Elizabeth Huffaker, Dion Burns, Desiree Carver-Thomas, Linda Darling-Hammond, Kramer Dykeman, H. Alix Gallagher, Danielle M. Gomez, Shira Haderlein, Jacob Jackson, Tara Kini, Michal Kurlaender, Beryl Larson, Melanie Leung-Gagné, Yiwang Li, Susanna Loeb, Susan K. Patrick, Morgan S. Polikoff, Heather Price, Sean Reardon, Sherrie Reed, Thomas M. Smith, Lucy Sorensen, Tiffany S. Tan, Lisa Towne
California’s math and literacy trajectories have diverged over the past decade in two important ways. Achievement gaps have widened in math while narrowing in reading, and math has received less consistent state and district attention than literacy. The income-based gap in math grew by roughly 40 percent between 2009 and 2024, while the comparable reading gap narrowed by about 5 percent (Reardon). Districts rank math a distant third priority behind English Language Arts and social-emotional learning (Gallagher et al.). California is now at a consequential moment: the state adopted a new Mathematics Framework in 2023, released its first aligned instructional materials list in November 2025, and is entering a period in which decisions about implementation are likely to shape K–12 math for the next decade.
Key Findings
1. Math achievement gaps by income, race, and gender have grown in California over the past decade. These disparities emerge early and continue to widen as students move through K–8. The math gap is already visible before third grade and grows within cohorts over time, suggesting that both where students begin and how they progress through math instruction contribute to widening inequality. Reading shows no comparable pattern of within-cohort widening (Reardon).
2. Districts deprioritize math, and the state’s instructional vision has not connected strongly with local practice. District leaders rank literacy as a much higher priority than math, and most districts have not treated the 2023 Mathematics Framework as a central driver of their work. While literacy operates with dedicated funding, assessment emphasis, and a clearer implementation chain, math lacks a comparable policy architecture (Gallagher et al.).
3. Districts lack the capacity to support strong math instruction across staffing, professional learning, and system coordination. Highest-need districts face the greatest difficulty hiring and retaining prepared math teachers, and the dominant credentialing pathway compresses preparation into a single post-baccalaureate year. Professional learning in math is limited and usually voluntary, while districts must navigate a fragmented materials-adoption process and more than 50 state initiatives without clear signals about quality or priority (Gallagher et al.; Leung-Gagné; Smith and Li).
4. Advanced math course-taking has declined, even though it remains strongly associated with college enrollment. As many California districts reduced access to eighth-grade algebra, participation in advanced math later in high school also fell, especially in calculus and precalculus. Although the URM/non-URM gap narrowed, it did so largely by reducing access among more advantaged students rather than expanding access among those historically underrepresented. Students who complete advanced math courses continue to enroll in four-year colleges at substantially higher rates, with especially large returns for low-income students (Huffaker; Kurlaender; Reed; Burns and Price).
