California has new ideas about how to teach math, but critics argue it won't work

California has new guidelines for teaching math in public schools. The guidelines propose things like delaying algebra until the 9th grade. And offering classes like data science instead of advancing students toward calculus.

Critics say the math guidelines are flawed to the core.

But America does have a math problem. National student achievement scores are lagging far behind other peer nations.

Today, On Point: How to teach math better.

Brian Conrad, professor of mathematics and the director of undergraduate studies in mathematics at Stanford University. Author of a recent article in The Atlantic, called "California’s Math Misadventure Is About to Go National."

Adrian Mims, CEO and founder of The Calculus Project.  

Rori Abernethy, seventh grade math teacher at James Denman Middle School in San Francisco.

Phil Daro, lead author on the Common Core mathematics standards and consultant with school districts, states and higher education institutions to improve the teaching of mathematics.

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Okay, say you're given a rudimentary map on a piece of paper, a really simple one, more of a diagram really, and it shows two towns. And lines in between those towns connecting them. So obviously those lines represent roads, and on each road there's a number, and that number, it means the number of miles on that particular road segment.

Okay, so on this diagram, as you're looking at it, excuse me, there are several different ways to get from Town A to Town B. And you're asked, which way is the shortest?

Alright, so map two towns, bunch of lines connecting them. You know how long each line is. Which way is the shortest between Town A and Town B?

Do you think you could answer that question correctly? Honestly, I would actually love to give this problem to you in reality, but I'll admit it's a pretty visual problem, right? It would help a lot to actually have the map in front of you. So I'll just have to trust your answer about whether you could get a problem like that correct or not.

I'm going to guess that most of you said yes, you could answer this, and I really hope that's true. Because, let's be honest, it's a fairly straightforward and easy problem. But the real problem is that large numbers of American 8th graders can't answer that question correctly.

When they try, they get it wrong. Because that map question, it's one that I took from a sample of the most recent national assessment of educational progress. It's the gold standard federal exam given to American students every couple of years. So that problem comes directly from their website. It's a sample problem for 8th graders.

And this summer, the federal government released test scores from the NAEP, as it's called, and it revealed that math scores for American 13-year-olds dipped significantly since 2019. Of course, pandemic interruptions to in person schooling had a lot to do with that. But if you take a broader look, there has been a stubborn plateau in math scores for American kids for more than 20 years.

Put another way, the test scores released this summer were the lowest in decades, but the highs were not that much higher. In other words, American kids are not getting better at math. And when compared to peer nations, the United States scores lower than average on math achievement than any other nations in the OECD, or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

This is one of the reasons why the state, with the largest public-school enrollment in the country, has spent years revising its mathematics framework. In July, California finally adopted its new statewide framework after years of development and controversy. And by the way, the state of California scores in the bottom third of states on that national math assessment.

So earlier drafts of California's framework sought to reduce math achievement gaps by, quote, "dismantling racism in mathematics instruction," by, quote, "having teachers develop students' sociopolitical consciousness." Early drafts also asserted that students at different levels should be kept together in math classes because differentiated instruction causes, quote, "student fragility and racial animosity."

Now, that was the controversial part, and much of the language has been removed. But the final adopted framework still contains some very bold changes in how math is proposed to be taught in California's schools. So we're going to talk about those changes today, because the question is, will they make math instruction better?

And given California's size, other states are definitely paying attention. So overall, what is at stake for all American schoolchildren if this nation does not get better at teaching such a fundamental skill. In order to have that conversation, Brian Conrad is joining us. He's the director of Undergraduate Studies in Mathematics at Stanford University and author of a recent article that appeared in The Atlantic titled "California’s Math Misadventure Is About to Go National."

Professor Conrad, welcome to you.

BRIAN CONRAD: Glad to be here. Also with us is Dr. Adrian Mims. He's CEO and founder of The Calculus Project. It's an organization that seeks to increase the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students enrolled in Calculus Honors, AP Calculus, and AP Statistics. Dr. Mims, pleasure to have you here today.

ADRIAN MIMS: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay Brian Conrad, let me start with you. The California framework, as you wrote in The Atlantic, is a thousand pages long, right? So certainly, it has to have some good stuff in it, which we'll talk about in a minute. But overall, do you think it's a meaningful improvement from those earlier drafts, which I quoted bits from?

