Federal data shows post-pandemic student math scores are still down. Maine education officials are responding with a new effort to show students that math has real-world relevance.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Federal data indicates the student math scores that fell during the pandemic are still down. Maine schools are trying to turn things around with a new initiative. Madi Smith of Maine Public reports from one small school district in the Pine Tree State.
SEAN DONOVAN: If you guys can group up in groups of three or four, you can turn your chairs around. And we’re going to do the Candy Crush Data Challenge.
MADI SMITH, BYLINE: In Sean Donovan’s career math class, Brewer High School juniors and seniors are doing one of Donovan’s funtivities (ph). They’re using Skittles to get the mean, median and mode of the color distribution across each pack. Junior Cassie Leavitt is into the lesson.
CASSIE LEAVITT: These Skittles are looking mighty fine right now.
SMITH: I know.
CASSIE: (Laughter) I want to eat them.
SMITH: Donovan says the data collection skills in the activity apply to election polling, medical sampling, supply chain optimization and more. Donovan also expects his students to calculate their answers to problems using formulas in digital spreadsheets.
DONOVAN: Digital skills are very important for most careers now. So that’s kind of another piece that’s being folded into the class.
SMITH: Senior Andre Lutz likes to use his computer.
ANDRE LUTZ: That way, you actually can learn something, like different tools and items that you can use.
SMITH: Lutz wants to study criminal justice.
LUTZ: When we did our first project, we had to relate something in the real world to some of the stuff that we were learning in math. So I just did it based off of, like, the crime rates and stuff like that.
SMITH: It’s part of a new effort from Maine education officials to show students that math has real-world relevance, and it comes in response to low math achievement.
BETH LAMBERT: We’re really approaching it that math is both a skill and a language.
SMITH: Beth Lambert is the chief teaching and learning officer at the Maine Department of Education. She helped spearhead the state’s new back-to-basics action plan.
LAMBERT: I don’t want to say that low test scores are the new normal ’cause that feels like we’re accepting something that I don’t think we are. But I do think there’s a new normal in education. There’s a new expectation.
SMITH: That new expectation, she says, is to make math matter to kids by connecting it to their daily lives.
LAMBERT: That’s what you’re going to see change, is you’re going to see that shift in our classrooms where students are saying, teach me this. I want to know. Give me these skills.
SMITH: Lambert says due to Maine’s tradition of local control, it’s up to districts to decide if and when they want to incorporate the new guidelines. Brewer High School’s district didn’t hesitate. Since the pandemic, the district has been struggling to fill gaps in students’ math skills.
RENITA WARD-DOWNER: Keep doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity.
SMITH: Renita Ward-Downer, who oversees curriculum and professional development for Brewer’s district, says something had to change.
WARD-DOWNER: I think our students have changed, too. And so we’ve got to think about how we can meet their needs and think about how we can build that math is important, math is relevant.
DONOVAN: So it’ll be interesting to see how the distribution of the colors, if they’re consistent…
SMITH: Back in Sean Donovan’s career math class, students are learning that Skittle color distribution is kind of random. Student Andre Lutz had been hoping for more of a particular color.
LUTZ: My favorite Skittle flavor has probably got to be green. I don’t know if it actually has a flavor. I just know the color.
SMITH: Once his group finished their calculations, Lutz had one more question.
LUTZ: Does that mean I can just eat them now?
DONOVAN: Yeah.
SMITH: For NPR News, I’m Madi Smith in Brewer, Maine.
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Madi Smith 2026-01-02 21:19:09
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