Carnegie Math Pathways

WestEd’s Carnegie Math Pathways and World Education, Inc. are Awarded a $3.8M IES Grant to Expand Adult Numeracy and Digital Literacy

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WestEd’s Carnegie Math Pathways and World Education, Inc. are Awarded a $3.8M IES Grant to Expand Adult Numeracy and Digital Literacy

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WestEd’s Carnegie Math Pathways and World Education, Inc. have been awarded a four-year, $3.8M grant by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to increase numeracy and digital literacy among adult learners. This partnership is part of a multi-year effort through the IES-funded Building Adult Skills Network to develop and test interventions to support millions of adults in the United States with strengthening their basic skills and overcome academic attainment gaps.

Numeracy and digital literacy skills are essential for educational and career opportunities and informed, productive citizenry, but according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 16 percent of the adult population in the United States is not digitally literate and nearly a third does not have the numeracy skills to complete common quantitative tasks such as calculating with whole numbers and percentages. This grant will generate evidence on how to best support adult learners with gaining these critical skills.

“Adult numeracy in the U.S. is a significant barrier to individuals’ advancement of quality of life, as well as to societal progress more generally.” Ann Edwards, Pathways’ Director of Research and Implementation and the grant’s principal investigator, said.

“With this project, we are aiming to contribute to knowledge and practice addressing the challenge of improving levels of adult numeracy and digital literacy in the United States.”

Working in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Pathways and World Education, Inc. will develop a 10-week course designed to improve adult basic numeracy and digital literacy in Pennsylvania, which has a diverse adult education population.

The approach will draw from the success of Carnegie Math Pathways’ adaptive technologies to address specific learning gaps, provide supports for English Language Learners (ELLs), and incorporate routines that promote positive self-identities as learners. By designing the course to be delivered fully online or in blended formats, the research team will also explore how a personalized and adaptive online learning experience can help cultivate the development of numeracy and digital literacy.

Another aspect of the project is professional development support for educators of adult learners. According to a 2015 study by the American Institutes of Research, most educators of adult learners have less experience teaching adults than their full-time counterparts and have less access to professional development. By providing a professional development component, the research team will equip educators of adult learners with strategies and skills necessary to design and teach rigorous adult learning programs.

The project will work with approximately 45 adult numeracy instructors to serve more than 1,600 adult basic education learners across rural and urban learning sites in Pennsylvania. Findings will contribute and link to the overarching goals of the Adult Skills Network, funded by IES, to gather research and evidence to improve adult basic skills and academic attainment using technology.

Learn more about this project as well as the Adult Skills Network here.

All California Community Colleges Can Meet the Requirements of AB 705. Here’s How.

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A central goal of California’s AB 705, passed in 2017, was to ensure that all students complete transfer-level English and math classes within a year, without first taking remedial courses. In fact, it requires that colleges place students into courses where they have the greatest likelihood of completing transfer courses, and restricts them from requiring remediation that delays students’ progress toward a degree. In July, EdSource reported that a majority of the state’s community colleges are still not yet fully implementing the requirements of this law.

It can be challenging for colleges to wade through uncharted waters and make the systemic changes needed to meet the law’s requirements. But proven solutions and resources are available to help institutions rise to the challenge. At a number of schools, these waters have already been charted, mapped, and skillfully navigated through partnerships with research-based organizations, and the implementation of solutions shown to help students succeed directly in transfer-level math courses.

Over the past decade, tens of thousands of students have succeeded in Carnegie Math Pathways Quantway and Statway courses, regardless of their original math placement level. We’ve served nearly 80,000 students, with 3 to 4 times as many of those students earning college math credits as those in traditional math sequences. We’ve helped institutions achieve these outcomes with a holistic approach. Our pedagogy centers student collaboration and provides social-emotional support to elevate students’ confidence and sense of belonging. We also build strong relationships with faculty, assist administrators with rethinking placement, and critically examine our student data.

And we’re not the only organization helping colleges transform their approaches to traditional math remediation. The California Acceleration Project (CAP), is a professional development network that exists specifically to support California’s community colleges with increasing completion and equity by transforming remediation. CAP has worked with all 115 California community colleges to implement reforms aimed at increasing student completion of transferable, college-level math and English requirements.

The Dana Center provides support to help educators successfully implement math pathways, with targeted efforts at the institution and state levels. Recently, Dana created a toolkit designed to help institutions successfully implement corequisite math courses. This comprehensive resource, supported by Strong Start to Finish, provides practical tools and profiles of institutions that have made this change. (Carnegie Math Pathways served as a contributor and on the national board of advisors for this toolkit.)

