It’s Time to Change the Math Calculus: How the U.S. can Finally get Math Education Right

This post was originally published on June 28, 2025 by Forbes.

PISA scores reveal deep problems in how the United States teaches math. Here’s what research—and top-performing countries—say needs to change.

In recent years, a much publicized “reading crisis” has been a hot topic in the United States, but mathematics achievement tells a much more troubling story. In the 2022 Program in International Student Assessment, which tested students in 80 jurisdictions worldwide, U.S. 15-year-olds did comparatively well in both reading, ranking 7th among participating nations, and science, ranking 13th. However, U.S. students ranked lower than 30 other nations in math—well below the international average score. In contrast to the highest-achieving countries, U.S. performance is lower for both high and low achievers and shows wider achievement gaps associated with students’ socioeconomic status—gaps that national data show have grown even wider since the pandemic.

Beyond the scores, the United States has become a math-phobic nation, with many students coming to hate and fear mathematics and too few interested in continuing into mathematically rich fields of study. A recent RAND study found that only about 25% of middle and high school students found their math classes interesting most of the time, while half reported losing interest in math class half or more of the time and the remainder reporting they were rarely engaged by math. Many students had decided they were not a “math person” before they even got to middle school.

This problem has manifested as labor shortages for technical occupations in the United States, with many positions needing to be filled by individuals from other countries on H-1B visas, which are increasingly in short supply.

As a consequence, calls for reform in mathematics education have once again become widespread. However, efforts to rethink the U.S. math curriculum, instruction, and assessments have come and gone over many years, beginning with the post-Sputnik era in the 1950s, and recurring regularly since. Efforts to create a curriculum focused on deeper understanding of mathematical concepts (often called “new math,” even though it’s decades old) have warred with a status quo that favors rote memorization of basic math facts and the use of algorithms to solve problems that are not deeply understood. This status quo is reinforced by textbooks and tests wedded to a coverage curriculum that touches on many subjects in each grade level without delving deeply into any. At the high school level, the United States has clung to a math curriculum prescribed by a set of educators called the Committee of Ten, appointed by the National Education Association in 1892, the year Thomas Edison received a patent for the telegraph and long before computers, large-scale data, or new statistical methods were on the scene.

These combined challenges have been partly responsible for generations of elementary teachers poorly prepared in math and often math-phobic themselves. Furthermore, decades of secondary math teacher shortages means that many positions have been filled by individuals teaching on substandard credentials who have inadequate preparation in math or pedagogy or both. In a high-demand field like mathematics, where college graduates can earn at least 50% more in industry than they can in education, the wage gap between teachers and other professions is particularly problematic, and it is difficult to fill positions with fully qualified teachers.

All of this contributes to the widespread difficulties students experience in understanding math. Coupled with long-standing biases about who deserves access to math opportunities, the United States has a widely shared belief that only some people have the “math gene” that allows them to succeed at math—and that most women and people of color do not have it.

A new Wave of Math Reform—and why it Matters

There is renewed urgency around math education—fueled by growing global economic competitiveness, equity concerns, and technological change. A number of states are seeking to update their math requirements, infusing more attention to computer science and data science. Councils of mathematicians and mathematics teachers have urged changes to modernize math, focus on big ideas, teach it in meaningful ways, and connect it to real-world problems. Some states, like California, have overhauled their entire math framework with these goals in mind. As this move requires changes in the textbooks and materials the state adopts, it may shift the broader curriculum market.

The Gates Foundation is devoting a significant share of its massive giving to the improvement of math education across the country. As Bill Gates has noted, not many students share his love of math.

For too many, the subject is a barrier to success instead of a gateway. … That’s not because students can’t keep up with what is being taught in math class; it’s because what is being taught in math class hasn’t kept up with them. Over the past several decades, the way that algebra, geometry, and calculus are taught has barely changed—despite tremendous transformation in the labor market, and despite polling that shows parents and teachers believe math education should be more applicable to the real world (and evidence that suggests students’ engagement and understanding in math increase when it is).

