You've probably heard parents say "I don't understand how they do math now. It makes no sense." or "I don't think they teach anything in school anymore." Or maybe you've said it yourself.  There's no doubt that something is broken about how math is being taught in North American schools right now and the data is catching up to what parents have been saying for years.

Numbers Don't Lie 
Since 2003, Canada's overall math scores have dropped by 35 points, which is the equivalent of losing almost two full years of learning. 
Seven provinces declined more than 40 points on the PISA assessment since 2003, while the share of students performing at the lowest levels in math has more than doubled in most provinces.
Ontario's most recent EQAO tests show that 36 percent of Grade 3 students, 49 percent of Grade 6 students, and 42 percent of Grade 9 students are not meeting provincial standards in 2024–2025.
Nearly half of Grade 6 students are not meeting basic standards in one of the wealthiest, most educated provinces in Canada.
Canada spends more per student than the OECD average and higher spending is not translating into better outcomes. It's not a money problem. It's something else entirely.

So What Went Wrong?
A shift that happened in classrooms over the past couple of decades, one that sounded great in theory but has turned out to be a disaster in practice.
It's called inquiry-based or discovery-based learning in Academia. The idea is that instead of a teacher-directed teaching, students are encouraged to figure it out themselves. Explore. Discover. Collaborate. This exploration, discovery and collaboration can only work if they have the knowledge and skills built. It doesn't work to ask students to figure out the knowledge, skillset and then build from it.
The noble idea has been executed terribly and especially when it comes to math.
There was a huge move away from teaching skills, procedures, strategies and applications toward an entirely inquiry-based approach, says Lynda Colgan, professor emerita of elementary mathematics at Queen's University and research is now showing clearly that this approach doesn't work for most children.
"For too long, teachers have been told that inquiry-based instruction works best in math. That claim is not supported by high-quality research. Explicit, teacher-led instruction is most effective, especially for novice learners and students with math difficulties," says Anna Stokke, professor at the University of Winnipeg and author of a major C.D. Howe Institute report on the crisis.
You wouldn't teach someone to play piano by putting them in a room with a piano and saying "figure it out." You'd teach them scales first. You'd build the foundation. Math, Science, Reading and Writing works the same way and we've been skipping the scales.

The "Math Gene" 

Our cultural attitude toward math is also part of the problem.
"I've never seen an adult proudly say at a dinner party, 'I can't read,'" notes Professor Colgan. "But people will say, 'My son's failing calculus but that's okay, I failed it five times too and he didn't inherit the math gene.' It's socially acceptable to not like math and to not do well in math, and that is highly problematic."

We have somehow decided as a society that being bad at math is a personality trait and that attitude affects the way children see the subject and their skills. 

Many teachers carry their own "math anxiety" into the classroom saying things like "This is going to be very hard" or "We're going to do something really difficult today," or "I hate math too but we have to do it," and children pick up on these nuances all the time.

When kids hear that math is hard, painful or terrible from their parents and teachers they believe it and once they believe it, learning becomes a battle.

The Topics That Disappeared

Parents who help their children with homework often notice that the curriculum has been quietly hollowed out.
Curricula have been weakened with each major overhaul, with entire topics removed such as Circle Geometry and Geometric Proofs and others are dramatically delayed. The BC curriculum now requires students to know their multiplication tables by the end of Grade 7, whereas its common in many countries to require this by the end of Grade 2 or 3.

Countries like Singapore, where 41% of students are achieving at the highest levels compared to just 12% in Canada have kids mastering these fundamentals many years earlier.
We keep rearranging what we teach, delaying foundational skills, and removing topics that feel "too hard" and then we wonder why students are unable to follow their ideal career path or why they arrive at university underprepared.

What This Means for Your Child
The consequences follow your child long after they leave the classroom.
Less than 50 percent of Canadian students currently graduate with a Grade 12 math and science credit and because of that, they are eliminated from between 65 to 75 percent of all post-secondary programs, all technical programs, and all apprenticeship programs.
Seventy-five percent of pathways are closed because of a weak academic foundation built in elementary and high school.
A child's math scores in kindergarten and Grade 1 are a better predictor of overall success in school than reading scores which means the window to build that foundation is earlier than most parents realize.

What Can We Do?
Experts agree on the solution, even if the system is slow to catch up.
The research points clearly to explicit, teacher-led instruction with clear explanations, worked examples, practice, and feedback. We need to return to structured, purposeful teaching where the teacher teaches. PISA results show that teacher-directed instruction is a stronger predictor of math achievement than student-oriented learning.

Two immediate efforts a parent can make to support their child that experts recommend are multiplication tables by the end of Grade 4, and having your child assessed on their math abilities as they grow to catch them if they are falling behind before the gaps become impossible to close.

Don't wait for the school system to fix itself. Talk about math positively. Don't tell your kids think it's hard. Make it normal like reading books, not daunting and scary.

The Facts
"They don't teach anything anymore" might feel like an exaggeration but when nearly half of Grade 6 students aren't meeting basic math standards, it's hard to argue with.

The math crisis in Canadian and North American schools is real, and it's been building for over two decades. It is costing our children opportunities they don't even know they're losing yet.

The system needs to change but while we wait for that to happen, our children still need to learn and that starts with us taking action where we can.

Worried about your child's math foundation? RESET Learning specialize in building confidence and filling in the gaps, no matter where your child is starting from. Get in touch to book a free trial session!

How is RESET Learning helping students in Vancouver with digital-free opportunities

RESET Learning is a digital-free learning environment. Students are asked to put away their devices and to activate both their bodies, through physical activity in our gym before sitting down to focus and put their "brains on" to support deep learning and understanding for the purpose of building lifelong learners and academic confidence.

The brain, like muscle, needs to work in order to grow. AI shortcuts may provide time savings by offering quick results, but over the long term the cost to the brain may not be worth it. What is most alarming is that this study showed that the cognitive loss isn't something that can be rectified at a later time. 

With this, it is clear that our children need opportunities to build their brain and learning capacity in an ever increasingly AI dominated world. Strong cognition is a lifelong gift that will not only support them in their future endeavours, but also in finding their purpose and meaning in life.