How to help lift slumping American math scores

Scholars are frustrated. After decades of effort to bring more challenge and joy to math class, American students have made little net progress.

In 2022, the nation’s students ranked 34th in the preeminent international test of mathematics.

While the U.S. historically has never approached the top scores set by East Asian and Northern European students, the latest results have the country seven points below the average set by other affluent countries, and they represent the nation’s lowest score in the history of the test.

If math scores have begun recovering, it is only unevenly — varying not only by gender or family income, but from state to state and classroom to classroom.

And there are so many variables at play in the hoped-for recovery that most Harvard scholars and alumni are loath to propose a simple fix. But they have some ideas — and concerns.

For years, American students looked to be on the right track, making steady progress. The advances began to stall out around 2011, then quickly melt away in the last five years even after $190 billion in pandemic relief was distributed to schools in 2020 and 2021.

“It can feel like you’re beating your head against the wall,” said Heather Hill, the Hazen-Nicoli Professor in Teacher Learning and Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “It would have amazed my 25-year-old self, to see that we’ve made so little progress.”

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