The Harvard Business Review comments on high school Math

As someone who is passionate about Mathematics and its ability to empower our lives, I’ve directed my focus to ensuring elementary and high school students build a solid foundation in this important subject. I’m drawn to journalistic commentary reporting on the state of Mathematics in our schools.

A few days ago the distinguished publication, The Harvard Business Review, published an article that captured my attention. The author focused on teacher outcomes versus student capabilities using math as a profound example. I found some of their findings shocking but not surprising.

“When we took control of this school district in 2007, 8 percent of the 8th graders were operating on grade level in mathematics—8 percent. And if you would have looked at the performance evaluations of the adults in the system at the same time, you would have seen that 95 percent of them were being rated as doing a good job. How can you possibly have a system where the vast majority of adults are running around thinking, ‘I’m doing an excellent job,’ when what we’re producing for kids is 8 percent success?”

-Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools

This discrepancy points to a failure in the university system to educate and and monitor math teachers for up-to-date skills. Changes in the education system to make these upgrades to remedy this situation will take time to implement. Unfortunately Canada has a similar challenge.

The underperformance of 92% of 8th graders is a symptom of the gaps in learning math that bright, capable students inherited from their experience in earlier grades. For students currently in this situation, tutoring by subject matter experts in math is a good option. I know this sounds self-serving, and to a certain degree it is. Ladybug Tutors was created because this problem exists. Our mission is to empower math students who are motivated to fill these gaps and to succeed. Check us out! Contact us. We’d love to hear from you.