Marginalized students have long lacked access to advanced education programs in the U.S., compared to more advantaged peers, and have been under-identified and therefore underserved when such programs exist. Research also suggests that these “opportunity” and “excellence” gaps—nearly ubiquitous in elementary, middle, and high schools—are worsening post-pandemic due to learning interruptions that were experienced unequally by low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Native American children.
RAND Corporation’s multi-year American Mathematics Educator Study (AMES) recently shed further light on these problems. Although focused on the entire spectrum of math achievement, not specifically the high end, its findings are highly relevant to advanced education—and plenty depressing. The study was announced in October 2023 with the goal of finding and explaining “key factors that shape equitable, high-quality mathematics teaching and learning,” to be used as baseline data necessary to remediate the stark declines in student math achievement witnessed as a result of pandemic-era school disruptions. The very first research findings were released this month, looking at school “structures” that may facilitate or limit access to math learning opportunities for students in elementary and middle schools. (A high school report is coming in the near future.)
The research team, led by Julia H. Kaufman, defines “school opportunity structures” as the systems and resources in place to support students in their mathematics education. Specifically, the three structures studied are: grouping of students by achievement, and their subsequent access to rigorous mathematics courses; whether students have access to certified, knowledgeable math teachers and principals; and the availability of and access to additional supports for struggling students beyond standard classroom instruction. Most of the findings center on the existence (or not) of these structures, with a lesser focus on utilization. And the first two areas, especially—achievement grouping and knowledgeable teachers and principals—are relevant to opportunity and excellence gaps in advanced education.
Data come from a spring 2023 survey given to nationally representative samples of teachers and principals from RAND’s American Teacher Panel and American School Leader Panel. The present report is based on responses from 2,505 teachers of mathematics (including elementary teachers of all subjects) and 2,293 principals across all grades K–12 (but including answers specific to K–8 grade bands only). Responses are weighted to be representative of the national population of K–12 teachers and school leaders. However, the researchers also oversampled teachers and principals in the four largest states—California, Florida, New York, and Texas—to provide some state-level comparisons.
They report that a majority of principals nationwide (59 percent) say their schools do not group students by math achievement in the elementary grades. That percentage effectively flips in middle school (grades 6–8), which still means that more than one-third of schools aren’t doing this. Among middle schools that do, principals report an almost even split between students grouped by achievement within their math classes (that is, several smaller groups within a single classroom) and those grouped into their mathematics classes (students of different achievement levels learning in different classrooms).
The most commonly reported means by which students are assigned to groups are diagnostic or benchmark assessment (reported by 85 percent of principals) and teacher recommendation (83 percent). Principal recommendation is the least commonly reported means (15 percent), with parent/guardian request in the middle at 42 percent. Relevant to opportunity gaps: Parental requests for math class assignment are reported by 50 percent of principals in low-poverty schools versus just 30 percent in high-poverty schools.
The research team also zeroed in on Algebra I offerings in middle school, as introductory algebra has long been considered a “gateway” course to participation in higher level math in high school—provided students can take and pass it by the end of eighth grade. Eighty-five percent of middle school principals reported that Algebra I was offered in their schools—meaning one in every six schools did not offer the course—while 65 percent of them said they offer the course but restrict it to certain students. This latter group of schools likely gatekeeps enrollment via prerequisites like course completion, letter grades, test scores, teacher or principal approval, parental pressure, or a combination of these. This can be a good thing if the students excluded truly aren’t yet capable of success. But too often, schools rely on inequitable metrics that are biased against marginalized subgroups and therefore leave out otherwise prepared students and contribute to the opportunity and excellence gaps they should be trying to narrow. (Here’s where the report’s lack of utilization information is a small weakness.) Worse, however, are California-specific data that echo other research showing the “unambiguously harmful” impacts of the state’s Algebra for All initiative, which had the main effect of moving Algebra access to ninth grade (at the earliest) for a majority of students.
Also concerning is that too few math teachers report being certified to actually teach their subject. This is true of one-third of middle school math educators and nine out of ten in the elementary grades. This likely reflects different licensure requirements for those grade bands in various states—and, indeed, most states only require generic elementary education certification in grades K–5. But it combines to call into question schools’ ability to offer rigorous, high-quality math instruction that provide students with the sort of solid early-grade foundations necessary to prepare more of them for advanced courses in later years.
All of this together adds up to poor prospects for narrowing opportunity and excellence gaps in advanced education. Research tells us that the structures that the RAND study found lacking in schools across the country—accelerated classes like Algebra 1 in middle school and achievement grouping—significantly improve the learning outcomes of advanced learners. Acceleration is “one of the most-studied intervention strategies in all of education, with overwhelming evidence of positive effects on student achievement,” as scholar Jonathan Plucker puts it. Numerous high-quality studies have found that arranging students by academic achievement in the same or separate classrooms is a net positive for advanced students and isn’t detrimental to their peers. And as another RAND resource puts it, “teachers matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling,” so having such a large number of K–8 math educators lack certification in the subject may also be negatively impacting achievement—no matter how standard this practice is across states and school systems in the elementary grades.
The structural problems laid bare here are significant, but they’re also, of course, fixable. We know what works. Build the structures! Doing so would help improve achievement for all students, as well as narrow excellence gaps in advanced education. Consider, for example, the thirty-six recommendations put forth by The National Working Group on Advanced Education (of which one of us was a member) in its final report, Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners. That may seem like a large number of steps, but the core principle is simple: Become a champion for excellence and equity. As this RAND study shows, too many schools are failing at both.
SOURCE: Julia H. Kaufman, Lauren Covelli, and Pierrce Holmes, “Elementary and Middle School Opportunity Structures That Factor into Students’ Math Learning Findings from the American Mathematics Educator Study,” RAND Corporation (February 2024).