CONRAD: It certainly removed quite a few of the concerning parts from the earlier versions, but other concerning features remain.

CHAKRABARTI: Such as?

CONRAD: Such as, it plays both sides of the fence on the issue of 8th grade Algebra 1. Some parts, it says it has value, other parts it advocates against it. And it plays both sides of the fence about advocating that students may take data science classes instead of Algebra 2, for example.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Tell me about why you think the importance of when a student can take Algebra 1. Why is that so important?

CONRAD: If a student wants to be prepared for quantitative degrees at college and to be admitted to perhaps more selective universities, either way, they need to be ready to learn calculus in college.

And for some students, if they can learn calculus in high school, it opens up more opportunities, summer internships and so on earlier in college, other course options and so forth. So to have more students be ready to access greater quantitative opportunities while they're in college, access to calculus in high school is very valuable.

And to reach that without having to double up or compress classes, you need Algebra 1 in eighth grade.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Adrian Mims, tell me more about that. You've dedicated your professional life to helping kids who might be typically seen as not being the high achievers, to show that they can be those high achievers.

Tell me about your view of Algebra 1, 8th grade, 9th grade.

MIMS: We work on making sure that students are taking algebra in the eighth grade, because if they're taking algebra in the eighth grade, they're on a trajectory to taking calculus their senior year, and I totally agree with Dr. Conrad. And when I worked in Orange County public schools, which is Orlando, Florida we launched The Calculus Project there and they wanted seventh graders to take algebra.

And so that was our goal there, because the superintendent at the time, Dr. Barbara Jenkins, wanted students to take AP Calc BC, and so that was very audacious and very ambitious, and it was tough the first year, but we have really good data when we started focusing on algebra in the seventh grade, so it can be done. But it really takes a lot of training, preparation, a lot of support of the teachers, and you definitely need to involve the parents.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, I want to talk in a few minutes about that support and preparation that's at the heart of The Calculus Project, but Brian Conrad, okay, so for the both of you, mathematics instructions expert, say that children should have the option or the ability to take Algebra 1 in 8th grade, point taken.

The data science class, what's the problem with that?

CONRAD: So data science, so first of all, I should say, so data science is a kind of hybrid of topics from math, statistics, and computer science. And of course, it opens up many great career opportunities. And I don't have any concerns with the existence of such classes.

The big concern, which has been shared in an open letter signed by more than 425 quantitative experts across many fields in California colleges and universities, is that there's this idea going around. That if you don't take Algebra 2 in high school, and instead you take one of these data science classes, the most popular of which tend to have very light math content, that you're still on the trajectory for many options in college.

And the true paradox and the irony of the whole thing is that data science relies crucially on calculus. So telling somebody to take data science and not Algebra 2, which is what part of the CMF does advocate, and has been popping up in other places, will actually be an off ramp from any realistic aspect access to such degrees in college. And the high paying careers that follow from that.

CHAKRABARTI: But tell me more about that I'm not quite sure I get why that would be the off ramp.

CONRAD: Okay. So the point is that although it is true that calculus was invented by Newton to solve problems in physics. It's really the mathematics of optimization. And problems and data science, artificial intelligence and so on involve solving optimization problems, minimizing error and so forth in large numbers of variables.

And so to do that, you need to have the mathematical skills associated with calculus, and that requires learning Algebra 2 in high school. If you're going to get the relevant math background by early college, which you need to complete that four-year degree, we want a four-year college degree in data science to be worth more than a Google analytics certificate, for example, in terms of job security and salary.

And so you need that Algebra 2 skill from high school. If you take data science as an elective, like high school economics. No problem, but it's been advocated in various places that this is a more equitable course, or it's more engaging, as if usual math can't be taught in an engaging way, which of course is not true. And as I said, it sends out this messaging that it's somehow more relevant.

It's absolutely the case that a lot of math content in the high schools may be taught in a way that doesn't show the contemporary relevance, but that's because the teachers haven't been given material with which they can show students, like trigonometry shows up in video game design or certain parts of algebra under like cryptography and so forth.

