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CounterCurrent:
The Alarming Decay of Mathematical Competency
in America
America’s existing mathematics standards promote neither high achievement nor democratic accessibility

CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, bringing you the most significant issues in academia and our responses to them.
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Category: Curriculum, Mathematics, PreK-12 Education;
Reading Time: ~5 minutes
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Editor's Note: The following article was written by David Randall and Jonathan Gregg and published by RealClear Education ([link removed]) on June 09, 2025. With permission, it is cross-posted on the NAS website and posted below.

Even Harvard University now offers ([link removed]) remedial math classes for incoming students. Harvard’s critics persuasively suggest that Harvard shouldn’t have pursued “equity” by ending standardized testing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. But that’s not the only reason Harvard students now need remedial math. America’s K-12 mathematics education has decayed so much that even Harvard students can’t make the grade. America’s state mathematics standards bear much of the blame.

America’s existing mathematics standards promote neither high achievement nor democratic accessibility. While a few states, such as Florida ([link removed]) , have greatly improved ([link removed]) their standards, 41 states ([link removed]) still model their math standards on the counterproductively mediocre Common Core State Standards for Mathematics ([link removed]) (CCSSM). While the CCSSM contains some useful elements, on the whole ([link removed]) , it provides a vague outline of content knowledge, it lacks rigor, and it was rushed into public use without sufficient testing and evaluation. One K-12 teacher puts it this way ([link removed]) :

To call what [the Common Core] focuses on ‘understanding’ is both misleading and wrong, and there’s a clear trend showing persistent loss of procedural proficiency among our students as a result. The end result of the Common Core-aligned math curriculum is STEM-deficiency rather than STEM-proficiency.

The most cogent critique of the CCSSM, however, is that American mathematics education has not benefited from its adoption. American students’ test scores on national and international tests have declined in recent years. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), American test scores ([link removed]) have shown sustained declines ([link removed]) from 2019 to 2024. The lowest-performing 25% of students have shown marked declines since about 2015. American students also have seen their average scores plummet ([link removed]) on the Programme for International Student Assessment ([link removed]) (PISA) mathematics test ([link removed]) . Average American scores dropped from 478 in 2018 to 465 in 2022, below the average for developed
countries. American per capita spending on education ([link removed]) , meanwhile, remains substantially above the developed country average.

This decay of mathematical competency in America affects higher education as well. In 2019 ([link removed]) , 39% of high school graduates in America were prepared for undergraduate mathematics courses. In 2022, that proportion had declined to 31%. With such a scarcity of prepared American students, many universities have turned elsewhere ([link removed]) to fill their math departments. In 2021, 54% of American doctoral degrees in mathematics and statistics were awarded to temporary visa holders. While these foreign-born students should be commended for their industry, it is clear that American K-12 math education does not prepare American students to flourish in undergraduate or graduate math education.

Finally, the crisis in America’s mathematics education system has sparked a mass exodus of teachers, especially elementary teachers, from the teaching profession. More teachers ([link removed]) are leaving the classroom than ever before, and the attrition rates for new teachers leaving their schools are especially alarming. Tellingly, teachers fleeing the profession ([link removed]) often list the complexity, ambiguity, and infeasibility of the educational standards and the standardized tests that accompany them as one of their primary reasons for leaving the profession. Our current education standards don’t just inhibit student learning; they positively drive talented teachers out of our classrooms.

In short, the United States spends an extraordinary amount of money on mathematics education to achieve poor results. We are falling behind our peers and rivals in math education, a failure that threatens our national security as well as our prosperity. The CCSSM and its related adaptations in the states have lowered the bar too far, sacrificing both achievement and accessibility in a misguided quest for equity and inclusion.

This bleak state of affairs cries out for reform. America needs a new set of mathematics standards that addresses the issues that plague our educational institutions. These new standards should prescribe a pathway to success that emphasizes content-rich, research-based instruction that is easy for teachers to understand and implement.

That’s why the National Association of Scholars ([link removed]) and Freedom in Education ([link removed]) have created The Archimedes Standards: Model PreK-12 State Mathematics Standards. The Archimedes Standards integrates content-rich standards with sustained attention to lucidity, practicality, flexibility, and democratic accessibility. They are lucid, rigorous, and accessible, and they help ensure that all American students have the opportunity to learn mathematics for their own advancement and for the public good.

The Archimedes Standards are intended above all as models for state education standards—but we would be delighted if they informed mathematics education in school districts, charter schools, private schools, and home schools. We have crafted them to be useful for every variety of education.

But state mathematics standards are the linchpin of mathematics education—they stand halfway between state laws and school district policies, and they have more power to shape American mathematics education than any other single document. We absolutely need good state mathematics standards—a positive vision of what they should be, and not just a critique of the shortcomings of existing mathematics standards. Policy institutes, grassroots organizations, and policymakers all can use them to press the education establishment: Why don't you teach this?

States and school districts should create mathematics standards modeled on the Archimedes Standards because it teaches American students so they can regain their heritage of mathematical excellence.

The Archimedes Standards will even make it possible for Harvard to stop having to offer remedial math classes.

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Until next week.

Kali Jerrard
Communications Associate
National Association of Scholars
Read the Article ([link removed])
For more on the curriculum, mathematics, and pre-K-12 education:
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June 10, 2025


** Report: The Archimedes Standards ([link removed])
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National Association of Scholars and Freedom in Education

These model PreK-12 state mathematics standards seek to establish a sure foundation in the concepts, processes, formulas, and practices discovered by great mathematicians throughout history in American mathematics education, along with teaching the spirit and rigor of Archimedes, the great Greek mathematician of antiquity, who understood and embodied the transcendent beauty and practical power of mathematics.

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June 06, 2025


** Computer Science Majors Were Promised Six Figures—So Why Are They Unemployed? ([link removed])
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Hannah Hutchins

With a modernized society full of rapidly evolving medical technology, widespread use of computerized gadgets, artificial intelligence (AI), and a booming space industry, life in the 21st century has begun to feel more and more like a science fiction movie.

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May 07, 2025


** Universities Can Solve the Humanities Funding Problem ([link removed])
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Matthew G. Andersson

The humanities are more important than ever, and in many ways, they represent the essence of the university’s mission, especially in how they protect and reinforce our heritage and culture.


** About the NAS
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