When Maryland math scores plunged, Black college students suffered the consequences

The Towson University undergrads stared at the quadratic formula projected onto the board. It seemed to be taunting them.

x = [-b ± √(b² - 4ac)] / 2a

Their instructor, Cristina Packard, had already taught them how to solve for x, but the students groaned when she asked for a volunteer to demonstrate. No one could remember how to do the high-school-level algebra in front of them.

“We’re really on the hot mess express today,” she said as she floated between desks in her remedial math class.

Demand for classes like Packard’s has surged at Towson, the state’s second-largest public university. Although algebra may seem like an academic relic — think cursive or home economics — it’s required for anyone in college studying business, nursing or computer science, disciplines that can lead to a stable, middle-class life.

The subject also exposes many Maryland students’ poor preparation for more advanced math. One out of five Towson freshmen needed remedial math last year, the highest rate the school has seen in more than a decade, according to data collected by the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

Packard said she’s stunned when she encounters students who can’t add simple numbers or compute a percentage.

“I try to be patient and keep my poker face,” she said. “You teach the kids you have, not the kids you wish you had.”

What’s happening at Towson is a symptom of a statewide math crisis that begins long before students head to college. Despite recent signs of growth post-pandemic, middle school math achievement in Maryland remains among the lowest in the country. Maryland’s ranking on a standardized math test has fallen from 12th in the nation to 38th, a bigger drop than anywhere else in 15 years.

Black students disproportionately suffer the consequences of this collapse.

More than two-thirds of students in remedial courses at Maryland’s four-year public colleges are Black, even though they account for just a third of the schools’ enrollment. Students who take remedial courses typically don’t get college credit, even though they must pay to enroll, and research shows Marylanders who needed remediation got worse grades and struggled to get their degrees in four years.

“There is optimism that a child accepted to a four-year school is going to be able to take care of themselves and get the career they want,” said Daryl Howard, a former school counselor who led a state task force on Black boys’ academic achievement.

Remedial math can derail those plans.

But now, after years of overlooking Maryland’s math crisis, state education leaders are angling for a comeback. They’re rolling out sweeping changes that will reshape classrooms from elementary through high school, hoping that when the next generation of kids hits college, they can solve the equation on the board.

New baseline, or new low?

The first major sign of trouble emerged nearly a decade ago when Common Core was all the rage.

Nearly every state opted in to the rigorous set of academic standards backed by former President Barack Obama’s administration. They defined what students should know at each grade level, and in 2015, Maryland changed its standardized tests to meet them.

Common Core took longer to teach, educators say. In some cases, it meant sacrificing time they’d previously spent on small-group instruction and one-on-one support, even though those lessons helped kids catch up.

State Board of Education President Josh Michael was a middle school math teacher in Baltimore then, and he remembers students struggling to adapt. Teachers were told at the time that more exposure to challenging coursework would eventually yield better results.

“As a principle, it is laudable, and it is true,” Michael said. “In practice, learning math is more complicated than being exposed to math problems.”

Even advanced students suffered. Traditionally, Maryland’s brightest kids skipped eighth grade math and took Algebra I a year early. But Common Core called for twice as much pre-algebra, leaving the students who skipped eighth grade math half prepared.

Many Maryland students continued skipping anyway, said Lyndsey Brightful, the Maryland education department’s director of mathematics, because the old course progression had grown popular.

“We took kids who were successful in seventh grade, who had done well in math their whole lives, and we put them in algebra,” Brightful said. “But they struggled. And we had no systems in place to get that missing content taught to them.”

Retired Baltimore City math teacher Linda Eberhart was a member of Maryland’s State Board of Education around the time the Common Core standards were implemented. She warned her colleagues that students would struggle to acclimate because the new rubric required teaching math skills in a new order. She said her fellow board members wouldn’t listen.

“When the test scores came out, and they were the worst ever, I wasn’t surprised,” Eberhart said.

The state’s results that first year were disastrous. Proficiency on the Algebra I test plummeted by nearly 50 percentage points to 36% in 2015. And the results only got worse, falling to 27% in 2019.

Maryland dropped exams aligned to the Common Core in 2020 after five years along with other states that soured on the standards. But just as officials were about to introduce new state tests, the pandemic started, roiling teaching and learning again. When Maryland offered a new Algebra I test for the first time in 2022, only 14% of students who took it demonstrated proficiency — a record low.

In Baltimore County, few pass algebra

Baltimore County’s algebra scores used to be equivalent to the state average, around 80%, but when the test changed to match Common Core, the county’s passing rate fell even further than the state’s did, and it remains behind.

Just 1 in 10 Baltimore County students passed the Algebra I test last year, compared to 1 in 5 who passed statewide. That test is part of the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program, known as MCAP, which students are required to take but not pass. Even at Catonsville and Dulaney, two of the county’s highest-rated high schools, few students pass the algebra test.

