State of the Student 2025
A Crisis in Math
“This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for education… Our challenge isn’t just to get back to normal; it’s to reverse decades of deterioration.”
Jared Polis, Colorado Governor and National Governors’ Association Chair
(via National Governors’ Association)
We focused this year’s report on math for two reasons.
First, Math is highly sensitive to the quality of instruction in schools…
Math is highly sensitive to the quality of instruction in schools—maybe even more than reading, as evidenced by the steeper drop and quicker rebound in math scores after school closures. Math achievement is a powerful indicator of how effectively schools are managing factors within their control. If schools are getting math right, there’s a good chance they have adequately prepared teachers who are delivering effective instruction based on a coherent, well-designed curriculum.
… and Second, math is a subject that bears heavily on the future of America’s economic prosperity.
Math is a subject that bears heavily on the future of America’s economic prosperity. At the national level, math achievement is associated with innovation and economic growth. An analysis of global reading, math, and science results, for example, found that a country’s math achievement was more positively associated with indicators of innovation, such as new patents, than performance in the other subjects.
The dismal state of national math achievement will hinder current students’ adult lives and well-being. Improving math scores is associated with increases in adult earnings. Performance in high school math can heavily influence a student’s economic prospects, regardless of what they wind up doing after graduation. The jobs of the future will require all workers to regularly develop new skills, which can’t happen without a strong foundation in math. Math occupations, like data science, which gleans insights from big data, are outstripping the rest of the job market and commanding more than double the median wages.
Raising American students’ math skills is both crucial and urgent, and schools hold the keys to high-quality instruction. But schools’ ability to deliver it is hobbled by an education system in which low expectations and grade inflation are flourishing, and ideological fights impede effective instruction from reaching struggling students.
To reverse America’s math crisis, we must first understand it. The steep learning losses triggered by Covid-19 were not a disruption to a well-functioning system. Simply hoping math learning will improve over time is not only naive, it’s educational malpractice.
Governors, state leaders, and district administrators must be clear-eyed about the systemic issues that have contributed to more than a decade of stagnation and decline in math achievement.
From Plateau to Plunge
The beginning of the story of math declines started years before Covid.
After years of modest but steady gains through the early 2000s, math achievement as measured by NAEP began to plateau in 2013 and decline in 2015. As Figure 1 shows, 2013 marked the end of a period of slow but sustained progress and the beginning of what quickly became a steep decline. Then came the drop: Eighth-grade math scores fell more than ever before in 2022. And the 2024 results show no meaningful recovery.
“When we limit access to the power of math to a select few, we limit our progress as a society.”
Vicki Abeles, director of Counted Out, a documentary exploring the intersection of mathematics, civil rights, and democracy (via NYT)
The Bottom Is Falling Out
Students across subgroup categories saw math gains in the early 2000s, but the math decline since then has been unevenly distributed. On NAEP scores, gaps between the highest and lowest performers began growing noticeably in 2017. Higher-achieving students began to rebound after the pandemic in 2024, but the lowest-performing students—those in the 10th and 25th percentiles—suffered the steepest and most enduring declines. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an international math and science study, tells a similar story. US fourth graders in the top 90th percentile lost little ground between 2019 and 2023. But as Figure 2 shows, those in the bottom quartile fell precipitously, continuing a decline that began more than a decade ago.
The range of math learning needs is now wider than at any other time on record.
Figure 3 shows that since 1990, the gap between the highest- and lowest-scoring students on NAEP has grown 18% wider (from 92 to 109) among eighth graders. Among fourth graders, it has grown more than 8.5% wider.
Growing achievement gaps exist in virtually every community in America, with disproportionate losses for already vulnerable students whose math scores have persistently lagged.
As Figure 4 shows, significant subgroups of students, including girls, students with disabilities, students learning English, and Black, Indigenous, and Latine students, began to see performance declines in 2013 and have continued to lose ground since the pandemic. The low baseline scores for some of these groups make the ongoing losses especially devastating: for example, on the 2024 NAEP, over half of fourth graders with a disability and three quarters of eight graders with a disability scored Below Basic. In comparison, students not in these subgroups still saw steep pandemic losses but have begun recovering since then.
States are Obscuring the Problem
The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) explicitly “requires every state to develop a concise and easily understandable” report card that lives online. As our research showed last year, very few states meet the mark. The same is true when it comes to reporting math outcomes.
While NAEP, TIMSS, and other national scores paint a clear picture, many states are obscuring data about student performance and opportunity that people need to know about—especially for different groups of students.
We reviewed each state’s primary report card for information about math performance and opportunity, as well as for the report card’s user-friendliness and accessibility.
Performance: Many states miss the basics.
Only 18 states met the unambitious bar of breaking math achievement and growth data down by student subgroup in a way that we thought was clear and understandable. For instance, 13 states still do not report any measure of mathematics achievement growth on school report cards; other states report growth measures in forms like Z-scores that we think most parents won’t be able to understand.
