Nearly half of 1,471 education leaders who responded to the analytics company’s December query reported that the task was “very challenging” and far worse than finding strong English language or social studies applicants.

“The pool of certified math teachers is small, and the demand is high, particularly for candidates who are ready to support student learning from day one,” said Nicole Paxton, assistant principal and athletic director of Mountain Vista Community School in Colorado Springs. “In our district, we’ve experienced a growing number of math openings with only a handful of candidates to consider — many of whom are international applicants requiring sponsorship or visas.”

Another lends insight into a possible reason why: Only 1 in 8 elementary teacher preparation programs nationwide devote adequate time to teaching fundamental math content topics, including numbers and operations, algebraic thinking, geometry and measurement — plus data analysis and probability. 

The National Council on Teacher Quality, which released the teacher preparation study April 8, found ​​the average undergraduate program dedicates 85 hours of instructional time to foundational math content knowledge — 20 hours short of what the organization recommends. 

Graduate programs devote even less time to the topic — 14 hours total — with only 5% meeting or approaching the minimum recommendation of 150 hours. The council said 22% of undergraduate programs earned an “F” for their performance in this area: More than 80% of graduate level programs also earned this failing grade. 

“Teachers need to know how to do more than just follow the steps in math to get the right answer,” Heather Peske, the organization’s president, said in a statement. “They need to know why those steps work. It’s like the difference between a basketball player and a coach. The player can learn their role and follow directions, but the coach needs to understand the bigger picture, the why behind every move.”

Michael Rubin, principal of Uxbridge High School in Massachusetts, roughly 60 miles southwest of Boston, said finding high-quality teachers of any subject is difficult, particularly in math and science.  

“When we deal with even more advanced levels of mathematics, with highly specialized content, the number of educators is even more limited,” he said. “My father was a math teacher for 39 years, and not a year has gone by since he retired nine years ago where a principal has not reached out and asked him if he is willing or able to come in to teach, tutor or substitute.”

Indeed, Gallup poll responders said the problem was even more acute in later grades where the math curriculum gets harder: 64% of principals said this was “very challenging” at the high school level versus 56% at the middle school and 23% at the elementary level.

The struggle can also be seen in lower-income and rural communities, like Sheridan County School District #3 in Clearmont, Wyoming, which enrolls just 83 students K-12. Chase Christensen, who serves as both superintendent and district principal, said staff are frequently asked to take on other roles.

Next fall, he said, a physical education teacher will lead advanced mathematics classes — they will focus on pre-algebra, geometry, statistics and probability — at the middle school level while he works toward earning his certification in that subject. Christensen said he’s grateful for his staff’s’ flexibility. 

“When we all sit down and take a hard look at what the needs of the school are, people just step up and we figure out how it is going to work,” he said.  

Stephanie Marken, a senior partner at Gallup leading its U.S. custom research division, said schools’ trouble finding quality math instructors is particularly concerning because these teachers play a pivotal role in making this often tough subject palatable.  

“If you have a highly engaged teacher who’s really committed and qualified in that subject area, we know that it brings math education to life in a way that you just can’t do otherwise,” Marken said. 

Math anxiety, the fear that students — — share about this subject further harms their opportunity and ability to succeed in it. 

“We know that a lot of students have negative emotions surrounding math and that there’s a lot of pressure that math places upon students,” Marken said. “We know that the teacher makes a big difference in breaking down math and making it feel really relevant and achievable.”

Paxton, of Colorado Springs, said her district employs several strategies to manage the problem. It supports teachers on visas and those coming from alternative certification pathways through monthly meetings that focus on best practices, classroom management and cultural assimilation. 

It also works with which has, for three decades, recruited college graduates to teach in high-need schools for two years. Plus, it’s built a solid relationship with its local university’s teacher training program and has launched a “grow your own” pipeline to support teacher aides in earning their bachelor’s degrees, completing internships in the district and ultimately becoming licensed teachers there.

“These layered supports and creative recruitment efforts are our response to a national challenge,” Paxton said. 

Gallup’s Math Matters Study went beyond schools’ issues with hiring to families’ experience on campus: While roughly a third of the 808 parents who responded said their children receive some math tutoring, only 13% received such help more than weekly. Gallup notes that prior research shows  high-quality math tutoring can improve achievement by an additional three to 15 months of learning, “but the most impactful tutoring programs must include frequent sessions — three times a week or more.”

Roughly a third of parents said they would enroll their child in tutoring if it was available or more accessible.

Parents also reported a lack of communication about the subject on the part of educators: One in six said they “never” hear from their child’s school about the goals for their child’s math learning or what their student is learning in math class. 

The survey showed, too, a lack of understanding — and consensus — among educators about what constitutes high-quality instructional materials, curriculum aligned to college- and career-ready standards: 37% of all education leaders said they were “not at all familiar” with or “not very familiar with” the concept. 

