America’s Math Collapse: Harvard Institutes Remedial Math – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

America’s amazing technological achievements, such as SpaceX’s recent rescue of stranded astronauts, mask the death spiral of math learning in the U.S., which has reached an ignominious low with Harvard’s decision to offer remedial math.

On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress math exam, 73 percent of eighth graders nationwide taking the test failed to score at the proficient level.

Shockingly, a significant majority of non-economically-disadvantaged middle class and more affluent eighth graders — 60 percent — failed to perform proficiently on the math exam.

Much of the reason for the poor performance of American students is because of the failed progressive math teaching methods and curricula pushed on schools by the national Common Core math standards, which were adopted by most states in the early 2010s. (RELATED: A ‘Sputnik Moment’ for America’s Schools)

Under Common Core’s math standards, the tried-and-true standard algorithms (step-by-step operational methods) for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were de-emphasized while progressive and often confusing methods, such as drawing pictures to solve fractional multiplication problems, were prioritized.

The result was widespread student math failure, with a federally funded study finding that Common Core has had a significant negative impact on eighth-grade math achievement and that this negative effect increased over time.

In the face of this widespread math failure, even Harvard has decided to institute remedial math for the first time this current academic year.

According to the Harvard Crimson, “The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

Most people would assume that entering students at Harvard, one of America’s top selective universities, would have excelled in trigonometry and calculus rather than struggled with basic algebra, which students should have mastered in the eighth or ninth grade.

Yet, with the collapse of math learning in K-12 schools, the Crimson reported that Harvard decided that something had to be done to address “gaps in students’ math skills and learning abilities, prompting the need for a new introductory course.” (RELATED: K-12 Education is Failing: Abolish the DOE)

One Harvard official acknowledged, “Students don’t have the skills that we had intended downstream in the curriculum, and so it creates different trajectories in students’ math abilities.” Translation: Students’ poor math skills set them up for failure.

While not labeling the new course “remedial,” the official said that the course “is intended to support students who face early challenges in their math courses.” In other words, it’s remedial.

The inability of K-12 schools to prepare students for college-level math greatly increases the chance of student failure, not only because they lack adequate math knowledge and skills, but also because remedial instruction requires much more time and work for students. (RELATED: For Baltimore’s Sake, Congress Should Expand School Choice)

The Harvard official said that the course’s demanding time commitment makes it hard on students, but the heavier schedule was a necessary trade-off for students’ development. (RELATED: Higher Education’s 7 Deadly Sins)

Yet, consider the predicament of underprepared students at Harvard.

The normal workload for students is highly demanding. There is only a finite amount of time to attend classes and do the coursework, so making students do more remedial work in math cuts down on available time for the rest of their studies, which reduces the chances of overall success.

Harvard is not alone when it comes to math deficiencies among college students.

One California college math instructor said that the lack of algebra knowledge is chronic, and this “lack of preparedness just propagates up and up, even to the upper division where, without a curve, pretty much everyone would fail.”

He warned, “We’re not producing the kinds of students and graduates that Silicon Valley needs.”

America needs to go on the offensive and attack its math education problems by getting rid of failed progressive math instruction and promoting proven traditional methods that prioritize mastering basic skills, computational quickness and accuracy, and getting the right answer. Harvard may have raised the white flag in teaching math, but America cannot afford to do the same.

Lance Izumi is the senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute and the author of the PRI book The Great Classroom Collapse: Teachers, Students, and Parents Expose the Collapse of Learning in America’s Schools.

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