Towson High math teacher Kevin Dalsimer said the district’s poor track record with algebra has worried him for years, and he wishes the system would consider offering pre-algebra, typically taught to middle-schoolers, in high school.

He criticized the school system for being too focused on graduation rates and not focused enough on whether students are mastering the content they need to be successful later in life. The value of a high school diploma diminishes when so many recipients need remedial coursework once they get to college, he argued.

“You shouldn’t graduate with a diploma that says you can do the math when you can’t,” said Dalsimer, who is a product of Baltimore County schools and whose daughter is enrolled now.

And while Black students across Maryland pass the test at far lower rates than their white peers, Baltimore County stands alone for having more Black algebra test-takers than any other part of the state and among the worst results, with just 5.7% passing.

The district’s algebra scores are “an area of concern,” Baltimore County Superintendent Myriam Rogers said earlier this year. Administrators are working with teachers to strengthen instruction in math, a subject where the county has seen rising scores in other grades, she added. She characterized the achievement gap between Black and white algebra test takers as “no different from the state, no different from the nation.”

Those gaps are stubbornly common and emerge as early as kindergarten, said Morgan Polikoff, an expert in accountability and assessment policy at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. Factors like family income and access to healthcare drive the disparities, which are compounded by centuries of racism, he added. Black students are also more likely to be taught by less experienced teachers and more likely to be disciplined, he said.

Whatever the cause, the outcome is concerning.

“It should be unacceptable in Maryland, as it should be anywhere, for such a small share of any student group to pass a test that measures what we consider to be a foundational skill,” Polikoff said.

Tenette Smith, the state’s chief academic officer, said disparities in students’ math performance are the result of long-standing, systemic factors, and are not a reflection of the students’ capacity. Historically, Maryland’s Black children have been underrepresented in elementary school advanced math courses, she said, making it difficult for students to accelerate later.

“There is absolutely no difference in the ability or potential of Black or Brown children compared to any of their peers,” Smith said.

In the summer of 2020, amid the nationwide racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, the Maryland education department launched an initiative dedicated to Black boys’ academic excellence. Former Queen Anne’s County Superintendent Andrea Kane, who served on the task force, said the group recommended a statewide push to close the achievement gap between Black male algebra test-takers and their white peers, among other things, but the group’s ideas were never fully funded or implemented, Kane said.

“We had a chance to address this problem by creating more humanizing environments in schools where teachers connect with students, no matter what their background might be,” Kane said. “We never made the push.”

Ruthlessly cumulative

Maryland should have been focused on Black students’ math achievement long before the pandemic, said Michael, the state board president and former math teacher.

He helped craft an expansive new policy that instructs Maryland schools to focus on fundamentals, like memorization of math facts, and requires 60 minutes of math instruction daily for students in elementary and middle schools, among other measures.

It also changes when students learn algebra.

“Math is ruthlessly cumulative,” Michael said. “If you are lost in the sauce on the material, you struggle to see the relevance. If you come to class with too few skills to do that day’s lesson, your self-efficacy goes down. It’s all connected.”

Prince George’s County schools are already on the right track. Several of them have passing rates on the state Algebra I test that are two or three times the state average. At Greenbelt Middle, for example, two-thirds of students who take the algebra test pass, and most of them are Black.

Principal Marcellus Clement said the district trained him and other principals on the math curriculum, so when questions come up about how to teach a concept, he and his educators can brainstorm together in what he calls productive struggle.

“If they’re not prepared going to that next level, I haven’t done my job,” he said. “And I won’t rest until I know every single kid in this building is ready.”

She loves math. They hate it.

When high school education falls short, Cristina Packard picks up the pieces.

Her 14-week algebra course at Towson University is designed to get underprepared college students up to speed fast, meeting three times a week for two hours. The extra time allows students to shift from remedial math to credit-bearing coursework in the same semester.

Towson runs one of the largest remedial math programs in the state, serving more than 500 students, according to data from the Maryland Higher Education Commission. Sandy Spitzer, Towson’s mathematics department chair, said the university is committed to helping students get their undergraduate degrees in four years, and classes like Packard’s should help them do it.

Packard, a former engineer for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., loves math as much as some of her students loathe it. She wishes they had gotten better math instruction before they landed in her class, but she hopes it’s not too late to spark their excitement.

“Math is beautiful, and when you get to teach it, it becomes more beautiful,” said Packard, who is cheery and petite and sips from a coffee mug emblazoned with a math pun.

She tries to make the topic accessible: Deciding whether to rent or buy skis? Choosing between two credit cards with different interest rates? Those deliberations require solving for an unknown, she said. They require algebra.

And sometimes, she has a breakthrough.

One student who started the course saying he hated the subject now wants to pursue more advanced math, beyond what the university requires. The lessons had finally started to click.

This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program.

Banner reporter Sahana Jayaraman and editor Greg Morton contributed to this story.