And if they just gave them that kind of material, then students could see the value in the usual content, which remains the foundation for all quantitative work at the college level, data science included.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Adrian Mims, we have just a minute until our first break. We can talk about the data science angle more. But what I want to hear just at least the beginnings of your thoughts on, when I read those NAEP scores, they were for 8th graders. So we were talking about students who were already struggling even before they're thinking about taking algebra, geometry, trig, or calculus. Could you just briefly describe in a few seconds, what you think the core problem is and how we teach math in this country.

I'll let you answer more when we come back, but I wanted to let you start here for a second.

MIMS: (LAUGHS) Wow. That's a big, long answer. I'll make it very succinct. I think it's bigger than just looking at curriculum alone. We have to look at teacher training, teacher preparation, and make sure that teachers are ready to go into the classroom and work collaboratively with students and their parents. And I'll add more later.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're talking about math education in the United States, and we're taking a specific look at the new guidelines or mathematics frameworks adopted by the state of California this summer. Now, California has more public-school students than any other state in the country.

So whatever California does usually draws a lot of attention. And I'm joined today by Brian Conrad and Adrian Mims. And Adrian, I hit you with a big question with 30 seconds to go before the first break, and I apologize for that. It's a terrible habit. But I want you to tell me a little bit more, beyond teacher training and family support.

There has to be also something more, I would say, I would argue, in the curriculum itself that isn't quite working to unleash the potential of kids as mathematical thinkers. And because, look, total transparency here. I'm one of those crazed parents who gives their kids supplemental math.

Okay? But the kinds of materials that I see my kids getting in those supplemental math classes is not the same as what they're getting in the classroom. So is there also something there in terms of the 10, 000 types of American curriculum that isn't quite meeting the mark in terms of math education?

MIMS: Yeah. What I'm seeing as I work with school districts, we really need to teach students how to reason and think through problems. I do believe that students, some learn better by just practicing a lot of problems, too. We need to really differentiate the instruction and make sure that we understand how students learn and literally meet them where they are.

One of the things that we do, we teach students how to work collaboratively in groups to solve tough math problems. And then once they work as a team to solve those problems, we have them present those problems to the class. And so the students in the audience, it's their job to listen very closely and ask tough questions.

And for the students who are presenting, it's very important for each one of those students to have a speaking part, to describe the problem and the solution. And then it's a conversation, it's a dialogue. In addition to that, it's important for students to see how the math relates, in the real world, in terms of solving real world problems.

I'll give you one quick example. One of our partnerships is with Harvard Medical School. One of the things we do, we take students in The Calculus Project to Harvard Medical School, and they get a chance to go into the lab and work with researchers. And although they're learning how cells reproduce and they understand, like, how it increases exponentially.

Even though they may not completely understand the math itself, they're seeing how it is applied. So then when they see it in the classroom, they have a frame of reference for it. We attack it from multiple standpoints of showing math relevance, making sure students know how to reason and think.

But also, make sure students know how to talk about math problems and use the vocabulary, which is very important.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so relevance, reasoning, group work, talking through problems, you mentioned differentiation too, we'll come back to all of those in a minute. But Adrian and Brian, we did definitely reach out to the state of California to ask if anyone from the State Board of Education or any of the members of the committee that put together the new math guidelines could join us.

They declined to make any official available, but the California State Board of Education did connect us to Phil. Daro. He's one of the lead authors on the Common Core Math Standards. He's also a math consultant with school districts, states, and higher education institutions. And he says California's framework does a good job of trying to address issues of inequity.

PHIL DARO: I think we should be worried about solving problems. Like how do we recruit and support more students from marginalized populations to be STEM majors? We can't just wish for it. What are the actual actions our school system should be taking to convince those students that math is for them, giving them whatever support they need, including better instruction, and so on.

And I think the framework does address a lot of those issues. There's a lot of good things in this framework. It talks about how to develop a positive mindset in students about mathematics. How to stop teaching practices that discourage students and convince them they're no good at math.

CHAKRABARTI: So that's Phil Daro, one of the lead authors on the Common Core Mathematics Standards.

