Bring the California spirit of innovation to math classrooms

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The state of California is at the global forefront of technological innovation and artistic inspiration. It’s also a powerhouse economy in its own right, currently the fifth largest in the world. We might expect — we should expect — such a place to deliver a world-class education to the 6 million public school students in its charge.

This is not the picture that emerges from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress. These assessments found fewer than a quarter of California eighth graders performing at or above the “proficient” level in math. This represents both a decline from the state’s previous NAEP performance and a significant undershooting of the national average performance for eighth grade math.

But the good news is that California is on the verge of a major education opportunity: The State Board of Education is scheduled to adopt new math curriculum in 2025, and high-quality instructional materials are a powerful, proven lever for improving student outcomes in math.

The magnitude of this opportunity was made clear in a recent, California-focused report from the Center for Education Market Dynamics. My partners and I co-founded this nonprofit in 2020 to investigate, illuminate and help improve the murky national curriculum landscape. Our research indicates that 62% of California districts in our sample have in place a math curriculum from the state’s 2014 adoption list for elementary school, and 76% for middle school.

The continued dominance of these curricula in California is not, on its face, a happy finding. It suggests that millions of the state’s most vulnerable students are saddled with past-generation math textbooks that do not reflect the important curriculum innovations and improvements of recent years. But it also means that state influence is real in California, and it’s big: many, many districts today, 10 years after the last adoption, are still waiting for that state signal to select new math curriculum — even though they don’t have to, as state adoption is nonbinding. California districts are ripe, ready, and hungry for state leadership on this front.

State education leaders must leverage this upcoming adoption to vigorously encourage publishers to develop high-quality, innovative math curriculum for California’s public schools — and to relentlessly support its uptake and implementation in districts. In the decade since the last adoption, several big demographic shifts have accelerated in the state’s public schools, including an upsurge of English learners (students who are Hispanic/Latino now make up an outright majority, or 56%, of California public school students) and students experiencing poverty (60% of California public school students receive free and reduced-price meals). These students are not exceptional cases, but the mainstay and the heart of the California public school system. And they need the absolute best that the contemporary education market can deliver regarding math curriculum.

What would that look like? We might see, for example, math curriculum that’s aligned to research-based quality criteria; that intentionally incorporates the best instructional practices for students learning English; that builds systematically underserved students’ executive functioning skills alongside their math skills; and that leverages leading-edge digital technology to engage students and provide just-in-time support to those who are struggling (disclosure: I’m on the boards of both AERDF and Zearn). There’s no shortage of brilliant research and development efforts happening in the world of math curriculum. And state education leaders in California are, right now, in the unique position to bring this innovation to bear in real ways on their students’ math experience.

California must get this adoption right. Because when it comes to curriculum, what happens in California ultimately ripples across the country. The need is acute, nationwide, for more effective teaching and learning in math — for this generation of students to grow up without giving up on it. Better math curriculum will help us get there, and the state of California can help lead the way.

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Jeff Livingston is co-founder of the Center for Education Market Dynamics, a nonprofit K-12 market intelligence organization dedicated to improving academic outcomes for underserved students by expanding the adoption and use of high-quality teaching and learning solutions.

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