role of writing in the world today has many teachers wondering how they should adapt their teaching to make it more relevant to todayâ€™s writing needs, personally and professionally. Susan Lucille Davis, a writing teacher with over 30 years of experience, expresses this question in her blog, â€œTeaching Authentic Writing in a Socially Mediated World,â€ but admits that she herself doesnâ€™t have the whole answer. She and many of her colleagues agree, however, that the answer would need to address and prove relevant towards improving writing in the following categories:
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Reading Scores Drop, Demand for Literacy Skills Rise

Itâ€™s clear that literacy is important to Americaâ€™s future, however, it’s also clear that we should begin to worry about what is to come if literacy scores in the U.S. continues to decrease.

Both the SAT and ACT scores in 2012 show poor reading levels. The SAT showed an average score that was one point lower than last year’s, and the lowest since 1972 (Layton and Brown 1-2). According to college readiness benchmarks in the SAT, only 49% of test takers were ready for critical reading at the college level (College Board 24). Only 57% of grads who took the ACT met their benchmark for reading scores, which is much the same result as last year’s tests; in fact, the average composite score for the ACT hasn’t shown much change at all in either direction since 2008 (ACT, Inc. 1,16). The reason these particular tests are important in evaluating high school graduates is because they’re one of the most important evaluation tools a college uses to determine whether an applicant should be admitted. As such, the tests are widely recognized by colleges as trustworthy in determining whether or not a student is ready for college-level work.
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The Power of Literacy: Preventing Poverty, Dropouts, Crime

Did you know:

60% of America’s prison inmates are functionally illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems.
Approximately 50% of the nation’s unemployed youth age 16-21 are functionally illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.

55% of adults with below basic reading comprehension did not graduate high school.1

By 2020, it’s predicted that:

Â 75% of jobs will require some form of higher education.2

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Resolving to Become a Lifelong Learner

Many of us use the turning of a new year to set our personal intentions, reevaluate our priorities, spark motivation, or set goals. For teachers, parents, and students, the new year also brings a chance to set academic or professional milestones, aspire to new heights, and adjust the jaded end-of-the-year attitude to a positive outlook for the year ahead.

Between my company blogs at www.lifebound.com and here at the Carol J. Carter blog, we’ve posted hundreds of blogs filled with tips for teachers, students, parents, and professionals. Why so many blogs? We believe that learning is lifelong; that the teacher, the parent, the executive must remain the student in some capacity. Consider the following quotes:

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