And by the way, when he mentioned developing a positive mathematical mindset, he is obliquely referring to the work of Dr. Jo Boaler, a mathematics education professor at Stanford University who is a huge name in math education, and her advocacy of what she calls the growth mindset. She was one of the major participants on the committee that helped rewrite the state's framework.

We reached out to her directly and she could not, or she declined to join us. But, we thought it was also important to get the view from an educator on the ground. So we looked at the district in the city of San Francisco, which at one time was actually held up as an example by early drafts of the state's framework as a district that did delay Algebra 1 into ninth grade.

It subsequently removed that reference to San Francisco, but Rori Abernethy teaches seventh grade math at the San Francisco Unified School District. And Brian, I'm going to give you a little bit of a heads up here. She has particular ire for you, because she read your piece in the Atlantic. And she says that she believes your critique is unfounded because how we change math has to change. Because old ways, in her mind, don't work anymore and has proven already over years to be inequitable.

RORI ABERNETHY: There has been inequities and problems in math education for decades, since the white men came up with the framework in the first place, the one they came up with. Where has he been? Why is he now just jumping in? Johnny come lately, in the final hour saying, "Oh, I don't like this now." When it's been working for you.

You were fine with it. But now that it's not, now that you're seeing that we have a voice and we're questioning some of the things that have created a pathway for you to excel, then, now, all of a sudden, you have a problem with it. Where were you when I couldn't get into that Algebra 1 class? Where were you when every Black person I've ever talked to was told the same thing?

"Oh, there's no room." Do you know how many people I've talked to who have the same problem?

CHAKRABARTI: Brian, she's talking there about the fact that she sees a lot of good things. In the framework that attack something I mentioned earlier, the persistent gaps in scores between disadvantaged students and those who, again, frankly, like my kids, have the opportunity to take extra math to get ahead.

What's your response to that?

CONRAD: First of all, I've been the director of undergrad studies at Stanford for 10 years. And during that time, I've actually done a huge amount to help the admitted students who do have background gaps and challenges in math. We've created multiple new courses to help students to see the relevance.

We rolled out a new introductory course on more earlier material to help students to achieve the quantitative goals that they have. So for her to claim that I've not been doing anything is completely nonsensical. That being said, the real focus is what about the actual content of the framework, and more importantly, its relevance to other states.

Now, as Phil aptly pointed out, it's an important goal to diversify the STEM careers. Okay? And as there's a graduate student at Stanford in electrical engineering. She's a member of the National Society of Black Engineers. And she said in a conversation that the fact that she was able to take algebra in middle school was the key for her being able to access better opportunities in college, which is what put her into a top PhD program.

And she said, "How are you going to diversify the STEM professoriate if you don't give kids access to that earlier math?" Now, Rori is completely correct that the disparities, the demographics and the outcomes are horrible, and there's nothing in the Atlantic piece that I said that denied that.

What I was claiming was that the CMF, as it's written, is not going to do enough to really make those changes. And the reason is because the document is poorly organized, it's very hard to find things in there, and there's serious lack of detail. It's very aspirational in some ways, but the San Francisco policy to block kids from 8th grade Algebra 1 was also aspirational, and after 10 years it was a complete failure.

The school district superintendent even admitted this.

CHAKRABARTI: You mean you also --

CONRAD: The equity goal should be more precise. It was put out with the goal of improving the equity and the outcomes, but a report put out by the Stanford Grad School of Education, earlier this year, demonstrated that in fact, there were no such improvements in equity after the 10 years.

CHAKRABARTI: You go even further in your critique of the framework. You say that speculative and unproved ideas can end up as an official instructional policy, such as?

CONRAD: Yes. Such as, I mentioned earlier, the document, certainly the final version, as I said before, is definitely a big improvement on the earlier one, but it still plays both sides of the fence, and so a district which wants to block 8th grade Algebra 1, under some idea that this is going to improve equity, will simply point to the parts that it likes and disregard the other parts which are against that.

The same thing with the data science Algebra 2 replacement. Some parts are very honest about what a data science career really needs. Other parts promote the fantasy that if you skip Algebra 2 in high school that you can still access all these great options in college, which is false.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, I should note that the state has said fairly recently that the Algebra 1 recommendation of holding it until ninth grade doesn't necessarily mean that districts cannot offer it as an option for eighth graders, right?