The Gates Foundation’s K-12 education strategy is focused on modernizing math education so that it connects to students’ interests, abilities, needs, and goals; engages them in collaboration to find answers and communication about their problem-solving approaches; and applies to complex, real-world problems that students know exist outside the classroom, from designing a budget to estimating population growth.

The goal is for every student to become a “math person” and to be able to use the power of mathematics in every aspect of their lives.

What Will it Take to Improve Math Teaching and Learning?

Redesign Curriculum

First, it might be useful to learn from the very different way in which math is taught in the highest-achieving countries, where outcomes are also much more equitable. In the four highest-achieving nations on PISA rankings—Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Estonia—mathematics is taught in heterogeneous classrooms, with no tracking prior to 10th grade. The curriculum tackles a small number of seminal topics in each school year—like ratio and proportion or the concept of integers—and teaches these deeply from multiple angles. These countries and many others present math in an integrated fashion with domains of mathematical study combined to allow for more robust conceptualization and problem-solving. For this reason, none of these countries teach the Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II/Trigonometry sequence common in U.S. high schools, as prescribed by the Committee of Ten in 1892.

In Japan, for example, Mathematics I, II, and III each combine elements of algebra, geometry, measurement, statistics, and trigonometry. As is also true in Singapore, the focus is on taking time for students to intently discuss and collaboratively solve complex problems that integrate the content—often just one complex problem in a class period—rather than memorizing formulas and applying rote procedures to multiple problems that isolate the mathematical ideas and challenge students’ deep understanding. In both countries, reforms over the last decade have focused more intently on experiential and project-based learning and applications to real-world problems, adding data use across the grades. In Japan, when differentiation occurs in 10th grade to add greater challenge to the courses of advanced students, the curriculum remains similar, and both lanes allow students to reach advanced courses like calculus.

A similarly integrated curriculum is used in South Korea, where a “learner-centered” approach advanced by the Ministry of Education has focused mathematics on active engagement in problem-solving. In Estonia, the most rapidly improving country, reforms over the last decade have followed a similar path while focusing intensely throughout the grades on the use of computers and statistics for data analysis, using real-world problems to organize mathematical inquiry (Hõim, Hommik, and Kikas 2016).

In all cases, these highly successful countries develop a more integrated curriculum organized around major concepts that are taught deeply, infused with real-world data and problem-solving, and taught to all students.

Combine High-Quality Materials With Supports for Skilled Teaching

Second, in addition to modernizing the mathematics curriculum, we need to support the development and use of high-quality instructional materials that reflect the integration of mathematical ideas, the use of real-world data to pose and solve problems, open-ended approaches to exploring problems using multiple methods, and robust mathematical discourse in the classroom.

High-quality instruction also requires well-prepared, supported teachers. The curriculum will not teach itself. Teachers need extended opportunities to learn how to teach this kind of curriculum, beginning in preservice education and continuing throughout their careers. They need opportunities to develop both content knowledge and pedagogical skill through preparation programs and professional development that emphasize deep understanding and help teachers learn to create supportive, inclusive learning environments.

Unlike the traditional “sit and get” or drive-by workshops teachers often experience, professional learning needs to be ongoing and job-embedded, with opportunities for teachers to collaborate and learn from each other with support from skilled math coaches—a strategy used by many countries in updating their curriculum and adopted by California as part of its new math reforms.

We also need to address the long-standing math teacher shortage. In the high-achieving countries noted earlier, teachers typically earn as much as other college graduates (Singapore pegs salaries to those of engineers), and are treated with great respect, so teaching is a desirable career. U.S. teachers, by contrast, earn about 25% less, on average, than other college-educated workers and have much more grueling work schedules—with more hours teaching students and less time for planning and collaboration. Pay differentials are even larger for fields like math, so filling teaching vacancies with fully qualified teachers is difficult, especially in schools serving large concentrations of students from low-income families, which are often under-resourced. These schools, as a result, offer fewer advanced courses and rely more heavily on uncertified teachers or substitutes who come and go.

As was true for a brief time in the post-Sputnik era, the recruitment, retention, and training of teachers need urgent policy and funding attention.

Rethink Instructional Practices and Classroom Culture

Research has shown that math isn’t just about what we teach—it’s about how we teach it. Classroom environments should foster curiosity, persistence, and collaboration. Instruction must reflect both powerful mathematical concepts and supports informed by the science of learning and development, recognizing students’ social, emotional, and cognitive needs.

