Top Takeaways District leaders rank math third, far behind literacy and social emotional learning, as priorities. Math lacks dedicated state funding for professional development, and training in most districts is voluntary. The gap between students from the highest and lowest-income California districts grew to 2.7 grade levels in 2024. State leaders’ recent attention to early literacy has led to funding and new programs to help close the literacy achievement gap.But math? The state hasn’t focused on it. And that neglect shows. State and national scores reflect many of California’s systemic weaknesses, according to a paper that is part of the sweeping research project, Getting Down to Facts. How bad is it? The gap in math achievement between the highest and lowest income students in California grew from an already alarming 1.9 grade levels in 2009 to 2.7 grade levels in 2024, a 40% increase, according to calculations by Stanford professor Sean Reardon, director of the Stanford Education Data Archive. That means the highest-income students are nearly three grade levels ahead in math compared to the lowest-income students.Gaps in reading, while also very wide, narrowed 5% over that time period. A third of eighth graders were proficient in math on the 2025 Smarter Balanced Assessments. The gaps among racial and ethnic groups have grown as well. Significantly raising California students’ math achievement will require addressing compounding problems. The research brief titled “Mathematics in California: Gaps, Capacity and Implementation, by Elizabeth Huffaker, a doctoral candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, outlines…
