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The goal of math education cannot simply be to raise traditional standardized assessment scores. It must be to develop thinkers who use mathematics to analyze problems, imagine solutions, and transform their communities. 

Statistics are powerful, but context is crucial. Without it, numbers can be meaningless at best, misleading at worst. Unfortunately, the latter has prevailed when it comes to recent media coverage about math preparation at UC San Diego. 

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.