A recent report from the Learning Policy Institute synthesizes research findings from the fields of mathematics teaching and learning, educational psychology, and the learning sciences to identify key classroom conditions that support K–12 math learning.Four major principles emerge as key:

1. Positive Teacher-Student Relationships. Students achieve more in mathematics when they feel their teacher knows, values, and believes in them. When students report having a positive relationship with their mathematics teacher, they tend to feel more confident and motivated in their mathematics learning. They also, on average, report higher levels of engagement and a greater sense of belonging in the classroom community. Each of these things contribute to student learning and have been statistically associated with positive math achievement outcomes. The importance of positive teacher–student relationships in mathematics is clear. In math classrooms, as in all classrooms, teachers set the tone of the learning environment. Interactions that communicate to students that their teacher cares about them and is committed to providing them with the support they need to be successful can help students—even those with doubts about their ability to succeed in math—feel safe to fully participate in the classroom learning environment and take the intellectual risks that are necessary for learning.
2. A Sense of Belonging In The Math Community. In order to fully engage with classroom learning opportunities, students must also feel like they belong—both as valued members of the classroom and as capable mathematical thinkers. Numerous studies provide evidence that students who feel a sense of belonging in their school or classroom community tend to experience more positive social-emotional and academic outcomes. Students’ sense that they are accepted, respected, and included can help to establish the classroom as a psychologically safe space for social and cognitive inquiry, experimentation, and growth. Developmentally, this is very important, particularly during adolescence. A developing research base suggests that, in addition to social belonging, it is also important for students to feel a sense of “mathematics belonging;” that is, a sense that they are socially accepted as an able “doer” of math. Mathematics belonging appears to be especially important for students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who often internalize harmful stereotypes about who is and who is not good at math. In addition, all students will be well served by a shift away from the common cultural narrative that success in math requires an innate quantitative ability (i.e., the idea that people either are or are not a “math person”)—particularly since this claim is controverted by contemporary neuroscientific research.
3. Growth Mindset. Students’ beliefs about their own math ability affect how they respond to challenges. Students with a growth mindset—that is, who believe that ability develops through effort and learning—are more comfortable engaging with challenging academic work than their “fixed mindset” peers who believe that ability is innate and unchangeable (i.e., that one either is or is not a “math person”). They also bounce back more readily in response to failure, viewing these experiences as opportunities for learning rather than indications that they don’t have what it takes to succeed. In multiple studies, researchers have found that a growth mindset correlates with improved mathematics achievement, with greater effects in high-poverty settings. Teachers can model and nurture growth mindset beliefs through instruction and feedback. By explicitly teaching students about how the human brain learns, teachers can help them understand the malleability of human intelligence and ability. By doing so, and by reinforcing growth mindset ideas in classroom discourse, they can prepare students to interpret struggle as a necessary part of learning mathematics and normalize the performance ups and downs that may precede mastery.
4. High-Quality, Equitable Instruction. Classroom learning conditions that allow students to feel emotionally safe, supported, and able to succeed establish the necessary preconditions for deep engagement in academic learning opportunities. However, these developmentally enabling classroom conditions must be coupled with high-quality math instruction in order for students to achieve their potential and thrive as mathematical thinkers, learners, and doers. High-quality math instruction requires students to move beyond the memorization and reproduction of algorithmic problem-solving methods. Instead, they need opportunities to work on rich, engaging tasks that support conceptual understanding; explore multiple strategies and real-world applications; collaborate and engage in dialogue with their peers; participate in culturally relevant lessons that affirm their identities and lived experiences; and benefit from strategic supports—such as tutoring, extra lab classes, or additional time—that close skill gaps without tracking or lowered expectations.

There are compelling reasons on many levels to ensure all students are prepared and supported to excel in mathematics: to support our country’s ability to be competitive in a global market, to prepare students at every level for the ever-increasing complexity of modern times, and to develop critical cognitive functioning. But at the heart of it, children should learn math because, as Francis Su said, “To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity’s most beautiful ideas.