SelectivePrep believes that a strong, not merely adequate, understanding of mathematical concepts is a prerequisite for college and career success. The purpose of this section is to provide a brief perspective on recent mathematical achievement as a reference point for parents.

Data shows that U.S. students, even high achievers, lag behind their international peers and that most students do not graduate high school with sufficient mathematical competency to perform college level math:

According to the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, fewer than four of ten 4th and 8th graders are proficient in mathematics. According to this report, a sharp fall-off in U.S. mathematics achievement begins as students reach late middle school, when algebra course work begins.

Only 40% of Illinois high school students scored above the mathematics college readiness benchmark – an ACT (American College Testing) math sub-score of 22 – indicating they could perform college algebra. Nationally, only 42% of high school graduates tested by ACT were ready for college level math.

According to PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), of all the 41 nations participating in its assessment of the math competency of 15 year-olds, 25 ranked higher than the U.S. average, including Korea, Japan, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, and Macao. Only eight were measurably below the US: Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, Serbia and Montenegro, Uruguay, Indonesia, and Tunisia.

Mathematics Literacy Score

Even the highest U.S. achievers were outperformed by their peers in industrialized countries. When comparing the performance of the highest achieving students (e.g., students at the 90th percentile or above), U.S. students scored lower (593) than the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) average (615) on the mathematics literacy scale. Twenty-nine countries had students at the 90th percentile with higher scores than U. S. students on the mathematics literacy scale.

According to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008), the growth of jobs in the mathematics intensive science and engineering workforce will outpace overall job growth by a factor of 3:1.