California has, by far, the largest percentage of eighth graders taking algebra. But that’s about all it can crow about in Education Week’s first Math Progress Index,which was published last week.
By most measures – scores on the “nation’s report card” (National Assessment of Educational Progress), improvement on those scores over the last six years, closing the achievement gap in math, and hiring experienced math teachers – California is far behind the most successful states, and often behind the national average.
The Math Index underscores California’s high aspirations and low results in math. It’s not just demographics (lots of poor kids who don’t speak English) that is contributing to low scores and an achievement gap but also a teacher gap: placing inexperienced math teachers in the most challenging schools.
As my colleague at the foundation, retired math teacher Bob Nichols, observed in a note to me, “Only five states do a worse job than California in getting more experienced math teachers into low-income schools. North Dakota, Iowa and Washington, D.C., actually have a higher percentage of experienced math teachers in low-income schools than in non-poverty schools.