Opportunity: Nearly a blank page.
Opportunities matter as much as outcomes. We looked for data in state report cards on algebra success and advanced course-taking—37 states had neither measure. Given that educational leaders often decry an excessive focus on test-based outcomes, we were surprised that so few states have included additional measures of student access and opportunity to learn math. When states do report opportunity measures, they are often in composite indexes that add up multiple (often five or more) opportunity measures, rather than breaking them out in a useful way.
Accessibility: Still too hard to use.
Parents shouldn’t need a manual to navigate school math data, but most report cards don’t make finding information easy. Just eight states had readily accessible report cards with clear data and the capacity to compare schools. Parent-friendly user guides ranged from nonexistent to 20-page-plus PDF glossaries. But regardless of format, very few were helpful for the average user.
Of the 50 states, only Illinois earned the maximum possible points by providing comprehensive math performance and opportunity data that our reviewers thought most parents would be able to use and understand.
Educators, policymakers, and families can’t respond to gaps in learning or opportunity if they can’t see them. Transparent and user-friendly report cards are a basic but essential tool—and right now, too many states are falling short.
“I really struggled when it came to higher-level algebra because I just didn’t know anything.”
Student quoted in Associated Press, 2023
Students Speak: “I Don’t Understand This”
The numbers tell one story. Students tell another.
From others’ research and our own, we collected countless stories revealing not just the scope of the academic crisis, but its emotional and psychological toll.
Too many students describe teachers who undermine their enthusiasm and derail their progress.
If teachers don’t encourage their learning and welcome their questions, students don’t feel supported to learn.
“One thing I don’t like is when I ask a teacher a question because I don’t understand it, and then they make me feel like I’m a bother and I really shouldn’t ask more questions. And that prevents me from learning. And I hated that because I actually want to know.”
Junior student, CT, 2022
via CRPE
“My previous teachers, they weren’t exactly nice about the fact that I really, really struggle with math, and that made me struggle more at it, because I felt like if I messed up, then I would get scolded. Then that just made me more and more anxious. I messed up more.”
White female student, CA, 2024
via Math Narrative Project
Confidence in math is fragile—and once lost, it’s hard to regain.
This is especially true for more reserved students or those who don’t see themselves as “math people,” most of whom decide this about themselves by the end of elementary school.
Students’ emotions and attitudes toward math are central to math success because they directly affect student engagement, achievement, and future opportunities. When a student is afraid of math or convinced they “just can’t do it,” they are less likely to participate in class, practice essential skills, or enroll in advanced courses. Teachers can exacerbate that anxiety.
“When I think about math, I feel anxious, nervous, and honestly, I don’t really like it, and I think this is because … from a young age, I just felt dumb or just super slow compared to the rest of my classmates.”
Hispanic female student, 2024
via Math Narrative Project
“I get anxious when asking questions in class because I don’t want to look stupid … and math is one of my tougher classes to learn.”
Hispanic male student, TX, 2024
via Math Narrative Project
“I never ask for help because I am shy and don’t want to be wrong.”
Black male student, NY, 2024
via Math Narrative Project
However, unsupportive teachers fueling student anxiety doesn’t account for the scale of America’s math crisis. This issue is likely one symptom of far more systemic problems.
Here are those problems—in students’ own words.
Low expectations
Especially in the wake of the pandemic, schools confronted students’ academic struggles and demotivation by making math easier—exactly the opposite reaction to what students needed.
A system designed to let students fall through the cracks
Schools are not designed to catch gaps and address them in real time. In an era when student absenteeism is a chronic and persistent problem, students who miss foundational instruction rarely have a chance to make it up.
Lack of access to qualified teachers and effective instruction
Some students reported a wholesale lack of instruction as a barrier to their learning. Students cannot learn if they don’t have skilled teachers. Students attending high-needs, high-poverty schools are more likely to have newer and inexperienced teachers, which can lead to further learning difficulties.
These explanations for the math crisis go far deeper than just “Math makes me nervous” or “I had a teacher who didn’t like me.”
When students have positive math experiences, it sounds—predictably—like a function of teachers they like and learning they’re confident about. Excellent math teachers and math instruction exist throughout this country. Most readers can recall a teacher who found creative ways to reach students, build confidence, and help students excel in and love the world of math.
These students’ positive experiences must be made the norm across our nation, not a function of chance. After all, research shows that one of the best ways to prevent math anxiety is good instruction that solidifies foundational skills. And high expectations coupled with attentive teacher support are the best things schools can do to ensure students who are quiet or anxious about math do not fall through the cracks.
Students want to succeed in math. In the youth-led focus group hosted by BUILD in 2022, students reflected on what it felt like to be in math class. Two of the feelings students described most were “nervous” and “anxious.” How do they want to feel? “Productive,” “intelligent,” and unashamed: “I want to feel like I am untouchable and shameless,” one participant said.