Sixty-eight percent of school superintendents and 46% of school principals said their building or district had no official definition of the term. But when supplied with a definition by Gallup, which identified high-quality instructional materials as those “which are standards-aligned and use evidence-based practices for the content area,” 69% said most or all of their math curriculum qualified. 

Professional development proved an added challenge. Thirty-nine percent of educators surveyed rated their own school’s math-related professional development as “fair” or “poor.” This statistic was worse at the high school level where 6% said it was poor and 39% said it was fair. 

The Gates Foundation sponsored the Math Matters Study and provides financial support to The 74.

A 13-year-old who can’t tell if $20 million is greater than $200,000.

A first grader who doesn’t recognize that the numeral 5 is greater than the numeral 3 if the 3 appears larger in size on their paper.

These are among the hallmarks of dyscalculia (pronounced dis-kal-KYOO-lee-uh), a learning disorder that hinders students’ ability in math, as they were observed in the classroom by long-time teachers. 

But educators who saw these types of limitations in their students through the years told The 74 they didn’t always know what they were seeing — or how to mitigate it. 

Toronto teacher Mufrida Nolan attributed some students’ difficulty with mathematics to a lack of confidence or foundational knowledge gaps. But some showed persistent problems, she said, including difficulty understanding place value — despite multiple explanations — or trouble memorizing basic math facts. 

“To support these students, I relied on general strategies like breaking concepts into smaller steps, using visual aids and providing extra practice,” she said. “These interventions were helpful to a degree, but they lacked the specificity needed to address the unique challenges of dyscalculia, which I didn’t understand at the time.”

Just as dyslexia disrupts areas of the brain related to reading, Roughly of students suffer from the condition, according to the Learning Disabilities Association of America.

Research indicates a link between the two: Children diagnosed with dyslexia are than those without a dyslexia diagnosis. 

Teachers say, too, that dyslexia, which affects , is far better understood, leaving them mostly on their own in combating the math disorder that’s evidenced by . 

Most of the educators who talked to The 74 said they first heard about dyscalculia in the early 2000s or 2010s, but said it didn’t start gaining traction until roughly three years ago, around the same time that teachers, policymakers and academic experts began to re-evaluate math instruction for all students in the face of COVID-era learning loss. 

Nolan and other educators from the United States and Canada have been meeting online since September in a group called “Overthink Tank” to share the latest research and best practices on this lesser-known disorder. 

Maureen Stewart, a seven-year Math for America Master Teacher — the nonprofit MfA was founded in 2004 to help retain and nurture outstanding New York City math educators — is grateful for the outlet. But, she said, identifying children as having the disorder is only the first step in helping them. 

“The label is really not as important as the strategy,” said Stewart, who works in Brooklyn and has 17 years of teaching experience. “We have to be aware as educators, what am I seeing in this child and what does it really mean? It’s not like a checklist, and if you have everything on this checklist, you therefore have this thing.”

Mathematician John Mighton, the founder of the curriculum JUMP Math, said research in cognitive science suggests the teaching methods that work best for students with dyscalculia also work best for almost all other students. This includes scaffolding concepts into manageable chunks and providing lots of opportunity for practice. 

But, he said, he agrees with teachers who say students with dyscalculia sometimes need something extra, adding it varies from one child to the next. 

“Most of the students I’ve taught who had dyscalculia just needed to go back to very basic foundational concepts and learn them properly,” he said. “Then they can surprise you in how quickly they progress. Because teachers usually don’t have time to do this work, some think that the missing thing is invariably difficult to find or remediate.”

Mighton said, too, that teachers should introduce concepts with generic or semi-abstract models and representations rather than those that are overly detailed or contextualized, meaning they should steer away from complex word problems and present materials more plainly. He added that the sequence of problems should become incrementally harder. 

Of course, dyscalculia is not the only challenge schools face in bolstering student achievement in math. Years of falling test scores have made K-12 learners’ lack of proficiency a full-scale emergency: It could as the world moves even more toward technology-focused jobs.

Dawn Pagliaro-Newman, also an MƒA Master Teacher in Brooklyn, learned of dyscalculia through her daughter, Olivia, a fifth grader who loves to cook and who hopes to one day work for NASA. 

Olivia attends a state-approved private school for students with learning disabilities where she said her teachers have equipped her with special tools to address dyscalculia. 

“It’s like you need certain things to help you get through math,” Olivia said, adding it often takes her extra time to finish assignments. “If there is a test on division, that will take me hours. It’s hard for me.”

Dawn Frank, who also teaches in Toronto, said children with dyscalculia have no flexibility with numbers. Most learners, when they come to understand that 5+5 = 10, will also realize that 5+6 = 5+5 +1, Frank said. 

Students with dyscalculia would not. 

