During the pandemic, many students fell behind in their learning as they had to grapple with the loss of their school community and social life, COVID deaths and its other effects, and family hardships (Doan-Nguyen, 2023). Test scores universally declined and the average student “in grades 3-8 lost the equivalent of a half year of learning in math” (News editor, 2023). It might be expected that since the pandemic has ended, students would have bounced back and at least gotten to pre-pandemic math levels. However, this is not the case–many of them are still half a year behind and it has become even more apparent that some communities are falling behind in education (Turner, 2025). The difference in math scores between higher-income groups and lower-income groups has widened by 11% (Turner, 2025). Additionally, according to the Education Recovery Scorecard, “the nation’s highest-income districts were ‘nearly 4 times more likely to recover’” (Turner, 2025). This lack of recovery is even more concerning when considering that the US was already falling behind in math. In the 2018 PISA assessment, which tests students throughout the world, the US ranked approximately “36th out of the 79 countries and regions that participate[d]” – “below the international average” (Barshay, 2019). With this in mind, it becomes even clearer that there must be a radical shift in how math is taught.
To make this shift, I believe we must examine why students are falling behind in the first place.
Many people believe that this is because of the curriculum, but the real issue is math anxiety. Math anxiety can manifest itself in many ways. Perhaps a person thinks about math and feels a sense of dread, or perhaps they go out of their way to avoid the subject, and maybe doing math at all invokes stress (Luttenberger, Wimmer, Paechter, 2018). This is a problem so widespread that “approximately 93% of adult US-Americans indicate[d] that they experience some level of math anxiety” (Luttenberger, Wimmer, Paechter, 2018). If so much of the population feels this way, it is no wonder that many students continue to struggle in mathematics. Learning math has become transformed from just learning to something to be feared.
To reverse this, we must address the reason why math anxiety is so widespread: the way math is taught. When many people envision being in math class, they think about feeling stupid–their class moving ahead without them, forgotten by a teacher who has already given up on them. One of the reasons why this occurs is because “Teachers reported stronger beliefs in the role of innate ability for math than for … language arts” (Heyder, Weidinger, Cimpain, Steinmayr, 2020). When teachers believe this, this causes students who have already fallen behind, perhaps because of the pandemic’s effects, or those who do not immediately show an aptitude for math to be disregarded, further reinforcing their lack of mathematical progress. These “beliefs [from teachers] about…students’ mathematical intelligence contributed to low achievement, [and] diminished self-esteem” (Li, Schoenfeld, 2019). When students are in a classroom environment that pushes them down and creates negative associations, they will likely develop math anxiety which will stunt their mathematical progress.
To address this, I believe we need to focus on our teachers. As I have just noted, teachers have a critical role in how students perceive mathematics and whether they develop math anxiety. We need to recognize how influential teachers are and shift our policy accordingly. Teachers’ pay was “26.4% less than other similarly educated professionals in 2022” and with inflation, their weekly wages are decreasing from year-to-year (Allegretto, 2023). This makes it unlikely that many individuals who have the mathematical background that would change how they perceive the innateness of math or students struggling would consider entering the teaching profession. To change this, teacher pay must be made competitive with jobs requiring a similar education background. At the same time, the requirements to become a teacher must become more rigorous–with requirements for degrees in the subjects teachers will primarily teach (particularly for mathematics). These efforts will help transform students’ mindsets by creating a learning environment where the accessibility of math is constantly reinforced by passionate, well-qualified teachers. This will combat math anxiety and begin to reverse the alarming state of math in the US highlighted by the pandemic. We must take action now to ensure that no more students are forgotten.
References
Allegretto, S. (2023, September 29). Teacher pay penalty still looms large: Trends in teacher wages and compensation through 2022. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-in-2022/
Barshay, J. (2019, December 16). What PISA rankings 2018 tell us about U.S. schools. The Hechinger Report. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://hechingerreport.org/what-2018-pisa-international-rankings-tell-us-about-u-s-schools/
Doan, R. (2023, July 17). Post-COVID Learning Losses. Harvard Magazine. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2023/07/kane-covid-learning-losses
Heyder, A., Weidinger, A. F., Cimpian, A., & Steinmayr, R. (2020). Teachers’ belief that math requires innate ability predicts lower intrinsic motivation among low-achieving students. Learning and Instruction, 65. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959475218307199?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=91234d8abf53fb50
Li, & Schoenfeld. (2019). Problematizing teaching and learning mathematics as “given” in STEM education. IJ STEM Ed, 6. https://stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40594-019-0197-9#citeas
Luttenberger, S., Wimmer, S., & Paechter, M. (2018). Spotlight on math anxiety. Dovepress, 311-322. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6087017/#b4-prbm-11-311
News editor. (2023, May 11). New Data Show How the Pandemic Affected Learning Across Whole Communities. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/news/23/05/new-data-show-how-pandemic-affected-learning-across-whole-communitiesTurner, C. (2025, February 11). Reading, math scores in U.S. schools. NPR. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5291451/us-reading-math-scores-solutions