CONRAD: Right. But again, it plays both sides of the fence. And I told the board this, I sent them an extensive document after they approved it. I warned them before they voted for it, that the document was inconsistent, and I sent them. All board members of the state, a document after they approved it, telling them all the places where it was inconsistent on this point so that they can actually fix it.

But I don't know if they've done that or they will do that.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to take a step back and Brian, if you don't mind, I'd like to spend a considerable amount of time with Adrian. Because the other thing that Rori Abernethy mentioned in that cut we had of her, and we'll play more of her thoughts a little bit later in the show, was her own experience as a Black person, as a young Black student, with mathematics and how she felt like even though she wanted to take more advanced classes, those opportunities were never made to her.

Now that is a, we know that happens to kids. Can you tell me the story of your sort of math journey from the time you were a young student?

MIMS: Yeah, I had a very interesting math journey. I think my first experience where I've really felt like a mathematician was with Mr. Dogan, my sixth-grade math teacher.

And one of the things he did, he used to give everybody worksheets. That was how he taught math.

CHAKRABARTI: Eyes are rolling across the country right now.

MIMS: I know eyes are rolling. But I'll tell you, what was interesting, I'm very competitive. And at the time, when I was very young, I had severe asthma, so I couldn't participate in sports, and I was hospitalized a lot.

So I had to really compete and be good at something. So it was, "Okay, I'm going to do these math worksheets and just outwork and get ahead of everyone." And so he allowed me to do that. And so I'm constantly walking around the room looking to see what worksheet everybody is on, and so I was really good at it. And he nurtured that in me.

He said, "Oh, here's another one. Here's another one." And then I felt really good about it. Then when I got into the ninth grade, I took algebra in the ninth grade. And I struggled with Ms. Bird. I still remember these teachers' names. And it was hard, but I worked through it. And I didn't take calculus in high school.

And when I listened to the conversations, this is personal for me. Because if I had to go back and do it again, I would take AP Calculus in high school. I tell people I'm a survivor of educational malpractice, because my school did everything wrong in terms of how they educated students, in particular, students of color. And when I --

CHAKRABARTI: Specifically, what?

MIMS: Tracking and not allowing access to certain courses, not providing resources or honest, constructive feedback. Everything that the Calculus Project does, it comes from research, but it also comes from my own personal experiences of things that would have helped me be a better mathematician in high school.

So when I go off to the University of South Carolina and I'm majoring in electrical engineering, I realized something my sophomore year and that is, I didn't know how to study. So I'm first generation in my family. I was working two jobs, and I realized my sophomore year I didn't know how to study, and it was because I thought I was a good student.

I was in a smaller pool. And I guess when you compare me to the students I attended school with, yeah, I was doing really well, and I was eventually able to play basketball. I was really good at basketball. I outgrew the asthma. And so I thought I was really poised to do well at the University of South Carolina.

And so I struggled. I ended up changing my major. My junior year from electrical engineering to mathematics, and that was when I eventually met Koffi Fadimba, who was a graduate student from Togo, who was getting his doctorate in mathematics, and he saw a young Black man struggling in the student lounge after getting off from work. And what made it very difficult for me, I had to take a lot of 500 level math courses in order to graduate within five years.

And so those were the courses they say, never take those courses together. And so in comes Kofi and, for me, he had on a Superman cape, and he was one of the smartest people I ever met. He could take each one of those books and take what the professor was saying and really make it clear and concise.

And so I had a math tutor at the University of South Carolina to help me get through. So that's why this work is so dear to me and why I'm so passionate about it. And I tutor students to this day because I just want to pay it forward.

CHAKRABARTI: My mind now is captured by the image of a young Adrian Mims with stacks of textbooks and problem sets all around him.

But it sounds like you discovered a lot, several different things. The phrase educational malpractice, I think, will ring true with a lot of people listening. That, A, you weren't given, even though you had shown a love for math and definitely a capacity. Can you, do you have a sense as to why you weren't tracked into those higher levels in high school?

What was going on there?

MIMS: I think it was one of those situations where no one really noticed me. No one really paid attention or showed any interest. And so I wasn't really on anyone's radar screen for the most part. I can't really understand why I'll tell you this. One of the reasons why I tell my story is because people look at the degrees I have, they look at what I do, they look at my accomplishments and I want to be clear, I'm not some genius.