A sixth grader, when multiplying 21 x 30 would understand that 20 x 30 = 600 and another 30 is 630, she said. But students with dyscalculia would follow a standard set of rules, or algorithm, for solving the problem, “and in doing so would work much harder,” she said. 

Some children also struggle with estimates. A second grader subtracts 4 from 20 and gets the answer 6 and does not see that this is not possible, Frank said. 

“Anxiety is a common response,” she said. “Students, when they are anxious, will often avoid math. They might try to go to the bathroom a lot. There are students who miss school because their anxiety is so high or they purposefully have some kind of issue in the class before or in recess that causes them to miss math class.” 

Children with dyscalculia, she said, also often have difficulty with time management and reading maps. 

Further complicating matters, there is no consensus on how many types of dyscalculia there are: some experts say four, others more. And even when a child is diagnosed with the disorder, that doesn’t guarantee they will qualify for services. 

, for example, that a clinical diagnosis of dyslexia, dysgraphia (a learning disability related to writing), or dyscalculia do not automatically qualify a student for special education programs and services — but that they are conditions that could qualify a student as having a learning disability.

Some families have tremendous difficulty in accessing the help their children need. Maryland-based attorney Nicole Joseph has represented some 800 students and their families in their fight for educational access in the past 20 years. Most suffer some combination of dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia, she said.

Part of the problem for children who struggle from math-related learning disabilities, Joseph said, is that teachers aren’t properly trained enough to help them — nor do they have sufficient time for the repetition and individual attention required. 

While the has clarified the need for — and that this is particularly critical for children who, like Joseph’s son, have dyslexia — there is less clarity around mathematics. 

Joseph said, too, that schools often fail to properly diagnose learning disabilities in well-behaved children, those who she called “bright, struggling and masking.” Part of her job is to help parents get a diagnosis — often through private psychologists — and to get schools to recognize their disability.

Despite these ongoing challenges, Pagliaro-Newman is hopeful about teachers’ growing understanding of the disorder. 

“Because discussions of dyslexia, autism, and other neurodivergence have become more commonplace, I find that parents and educators are now turning their attention to math,” she said.

Increased awareness and the development of better strategies might help some children avoid later pitfalls. While they will struggle with the disorder for life — like dyslexia, dyscalculia doesn’t go away — some can still achieve great heights in the subject with workarounds, teachers in the Overthink Tank group told The 74. 

“I am very excited about the conversations that are being had in the education community about how best to support these learners — as well as the questions being asked regarding much-needed research and funding,” Pagliaro-Newman said. 

When middle school math teachers completed an online professional development program that uses artificial intelligence to improve their math knowledge and teaching skills, their students’ math performance improved.

My colleagues and I developed this online professional development program, which relies on a virtual facilitator that can – among other things – present problems to the teacher around teaching math and provide feedback on the teacher’s answers.

Our goal was to enhance teachers’ mastery of . These include understanding why the mathematical rules and procedures taught in school work. The program also focuses on common struggles students have as they learn a particular math concept, and how to use instructional tools and strategies to help them overcome these struggles.

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We then in which 53 middle school math teachers were randomly assigned to either this AI-based professional development or no additional training. On average, teachers spent 11 hours to complete the program. We then gave 1,727 of their students a math test. While students of these two groups of teachers started off with no difference in their math performance, the students taught by teachers who completed the program increased their mathematics performance by 0.18 of a standard deviation more on average. This is a statistically significant gain that is equal to the average math performance difference between sixth and seventh graders in the study.

Our by the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

Why it matters

This study demonstrates the potential for using AI technologies to create effective, widely accessible professional development for teachers. This is important because teachers often have limited access to high-quality professional development programs to improve their knowledge and teaching skills. or that are far from in-person professional development programs can prevent teachers from receiving the support they need.

Additionally, many existing in-person professional development programs for teachers have been shown to enhance participants’ teaching knowledge and practices but to have .

Effective professional development programs include opportunities for teachers to solve problems, analyze students’ work and observe teaching practices. Teachers also receive real-time support from the program facilitators. This is often a challenge for asynchronous online programs.

Our program addresses the limitations of asynchronous programs because the AI-supported virtual facilitator acts as a human instructor. It gives teachers authentic teaching activities to work on, asks questions to gauge their understanding and provides real-time feedback and guidance.

What’s next

Advancements in AI technologies will allow researchers to develop more interactive, personalized learning environments for teachers. For example, the language processing systems used in generative AI programs such as ChatGPT can improve the ability of these programs to analyze teachers’ responses more accurately and provide more personalized learning opportunities. Also, AI technologies can be used to develop new learning materials so that programs similar to ours can be developed faster.

More importantly, AI-based professional development programs can collect rich, real-time interaction data. Such data makes it possible to investigate how learning from professional development occurs and therefore how programs can be made more effective. Despite being spent each year on professional development for teachers, research suggests that is not yet well understood.

The is a short take on interesting academic work.

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