We owe it to our students to give them the best possible chance of success in college. It’s true that AB 705 has prompted the need for big change. But the evidence shows that this type of change is not just possible, it can lead to greater success for students. And while change isn’t necessarily easy, a wide array of supports from organizations like ours, CAP, the Dana Center, and others exist to help institutions with everything from placement, to advising, to instruction. Choosing to not meet the requirements of AB 705 is choosing to uphold the status quo, which has barred hundreds of thousands of students, especially Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students and those experiencing poverty, from completing their degree simply because well-intentioned, but ill-designed remediation courses hold them back. We owe it to our students to do what we so often ask of them in class—to dispassionately evaluate quantitative evidence and act on it.

Advancing Equity in Math Classrooms: What We Mean When We Say ‘Reimagine Math Teaching and Learning’

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A little over a year after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, we’re reflecting on the commitment to equity we reaffirmed in our statement after their deaths. We continue to believe that “educated citizens are key to a just and equitable society.” Yet we continue to see persistent barriers to math education that impact who has access to and succeeds in postsecondary education. These barriers continue to hold back students—especially Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and low-income students—from reaching their full potential not just in college and the workforce but as citizens. Students can earn higher salaries with a degree, but what more could they accomplish equipped with and empowered by a firm grasp of statistical or quantitative reasoning? What systems, institutions, or policies could they make more just or transform to benefit their communities?

Our contribution to the fight to make math education more equitable has been proving that all students, regardless of demographics, can succeed directly in college-level math, saving students time, money, and morale. But the impact of high quality math education can be so much more far-reaching than the degree our students earn. It can influence decisions big and small that affect our lives and those around us, from choosing a credit card to evaluating climate change data.

Developed over the course of our first 10 years of operation, here are some of the components of high quality math education that we’ve learned can not only make student success in math and college more equitable but can make math an empowering tool for students to grow self-sufficiency and to advocate for themselves in their lives.

Culturally relevant curricula

When students see themselves in culturally relevant curricula, they can gain a firmer understanding of how math can be applied to the real world and how they can use it to empower themselves and their communities. It also reaffirms the reality that their lived experiences have a place in their math classrooms, despite what previous math learning experiences may have led them to believe.

Too often, “rigor” in math is associated with abstract, decontextualized algebra or calculus content. But if, instead, rigorous math challenges students to be involved in their own learning and to think critically, then what we think of as rigorous math should include contextualized statistical and quantitative reasoning. Positioning algebra and calculus as the gold standard of mathematical rigor reinforces dominant narratives about ability and race by framing inequitable experiences and outcomes as meritocratic. 1 2

By providing content that is more accessible (yet no less rigorous than algebra or calculus), students can begin to see how they are capable of excelling in complex math. Jennifer Morris, a Quantway instructor at the College of Menominee Nation, which in any given semester serves students representing 12 to 16 different Native American tribes, summed it up this way: “Students know that they’re not represented in the textbooks, and they’ve known it all along. But until they see themselves represented, they don’t realize what an impact that has.”

Showing students they’re capable of doing math

Social-emotional activities that promote growth mindset, or the belief that ability can be strengthened through hard work and the right support, are crucial to helping students unlearn the deeply ingrained messaging they’ve received about who is and isn’t a “math person.” We regularly hear from students who discontinued their studies because they simply could not earn the math credit needed to graduate.

One concrete way we help foster students’ growth mindset is by assigning a reading in each Pathways course about the neuroscience of learning and how we can grow our brains. Following the reading, students complete a short set of activities reflecting on the article. In a randomized control study, 20% of the students in the control group withdrew from the course, compared to only 9% of the students who read the growth mindset article.

While research shows we can positively build up students’ beliefs about themselves as math learners and doers, we can’t rely on growth mindset alone to make math classrooms more equitable. Doing so can place disproportionate responsibility on students for their success when a significant portion of it depends on one key person–their instructor.

Showing instructors that their students are capable of doing math

Students benefit from a growth mindset but many may not come to believe they have a high capacity to learn if their instructor doesn’t believe it first. Racial and gender-based stereotypes about math talent and ability can have profound negative effects on minoritized students. This is why a significant, ongoing commitment to examining how we perceive students is essential if we want to see more equitable outcomes.