I just worked extremely hard, and I feel like I got lucky, and I was in the right place at the right time. But I always had a prodigious work ethic. And for me, in the 10th grade, I never will forget, I took Algebra 2, and here are my grades.

I still remember them. First quarter, I got a B. Second quarter, I got a B. Mid-year, I failed it. Third quarter, I got a B. Fourth quarter, I got a B. Final, I failed it, ended up with a C. Now, one person talked to me and said, "How is it that you're getting Bs, but then when you take a mid-year or a final, you're failing?"

I didn't know how to study.

CHAKRABARTI: Interesting.

MIMS: (CHUCKLES)

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So what we're going to do when we come back is we've talked a lot about the weaknesses that both of you see in California's new mathematical framework. So let's more forward, I want to talk with both of you about what can we do better to increase the quality of mathematics education in this country.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: I just want to, again, give voice to some of the other people that we reached out to in the process of putting together this show. We heard a little bit earlier from Rori Abernethy. She's a seventh grade math teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District. And she, again, supports California's new framework because she says it actually reflects a lot of what teachers are currently doing in the classroom.

ABERNETHY: The framework is always initially constructed by educators in the classroom. The basis and the grounds of the framework is a reflection of what is currently happening. It is, and then it is saying, these are the things that we have noticed are working. And these are the things that we think should be highlighted and uplifted in the state of California.

Now, the regular day to day educator doesn't read that thing down. They don't got time to read 1,000 pages. That is why it has to be a reflection of what we're doing. We're not directly looking at that thing and saying, "Oh, you need to change everything." Districts don't have funding. It is an unfunded mandate.

It's not even a mandate. It's an unfunded suggestion.

CHAKRABARTI: So Rori Abernethy saying that the framework is a suggestion, because it actually already reflects a lot of what's happening in classrooms. So we'll come back to that in a second, because we actually had another question for her. So we followed up with Ms. Abernethy in a phone call and again, it was about the decision of the San Francisco Unified School District, that they took about a decade ago to move Algebra 1 from 8th to 9th grade.

And she told us that was, in fact, something that teachers wanted in San Francisco, and that forcing kids to do Algebra in 8th grade was causing problems in high school.

ABERNETHY: Why did that happen? That was teachers. Teachers pushed that to happen. That change was pushed and initiated and advocated for by teachers in the classroom who noticed these problems. The over acceleration caused major problems, which is why I'm going to say the middle ground, and to me, the solution is to have an elective of Algebra 1 where they still have to take Math 8 so they get that solid foundation.

They're not doing a compression course at middle school, which I think is ridiculous.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so causing problems in high school to maybe prematurely accelerate kids to Algebra 1. On that note, we actually have a great Facebook comment from listener Sylvia Jones, who says: "As a former math teacher and a current part time interventionist, not in California, she says it's almost laughable that the focus is when children should start algebra."

What she sees as a failure to learn basic math in elementary school, and that's the limiting factor for most students, they didn't learn multiplication tables or how to work with fractions in earlier grades. Yes, they may be able to grasp the algebra concepts, but they get lost because they need a calculator to do simple operations.

Okay, with those perspectives in mind, Brian Conrad, where would you look to begin a reformation of mathematics instruction?

CONRAD: So I agree with what the listener said. That she's of course completely correct, that the difficulties that kids have with algebra and later things absolutely comes from the earlier grades and putting more resources into the elementary grades, giving teachers better material, improving teacher training in various ways is absolutely an essential component to improving math outcomes later on down the line.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. That's a common refrain almost in every, frankly, every education hour we do, it's like more resources, more teacher training.

CONRAD: No, but just to give a more specific example, so in the California math framework, there's a chapter specifically on guidance to publishers, which are a criteria they need to meet in order for their materials to be accepted for statewide adoption, which is necessary for grades K-8. And that chapter would have been a good opportunity to highlight this issue. Like, the need to give more contemporary examples, help kids to see the relevance of things, improve the materials that teachers have with which to teach, whether its technology, or other things.

