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Mathematics Beyond the School Day

Mathematics Listening Tour – Brief Report

In the Fall of 2023 we conducted a listening tour across the state of Florida in an effort to understand the current state of mathematics education. This brief reports on what we learned from parents/caregivers and other stakeholders about ensuring students are successful in mathematics.

Key Finding: Parents Desire Additional Resources to Help Their Children With Mathematics

"There's always been a very big push with reading and math has always been neglected…There's reading coaches. There's reading interventionists. There's all these things devoted to reading, which don't get me wrong, reading is absolutely important, but there's nothing for math, you know, and teachers feel it.”

— Southeast Florida District Leader

Listen to the quote series!

“When my first grader asks [for] help in math, I have to tell him, excuse me. I go to YouTube [to] teach [myself], and then I go teach him. And that’s how I help him, you know, but I struggle with math, I struggle.”

— Southeast Florida Parent

Listen to the quote series!

“They [parents] don’t even know how to help the kid. And it’s hard because the kid’s getting behind. And then once they’re getting behind once, they keep getting behind every year. And that’s what we struggle [with].”

— Southeast Florida Parent

Listen to the quote series!

Read the full brief report on our key findings and their implications on mathematics beyond the school day. 

Read the Full Brief

Read our Landscape Analysis on mathematics education in the State of Florida.

Read the Landscape Analysis
A bar graph showing what percentage of surveyed parents felt comfortable talking to a math teacher about math learning (67%), talking to their student about math learning (60%), talking to administrators about math learning (52%), helping their students with math homework (49%), and talking to a teacher about how they teach math (45%).
Parents report feeling uncomfortable talking about math to both their students and their teachers. 

Parents also frequently commented on how math is taught differently today than how they learned it in school, and the need for resources or community events to bring parents up to speed on new mathematics teaching methods. 

Coaches, district administrators, school administrators, and teachers especially report that parental involvement and support is not emphasized enough within their schools. 

They also touched on the lack of investment for mathematics resources and support pales in comparison to investment in support of reading skills, from a school to state level. 

    This is a bar graph showing the percentages by which coaches, district administration, school administration, and teachers reported that parental involvement in school activities and parental support for school math achievement were emphasized in schools.

    Recommendation: Schools Can Offer Community Mathematics Events

    • Connect with families around mathematics
    • Expose parents and caregivers to the type of mathematics learning their children experience
    • Host family math nights, parent academies, and community-embedded mathematics events

    Recommendation: Schools Can Support Families With Mathematics at Home

    • Send home informational flyers or instructional videos with information about what math students are learning in school
    • Create take-home math kits with manipulatives and activities for parents to teach their students through play

    Recommendation: Schools Can Offer After-School Tutoring Programs

    • Offer freely-available after-school tutoring programs
    • Provide districts with flexible funding to fund the staff and materials for these programs in ways that best meet their unique communities