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Too many students arrive at college only to find themselves repeating high school math or enrolling in courses that are not relevant to their college and career interests. Fortunately, education leaders in numerous states are reversing that trend by co-designing strategies that streamline students’ journeys from high school to college.

What if the communities furthest from opportunity were equipped with the training, tools, and trust to change the systems around them? This is the question that’s inspiring a transformative wave in math education in classrooms and across campuses from California State University (CSU) to Howard University. 

It’s time to push reset on the controversy in California over whether college students should take calculus. For more than a year, the debate has been centered on an enrollment pattern pursued by a tiny minority of students—the one-half of 1 percent of STEM majors who take a calculus course despite no record of having taken Algebra II in high school. 

Far too many students see their dreams of future majors and careers dashed by math’s role as a gatekeeper to opportunity. It doesn’t have to be this way. Instead, math education can become a gateway to opportunity for all students. That’s precisely why Just Equations is rolling out Math That Meets the Moment: A Policy Agenda To Reenvision the Role of Math in Ensuring Educational Equity.

For too long, math education in the United States has served as one of those structures, a gatekeeper to educational opportunity, particularly for historically underrepresented students. Just Equations seeks to shift the role of math from gatekeeper to gateway. This begins with understanding how and why math education contributes to inequity.