In Pathways courses, we prepare educators by helping them expand their thinking about what students can achieve. This is put into acute focus when they encounter the collaborative learning aspect of Pathways courses for the first time, wherein instructors play more of a facilitator role, allowing students to struggle productively to arrive at their answers. It’s not uncommon for educators to be surprised by how much students can learn without their guidance, especially in the online versions of our courses where students collaborate on Zoom, often without the instructor.

“The thing that surprised me the most about teaching (Quantway online),” George Hurlburt, math faculty at SUNY Corning Community College, said, “is how successful the students could be without the teacher being in the room. I really thought it would be a problem and that I would have to regularly join the collaboration to help the students get through…But they didn’t quit and that’s what impressed me the most about them.”

Reimagining math teaching and learning

Truly reimagined math teaching and learning ensures that pedagogy and curricula do not perpetuate the harm that traditional math models inflict, from stereotyping to tracking to cutting down students’ confidence. The devastation of last year’s killings and the gross inequities laid bare by the pandemic continue to challenge us to examine how to dismantle systems that hold back minoritized students.

We’re looking critically at our course assessments—can we better align them with the collaboration and communication skills students have built in Carnegie Math Pathways courses? We’re examining our social emotional supports—can they be more robust in the online space? And we’re finding ways to provide better scaffolding for students to have conversations about math lessons contextualized with social justice issues.

A generation of students is grappling with how to move forward after experiencing deeply traumatic moments in our country’s history. Everyone has a part to play in how we help our students respond. Making math more equitable and more empowering is ours, and we’re honored to continue this mission in the next decade.

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1 Battey, D., & Leyva, L. A. (2016). A framework for understanding whiteness in mathematics education. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 9(2), 49–80. https://doi.org/10.21423/jume-v9i2a294

2Leyva, L. A., McNeill, T., Marshall, B., & Guzmán, O. (2021, March). “It seems like they purposefully try to make as many kids drop”: An analysis of logics and mechanisms of racial-gendered inequality in introductory mathematics instruction. The Journal of Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1879586

Key Takeaways from a Decade of the Math Pathways Movement

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Earlier this year I had a wonderful conversation with three key education reform leaders on the movement to create math pathways. As I reflect on that discussion and particularly how Carnegie Math Pathways has helped shape this field, a few things stand out in terms of what has been most impactful and where there is further work to be done in reshaping mathematics to better serve our students and ensure success.

1. Data is essential to understanding the problem we are trying to solve, to motivating the will to make change, and to helping us identify potential solutions.

Thinking back to the early 2000’s, most of us understood from our own experiences on campuses that mathematics was a barrier to success. But it wasn’t until Tom Bailey’s work at the Community College Research Center (CCRC) in 2010 that the problem was put into sharp relief. CCRC’s research demonstrated that once students were placed in remedial or developmental mathematics, only 20% completed a single college level math class within three years. And this system of remediation particularly disadvantages marginalized students, including Black, Latinx, Indigenous students, and students experiencing poverty.

Developmental mathematics is a well intended solution to a very real problem; yet its design actually prevents students from learning and succeeding in college level mathematics. The system of developmental mathematics has stopped half a million students a year from graduating or transfering. Knowing this has forced all of us as educators to ask hard questions about our current approaches. It’s spurred us to examine our own institutional data to understand how these national statistics relate to what is actually happening with our own students. As we begin to understand the impact of this system within our own institutions, it becomes clear that the status quo is unacceptable, that a more just and equitable solution is needed.

By taking a more comprehensive, data-informed view of the system that generates these outcomes, we are better able to understand our students’ experiences, the factors impacting their experiences, and how best to address them.

2. Reimagining mathematics education so that it is a gateway to college success for every student requires systems change, not mere tweaks to existing structures.

Through critically examining the system, it became clear that multiple factors affect student success, namely, how students are placed into classes, the sequence of developmental courses students must pass before being allowed to enroll in college level mathematics, and what mathematics content students actually need to know to meet their college, career, and life goals.

We learned that traditional placement methods overplace students into developmental mathematics courses (often a sequence of courses) before allowing them to enter a credit-bearing college level course, financially burdening students and significantly lengthening their educational journey.

Data from the Carnegie Math Pathways showed that students performed just as well with college level mathematics content regardless of whether they were assessed as needing intermediate algebra, elementary algebra, or even pre-algebra.

In fact, Carnegie Math Pathways programs, Quantway and Statway, showed that sequences of developmental courses were not necessary. Students could succeed in college level mathematics if simultaneously given the right supports. This evidence has helped spark the movement of corequisite remediation, which is now in place in roughly half the states across the country.

