When it comes to math, students are struggling.
The recent national assessment underscored that by revealing that 24 percent of fourth graders are still performing below basic math skills, also shining a spotlight on an ever-growing inequality in math performance across the country. Other assessments — such as the critical thinking-focused international PISA exam — have also indicated declining math abilities.
The list of explanations ranges from a math-avoidant culture to schools’ difficulties hiring and keeping talented teachers, a job that seems to have become harder postpandemic. But certainly, it seems like teachers aren’t being set up for success.
Now, a new report suggests that teacher preparation programs underemphasize math instruction at the elementary school level. Only one in eight programs give elementary school teachers enough time to learn the math content they teach, according to a recent study by the National Council on Teacher Quality, which reviewed more than 1,100 teacher prep programs around the country.
Inadequate instruction undermines students' attempts to learn math before they even enter the classroom, says Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.
That has consequences.
Early math skills are associated with higher literacy and higher earnings. But many elementary school teachers are uncomfortable with math — in a way that can pass on to students. That’s particularly unfortunate because students at that level can fall behind in math, develop an aversion and struggle to catch up.
But some programs prepare teachers really well, and following their lead can help improve student performance, according to Peske.
Others say it’s more complicated.
With schools having a hard time keeping teachers, many adults in the classroom are on emergency credentials, which means they haven’t gone through these training programs. Plus, some think it may be time for a bigger revamp of how programs approach training.
Underprepared, Overwhelmed
Too many students have fallen behind on math skills, and teacher preparation programs can help change that, Peske says.
Peske’s organization found that most elementary teacher prep programs don’t give potential teachers enough time to develop math content knowledge. Specifically, undergraduate programs often fail to dedicate enough time to making sure teachers understand concepts such as numbers and operations and algebraic thinking, which are key math content areas for the elementary school level, the report found. But surprisingly, the most notable failure was in graduate programs, which performed far worse than their undergraduate counterparts, even though they are preparing prospective teachers for the same job. The report gave “F”s to 84 percent of the graduate programs preparing elementary school teachers for math. Student-teachers in graduate school received an average of less than one course credit, or about 14 hours of instructional time, on foundational math content.
Elementary school teachers have to be generalists and can’t spend all their time studying math. They are not necessarily drawn to the profession by a love for math, and they don’t always come with a strong foundation in the subject, experts say.
Making sure they get enough math proficiency and teaching ability before entering the classroom is a thorny issue.
Experts question whether improving preparation programs is just a partial solution, since some teachers might not be going through them at all. Schools straining to hire and keep teachers have leaned on alternative teacher certifications and emergency teaching credentials, which get teachers into classrooms faster but have fewer requirements.
But even for teachers who get credentials, it’s complicated.
Elementary school teachers have to learn a number of subjects, and preparation programs have only about 120 semester credit hours to impart that knowledge, says Cody Patterson, an assistant professor of mathematics at Texas State University and a member of the writing team that’s working on Mathematical Education of Teachers III, an upcoming report on professional development needs for K-12 math teachers.
Potential teachers can come in with a narrow view of what it means to be good in mathematics, Patterson says.
The school has to surmount people's self-images, convincing them that they continue to benefit from learning mathematics throughout their careers, and expanding their understanding of what it means to learn and perform math, he says. It's not just grinding out math facts or performing algorithms using pencil and paper. It's also looking for patterns or connections to other mathematics concepts and to the world outside the classroom. Showing that to teachers can boost their confidence and interest in mathematics and therefore help instruction.
That’s a mission that instructional coaches have also taken up once a teacher is in the classroom. In elementary school especially, teachers often carry math fears picked up during their own education. It’s why some instructional coaches have taken on the label “math therapist.” For them, the job is to break the cycle of math anxiety which passes from teacher to student.
Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Math?
Ultimately, the National Council on Teacher Quality report recommends programs dedicate 150 instructional hours to math content and pedagogy. Programs that can’t add that time should require math content tests, the report says. The aim is to give teachers a deeper grasp of the content and more practice teaching it.
Not everyone believes that is enough.
It’s a step in the right direction, says Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California. But she worries that separating math content and math pedagogy is out of touch with the latest research.
Adding course hours that delve into math content is one thing, but teachers often have a hard time discerning how to actually teach that content in a way that will connect with students, Copur-Gencturk argues. Knowing something for yourself isn’t the same as knowing how to transfer that knowledge to students, which is more complex, she says.
The report notes that — though programs can blend instruction with classes about the math content — it’s common for top performing programs to have three courses focused on math content and one on pedagogy. But Copur-Gencturk doubts that a single dedicated pedagogy class is enough to equip teachers for the realities of the classroom.
Effective math teaching is just as much about understanding the ways in which students usually struggle with the content, as well as the instructional tools that enable students to overcome these struggles. That will change with the content, meaning that what it looks like to successfully teach algebraic thinking, say, is different than numbers and operations. So for teacher preparation programs to separate math content from math pedagogy is a problem, Copur-Gencturk says.
Patterson, of Texas State University, agrees that blending pedagogy and content work is valuable. There’s increasing consensus that there shouldn’t be a separate place where teachers learn to do the math and then, later on, another place where they learn to teach it, he says.
Patterson also believes that blending courses that show teachers how to make lessons about math with content from the subject could also help with another issue. When teachers have professional development in math, they don’t always carry what they learn back to the classroom. Teachers may have pleasant experiences learning math, and the experiences may even boost their confidence, but it can be unclear how the knowledge transfers back into the hectic classroom, where math is only one of four or five subjects they are teaching on any given day, he adds.
Declining math skills are a nationwide problem, Copur-Gencturk observes.
“There is definitely math anxiety and avoidance going on with elementary school teachers, but we cannot blame them,” she says, adding that the education system is bad at showing how math ideas are connected, or how math is connected to the real world.
Instead, it’s an endless and esoteric exercise where students just plug numbers into equations without offering students any opportunities to understand what they mean or why they’re useful, she says.
If more time learning math instruction were paired with better working conditions for teachers and higher salaries, Copur-Gencturk says, it would create incentives for teachers to learn more math and deepen their understanding — so we can break this cycle.
