NC approves changes to school math requirements, standards

The State Board of Education approved, without opposition, Thursday on new math standards for all grade levels, including removing Math 3 and Math 4 in high school.

The changes aim to make math more relevant to students, especially as they lose interest in older grades. The state Department of Public Instruction surveyed teachers about the existing standards and found far less satisfaction among teachers in the higher grade levels.

The new standards are designed to better engage students in math. When the standards were first proposed, DPI leaders told WRAL News they worried that students losing interest in math as they get older is cutting too many of them off prematurely from math-related careers; at the same time, they hear from more employers about a growing need for employees with certain math skills.

North Carolina is among more than 20 states reworking the way they teach math as the United States continues to lag behind other developed nations in math. Many of those states are working with the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin to adjust the standards, and the Center has emphasized creating new pathways for high school students to structure their math classes.

The changes are a part of the state's routine updates to its academic standards. The math standards were last updated in 2017. A team of four dozen people wrote the standards, after receiving feedback from about 5,700 survey responses and since presenting its initial drafts over the past several months.

The standards will go into effect in 2028.

Replacing Math 3 and Math 4 --- and rethinking every high school math class

Math 3 and Math 4 will be replaced with math electives, chosen by students related to their plans for after high school.

Though the math classes will be at the discretion of the students, students will still be required to take two of those elective classes.

Counselors will steer students toward which two math classes would apply to what the student plans to do after high school, whether entering college, a career or military service. There will be suggested pathways for students aspiring for medical careers or those who planned to go straight into the military or law enforcement, for example.

Students will still be required to take four high school math classes, including Math 1 and Math 2. That's more than most states, which only require two or three high school math classes.

But what's in every class would change.

Math 1 and Math 2, typically taken in early high school years, will be significantly revised to focus on applying math to real-life uses and integrating more technology into classwork, including graphing calculators and artificial intelligence. The use of those technologies will align with current industry expectations and practices. Math 1 includes algebra, and Math 2 includes geometry.

The eight elective classes will be Mathematical and Statistical Modeling, Applied Statistics and Data Science, Applied Logic and Reasoning (the proposed new name for Discrete Math), AP Precalculus, AP Statistics, AP Calculus, and an approved International Baccalaureate or college math course.

Two of those classes will be new offerings from schools, essentially replacing the currently required Math 3 and Math 4. Applied Statistics and Data Science will focus on using data to solve problems and communicate conclusions. Mathematical and Statistical Modeling will combine statistics and applied mathematics and include research, requiring students to use reasoning and math skills to evaluate choices based on data.

Real-world application

Leaders are also emphasizing real-world applications for math as a part of teaching new standards.

They describe it as a three-step process: understanding a concept, becoming fluent in it, and applying it to challenges one might encounter in life.

The standards themselves don't necessarily list a host of lessons for real-world applications.

Standards are the set of skills students are expected to attain while in those classes. They come with "crosswalk" documents that list examples of a way a student can demonstrate that they have a skill.

School districts and teachers take it from there, choosing curriculum and then writing lesson plans to go with it.

The standards documents contain directives for when students should apply a standard to their lives. In sixth grade, for example, students are urged to apply geometric and spatial skills --- like finding the area of certain shapes --- to real-world scenarios, though it doesn't list an example.