And I've heard that there are a lot of resources available from the state that was supposed to be invested in implementing ideas from the framework, but that chapter for the publishers is actually quite thin on this issue about improving the materials that are given to teachers. Very little in the way of actionable details.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Again, let's push for solutions here, which is why Dr. Adrian Mims, I'm so glad you could be here. Tell me more about The Calculus Project, and let's do it in this way, through an example. A young student enters The Calculus Project, what grade would that young person be in, and what do they receive early on that's different than the conventional math instruction they're getting in their regular schooling?

MIMS: Yeah, students either enter, rise as a rising seventh grader or eighth grader. And part of that process is there's an information session with the parents and the students so that they can understand and know the why. Like, why is it important for my child to participate in The Calculus Project?

And one of the things that we do, we create more time for students to learn the math. And so if you think about it, if you think about the school year. The school year is 180 days and I always ask people, "Do you know how the school year is 180 days?" And they're thinking that it's tied into some type of research.

It's based off of the agrarian calendar. And when was the last time you ever saw a student harvest anything, right? You don't see that.

CHAKRABARTI: Maybe in some places. I got listeners in Iowa.

MIMS: But that might be true, but I'm trying to get my son to cut the grass.

CHAKRABARTI: (LAUGHS)

MIMS: We're talking about harvesting. But the whole point is that going back to my story, I took algebra in the ninth grade.

There's some places where students are taking algebra in the eighth grade or the seventh grade. So some of these concepts are very abstract. It's not that students can't learn them. They just need more time to learn. So our model is built off of pre teaching and acceleration, not remediation. A rising 8th grader, for example, we're pre teaching them algebra topics before they go into the 8th grade.

In addition to teaching them those topics, we're teaching them how to work collaboratively in groups to learn the content. And we're showing them how the program, how the math is applied in the real world. And in addition to that, we're showing them how, you know, STEM professionals of color have made contributions.

Students need to see themselves in the curriculum. I'll give you a quick example. A lot of people don't know who Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett is. But for those people who don't know, she's an African American woman who was instrumental in developing the Moderna vaccine for COVID. And so when you think about that, that's something that's important historically.

You can incorporate that into a math class because when you look at the spread of COVID, it was exponential growth. So why not have a lesson on exponential growth? You can do math modeling while simultaneously talk about the contributions of Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett. Imagine the impact that it could have on young Black women.

But also, it's important for students of all different backgrounds and races to know about her contribution.

CHAKRABARTI: So The Calculus Project, if I understand correctly, once kids enter it, say in seventh grade, they stay with it through graduating high school?

MIMS: We want them to stay with it through graduating high school.

And so because it's a very comprehensive model, what happens, students, they figure out how they want to stay engaged. So for example, we have some students from grade eight, all the way to their senior year, they're doing the summer pre-teaching courses where they're learning the content before they go into the class. For some students, they only need to do that for two or three summers.

And then they say, "I got my math swag. I got this. I'm ready to conquer and be that super mathematician." You know what? We want to keep those students engaged. We hire those students to work as peer teachers. We train them to work alongside the teachers during the summer to teach the younger students math.

The reason why that's so important, the population we target are students who are primarily middle class to low income. When students become old enough to work, they now have to make a decision. Do I do The Calculus Project or do I work because I need to supplement my family's income? And so through our partnerships with the mayor's office and with John Hancock financial services, we get funding so that we can pay students to learn math and teach the younger students math to keep them engaged.

So if they're not necessarily working as a peer teacher, when we implement the program in school districts, we keep the students in a cohort so that they're taking the honor and advanced level courses together so that they'll have a greater sense of belonging. If you are a Black student in the METCO program in a predominantly white school district, one of the deterrences from even taking an honor or advanced math course is, "I don't want to be the only one."

And that's something that other students don't necessarily have to deal with. So what we do, we put them in a cohort so that they can have a greater sense of belonging because we also want them to continue to work in groups.

CHAKRABARTI: So a lot of, I'm going to do a lightning round of follow up questions.

But first of all, for folks outside Massachusetts, when Dr. Mims mentioned METCO, that is the, to put it in a blunt way, that's the busing program that still exists in the greater Boston area. Okay, so lightning round of questions. Where does the extra time come from in the school year?

