Chapter 8: Parental Involvement and Equity in Mathematics

There continue to be large and significant income-related differences in the percentage of children in the United States earning age-appropriate math scores as they go through elementary school (Reardon & Portilla, 2016). On the 2017 U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 22% of fourth graders (youngest grade the test is given) eligible for free or reduced lunch (a marker of low income in the United States) received proficient or higher scores in math compared to 52% of those not eligible for lunch subsidies (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2018). And, as Duncan and Magnuson (2011) discuss, low-income children in the United States entering kindergarten score, on average, one standard deviation lower on math tests than their more affluent peers. School children in the United States also routinely earn lower scores on math tests than do children from other industrialized countries. For example, on the 2015 Test of International Math and Science Studies (TIMSS; Provasnik et al., 2016), U.S. fourth graders ranked 14th in math among children from 49 different industrialized countries. Decreasing achievement gaps in math, as well as more generally improving children’s math skills, are important for children’s academic and subsequent vocational well-being (Blevins-Knabe, 2016; National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008).