Justifications For Supporting Our Innovative Work
America is unfortunately mired in a math crisis that adversely affects workforce competitiveness, individual earning potential, and social mobility. Our nonprofit's Smart Parents Smart Kids math program is a direct answer to the measurable deficit in achievement and calls from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine for new programming that is effective in closing the math skills gap. We are addressing an emergency that education experts have noted for sixteen years when K-12 math scores were higher than today but still lousy.
● "American students have not been succeeding in the mathematical part of their education at anything like a level expected of an international leader…77% of U.S. high school seniors are not proficient in math." - Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, U.S. Department of Education [2008]
● "Teachers and developers of instructional materials sometimes assume that students need to be a certain age to learn certain mathematical ideas. However, a major research finding is that what is developmentally appropriate is largely contingent on prior opportunities to learn. Claims based on theories that children of particular ages cannot learn certain content because they are too young, not in the appropriate stage, or not ready, have consistently been shown to be wrong." - U.S. Department of Education [2008]
● "Most American eighth graders cannot do relatively simple tasks – such as add fractions – that students in other countries master by fourth grade." - Hechinger Report – Professor William Schmidt - Michigan State University [2009]
● "Many contemporary U.S. children do not reach the point of fast and efficient solving of single-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with whole numbers, much less fluent execution of more complex algorithms as early as children in many other countries. The reasons for differences in the computational fluency of children in the United States and peers in countries with higher mathematics achievement are multifaceted. They include quantity and quality of practice, emphases within curricula, and parental involvement in mathematics learning. As an example, in elementary school textbooks in the United States, easier arithmetic problems are presented far more frequently than harder problems. The opposite is the case in countries with higher mathematics achievement, such as Singapore… Too many American students also have a poor grasp of many core arithmetical concepts." - National Mathematics Advisory Panel of the U.S. Department of Education [2008]
It makes perfect sense to look at the countries that lead the world in math, study why they are successful, and note viable best-practices from which American children benefit. Everyone Can Succeed has done this for American early-grades math. The Smart Parents Smart Kids program is step one in boosting our nation's math and overall academic outcomes. The program is built to satisfy expert advice provided by U.S. leaders in STEM education:
● "The mathematical knowledge that kindergartners bring to school is related to their mathematics learning for years thereafter—in elementary school, middle school, and even high school… Use should be made of what is clearly known from rigorous research about how children learn, especially by recognizing a) the advantages for children in having a strong start; b) the mutually reinforcing benefits of conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and automatic (i.e., quick and effortless) recall of facts; and c) that effort, not just inherent talent, counts in mathematical achievement." - Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, U.S. Department of Education [2008]
● "The authors recommend parents look outside the classroom to provide the best place to challenge kids…Math competitions, summer programs, math circles (programs which offer challenging math in non-judgmental environments) — whatever you can find that will give your kids a taste of why math can be fun." - Why America’s Smartest Students Fail Math” - GreatSchools.org [2012]
● "The foundation all math students need is number sense—essentially a feel for numbers, with the agility to use them flexibly and creatively…Additional evidence tells us that students gain a deeper understanding of math when they approach it visually." - Scientific American [2016]