2023/05/12 by Robin S. Codding, Corey Peltier, Jared Campbell +1
Mathematics · Social Sciences · #Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills #Mathematics Education and Teaching Techniques
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/00400599221121721
U.S. students display chronic underachievement in math.Internationally, U.S. math performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment persistently falls below the average of other OECD countries.Furthermore, the United States has one of the largest achievement gaps when comparing the average performance of the highest (90th percentile) and lowest (10th percentile) performing fourth-and eighth-grade students in the world (Pal et al., 2019; TIMSS 2019 U.S. Highlights, 2019).U.S. math performance over the last 20 years on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has also been stagnant (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2019).The most recent data, collected in 2019, identified 59% of fourth graders performed below the NAEP proficiency cut score.Because of the hierarchical nature of math, we see higher prevalence of underachievement among eighth (66% below) and 12th graders (75% below).Resulting from systemic inequities in education broadly and math practices specifically, underachievement in math is not distributed equally across demographic variables related to race and ethnicity, English language proficiency, socioeconomic background, and disability status.Such persistent inequities and poor outcomes behoove educators, school administrators, and school support professionals to assess their math instructional practices and programs in concert with the science of teaching and learning math.