MIMS: The extra time can come in the academic center. So what we do, we have an academic center built in. Sometimes it's built into the master schedule, but sometimes it's offered after school. And so what that does, it allows students to build those collaboration skills and work after school or during that extra math lab block.

To study for quizzes, correct homework assignments, work on projects together.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. But the school has to be in cooperation, obviously with this to create that, those extra blocks. And you said that The Calculus Project right now is getting funding from, so that's another huge question. This is like an additional resource for kids, an additional program for kids.

If we're going to scale it across the United States, districts are always saying like, "Where are we going to get the funding from it?" That's a major hurdle, isn't it?

MIMS: Districts have money. (LAUGHS) I'm not an economist, but give me a budget and I can tell you what you value. And budgets are political.

I get that all the time. I have superintendents come up to me and they say, "Oh man, I heard about The Calculus Project." And, "I hear it's in this district and that district. And I really would love to do it, but I don't think we have the money." And so my response is, "Oh, so you mean your budget is zero?"

"Oh no. Of course not. My budget is 300 million." Oh, okay. All right. Okay. So it's not that you don't have the money, you just don't have the will or the desire. And so when we look at a financial an analysis of how much it really costs to implement The Calculus Project in school districts, we're talking about 0.5%.

CHAKRABARTI: Wow. Okay.

MIMS: And what we have to do, we have to weed out the people who are really serious about the work from the people who want to say that they're about it and not really want to put in the work. Because if you go to most districts' websites, they'll always talk about equity this, equity that. We're this and that. Ask them, where's the evidence? And so what we do when we work with school districts, we want them to know, look, we're going to come in 100%. We're going to come in with skin in the game. What are you going to bring to the table? And what's your skin in the game?

And then we can work with community based organizations. We can work with corporations, which we do. We work with foundations and help them write grants to figure out a great way to fund it.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So last lightning round question. Speaking of evidence, do you have evidence that what you're doing is working?

What is that evidence?

MIMS: Yeah. We're recovering from the pandemic. Let me say that first, but I will say a little community charter public school. We've been working with them for the past three years. We actually bring those students onto the campus of UMass Lowell. We've done this. This is the second summer, the first summer it was virtual. We bring them onto the campus of UMass Lowell, and we teach them the math before they go into the class.

And if you look at their data, MCAS data, those students are performing above the state standard. But, we're not just satisfied with that, it's a K-8 school. We have conquered Carlisle. We have approximately about 85% of the students who are in The Calculus Project on track to taking AP calculus or high school calculus in Concord.

CHAKRABARTI: So you're talking about a lot of Massachusetts school districts. Are you working with anyone outside of Massachusetts?

MIMS: Yeah, I worked with Orange County Public Schools for three years starting in 2014. There are two articles that you will find in the Orlando Sentinel. The first article talks about how The Calculus Project helped them to become number one in the state for seventh and eighth graders performance on math.

The second article you'll see, it will say we didn't reach our goal for as many students taking calculus. If you read that second article, what you'll see is that it didn't have anything to do with the students. It had everything to do with the educators. They stopped following the model.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, okay.

MIMS: After 10th grade. So after 10th grade, they stopped watching the students and offering the classes during the summer.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Brian Conrad, once again, I appreciate you listening along with me to what Adrian Mims has to say. It's just that he's got this very concrete, successful model that I wanted to learn more about.

We've got about a minute left, Brian, and I'm going to give you the last word today because there's a lot of things actually that Dr. Mims has said, such as there is the need for differentiated instruction, if done in the right way, right? That and he's also calling out school districts for, you talk a good equity talk, but what are you actually doing?

I wonder if some of, in fact, some of what Dr. Mims is successfully doing in The Calculus Project actually runs contrary to some of the trends and beliefs currently popular in education. Because I know a lot of districts are moving away from having differentiated instruction in mathematics. Do you think we also just need to change how we think about what's good for kids when we teach them math?

CONRAD: Of course, education is an extraordinarily complicated, multifaceted process. And I think that the best way to set policy is to look at programs, whether The Calculus Project or recent ideas that have come out of Dallas. That actually have demonstrated effective results and try to emulate those. In contrast, for example, as I mentioned earlier with what happened in San Francisco.