A new survey finds New York parents worry about the quality of their kids’ math education.
The EdTrust-New York survey finds 43% of parents worry about their kids’ math progress. This comes as state test scores for math show a mild increase, although they lag behind pre-pandemic levels.
Arlen Benjamin-Gomez, executive director of EdTrust-New York, said she feels this is unsurprising since state math scores haven’t changed much in 20 years. But, she said, some parents’ attitudes about schools’ ability to teach math were surprising.
“Families said they felt like the schools were providing good math instruction, but they still felt the need to go outside of school or look for additional supports outside of school,” she said. “This is research other organizations have found over the years, that parents often are being told by the school their child is doing well in math or on grade level, but they’re not, according to the assessment scores.”
New York City has been working to combat this problem with programs such as NYC Solves. The program standardizes math curricula across the city with evidence-based math instruction. This involves shifting from simply memorizing math skills to a deeper understanding of these concepts.
Benjamin-Gomez said she hopes to see this model become prevalent statewide.
New state investments could also help students with math education. EdTrust is requesting $20 million for math coaches in high-need elementary schools and $5 million for evidence-based math tutoring in sixth through ninth grade for high-need districts. Benjamin Gomez said they’re putting forward another request to expand access to eighth-grade Algebra One.
“We are asking the state to do an investment of auto-enrollment in 15 high-need districts,” she said, “and that would cost about $8.5 million to ensure students who, based on their seventh-grade assessment outcomes in math, show that they are ready for Algebra I but aren’t actually being enrolled in Algebra I.”
She said this is sometimes due to biases in the system such as teacher recommendations, or a parent having to ask for it.
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