“I really struggled when it came to higher-level algebra because I just didn’t know anything.”
Student quoted in Associated Press, 2023
The Leaky Pipeline
Why has math proven so vulnerable?
Math learning is “ruthlessly cumulative,” as MIT professor Steven Pinker once said. To learn more advanced concepts, a student must first learn more basic ones, and a student showing skill gaps needs more support before tackling advanced concepts.
Unfortunately, gaps begin early. Girls begin falling behind boys within the first four months of the first year of school. And since the pandemic, students are entering school further behind and failing to catch up. Left unaddressed, their missing foundational skills will prevent them from advancing to high levels of math achievement. The recent i-Ready math performance data shows all tested students (K-4) continuing to fall further behind pre-pandemic test-takers.
“Doing nothing is going backward.”
Scott Peters of NWEA, quoted in EdSurge, 2024
The gaps that emerge don’t just sit still—they grow.
Each year adds more complexity, and early struggles compound. Harvard’s Martin West compared it to skipped retirement savings: missing a deposit doesn’t just create a temporary shortfall—it costs future interest too. Likewise, missing foundational math instruction creates gaps, but also makes the learning of new math concepts and skills more difficult.
We heard this from “Nora,” a student who was sick at home when her class covered multistep subtraction. She then missed more days (and other lessons) because she was avoiding exams and assignments that she couldn’t do. Nora had previously considered herself a strong math student, but she began to struggle, and her math grades fell. It took two full years, and home re-teaching by her father and a tutor, before she fully caught up. But she is now less confident in her math abilities and has less interest in pursuing a math- or science-related career. Multiply that story by millions, and the scale of the crisis becomes clear.
Left unaddressed, small gaps in math skills in the early grades can have significant consequences in middle and high school. Algebra I is often called the “gateway to higher-level math,” but a TNTP report found that about half of students taking Algebra I arrived knowing only one-third of the concepts and skills they would need to be successful—and these students rarely met expectations for grade-level performance on state tests.
Middle school math-tracking acts as math predestination, putting some students on a track to take Algebra I in eighth grade or earlier. Students who wait until high school to take algebra have less academic success and limited opportunities to take advanced courses before graduating, which limits their college and career options. Less-advantaged students are less likely to be placed in advanced math courses, even when they demonstrate readiness. High schools with many students from low-income families or a high proportion of students of color are less likely even to offer advanced mathematics courses. This affects a significant number of students. On the 2024 NAEP, only 35% of eighth graders were in Algebra I or above, and most of those were the highest-performing students.
High school graduates are increasingly unprepared for college and career. Even students attending elite colleges are part of this trend: Harvard University recently created its first-ever math remediation course.
In Massachusetts, students taking advanced math are disproportionately more advantaged.
In Massachusetts, researchers examined over 4,000 distinct course-taking sequences across hundreds of math courses from 2014 to 2022. They found that calculus was accessible almost exclusively to those students who entered high school ready to take geometry or higher as their first math course. These students earned higher average grades, scored better on standardized tests, and failed fewer courses than their peers who had to start high school in Algebra I or lower. The calculus students were also disproportionately white, Asian, and economically advantaged, highlighting how early access to advanced coursework continues to reflect and reproduce societal inequalities.
(CRPE commissioned the analysis with support from the Barr Foundation.)
This is the pernicious leaky pipeline.
At every juncture of the journey to high-level math success, students are at risk of slipping away due to inconsistent or low-quality instruction, missed content, lack of intervention, and lack of opportunity to move up to more rigorous courses.
It is no wonder there are so many students struggling in math, and no wonder the gaps continue to grow. The pipeline to math success desperately needs to be fixed. Tutoring and short, frequent assessments that flag which students are falling behind can keep math learning on track. But right now, these interventions are not implemented at anything close to the scale needed.
American Competitiveness at Stake
“The dwindling of the middle is something that distinguishes the United States.”
Peggy Carr, commissioner, NCES (2024)
Why has math proven so vulnerable?
As each successive graduating class of US students has continued to fare worse in math, their ability to compete for jobs that depend on computational and conceptual math knowledge—such as roles in data science, AI development, and other science and medical fields—is in greater jeopardy.
In the most recent TIMSS report, US eighth graders scored below most developed countries in math. Figure 9 shows that a full 19 other countries participating in the exam measurably out-scored US students, including Australia, Lithuania, and Malta.
But, interestingly, PISA scores show there is wide heterogeneity in US performance: the highest-achieving state, Massachusetts, achieved an average score similar to those of the UK and Australia (ranked about 16th), but the lowest-achieving state, New Mexico, performed comparably to Romania and Kazakhstan. Progress is possible in the United States if states can learn from each other and enact research-based strategies. But first, we must understand what went wrong.