At the same time, the math pathways approach has ensured that more students are learning mathematics relevant to their careers and interests such as statistics and quantitative reasoning. No longer are all students, regardless of interest or major, on a single trajectory to calculus inspired by our nation’s race to space against the Soviets in the 1950s. Instead, mathematics departments are following the advice of the mathematics and statistical professional societies in offering differentiated pathways that give students the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in their careers and lives in the 21st century.

3. Developing confident and successful learners requires transforming their learning experience inside the classroom.

The structural changes of redesigning placement, implementing corequisite remediation, and aligning math pathways with majors are essential to improving student outcomes and experiences. But they are not sufficient. Developing confident and successful learners and doers of mathematics requires changing how students engage with mathematics inside the classroom. Carnegie Math Pathways has shown that by actively engaging in contextualized mathematics in a supportive and inclusive environment, students develop deep conceptual knowledge, build confidence, and gain transferable hard and soft skills they need to be successful in mathematics and beyond. Because of Quantway and Staway, and programs like them, students are pursuing mathematics-based careers that they never before thought possible.

faculty at a carnegie math pathways event

Every student deserves the chance to succeed and advance, and nowhere can students feel an institutions’ commitment to them more than in the classroom. Creating powerful and effective learning experiences that help students build a growth mindset and foster a sense of belonging in class and in college requires investment in faculty professional development. For example, the State University of New York, through its partnership with Carnegie Math Pathways, has exemplified this commitment to professional learning by establishing a network of mathematics educators across their institutions who are focused on sharing learning and advancing instructional practice. And this investment has led to sustainable change for their students.

Our path forward

In the last 10 years, the Carnegie Math Pathways network of researchers and practitioners has played a leading role, alongside the Charles A. Dana Center and Complete College America, in launching a movement that has supported educators in transforming the educational lives of hundreds of thousands of students nationwide and abroad. While the Covid pandemic has made plain and even exacerbated the inequities in our educational system, math pathways continue to be a proven and sure step in dismantling some of these inequities.

Carnegie Math Pathways remains committed to our goals of improving math learning experiences for every student through innovative course solutions and by strengthening faculty development in equitable and inclusive instruction, and more. Progress toward this goal is possible because educators and administrators who are deeply passionate about making math teaching and learning more equitable are taking action.

So what actions can you and your institution take?

  • Begin by understanding your students’ experiences. Increasingly, many of us know the hard quantitative data about how our current systems serve our students. But knowing their personal stories makes the impact of those facts and figures all too real and impossible to ignore. Talk to them, interview them, ask them about their journey in deciding to come to your school, the process of enrolling, selecting and attending classes, and preparing for their future beyond your school. What do they hope to achieve? What are their pain points? Where could the system serve them better?
  • Then take the time to examine and understand the system that is responsible for the current outcomes so you can take steps to change it. Some key things you can ask include:
    • Are all the students who could benefit from college math able to take it based on your school’s placement method?
    • Do students have the option to engage in mathematics courses that are aligned to their majors? And how quickly is it possible to progress through their required courses?
    • Are students given the individualized support they need to be successful?
    • And are their experiences showing them the relevance of mathematics to their lives and futures and building their confidence as learners?
  • Reach out and connect with others. You don’t have to do this alone. Form a community of like-minded colleagues with whom you can share practices and ideas. Math faculty can connect with faculty in related disciplines to understand the specific mathematics skills students need to be successful in these disciplines. Faculty can connect with advisors to understand how incoming students are guided in selecting course pathways. Understanding each others’ perspectives may lead to new solutions for students. It may be that more can be done to prepare students for placement, that simple additional supports could significantly boost students’ identity and confidence as math learners, or that an alternative pathway would better meet the needs of non-STEM majors, saving them time and money and making it more likely they successfully advance academically.

We acknowledge that these tasks are complex and require time, resources, and commitment. Yet, the hard work has tremendous payoff. All of us need to understand our students’ goals and their experiences within the systems we create. It is incumbent upon all of us to create institutions and systems worthy of the students we serve. Together, the Carnegie Math Pathways network of educators has made tremendous progress over the last 10 years in transforming student’s learning experience and increasing success in gateway college mathematics. In the next 10 years I am confident we can do even more.

Sparking a Movement: A Look Back at a Decade of Carnegie Math Pathways

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From COVID-19 to criminal justice statistics, personal finance to polling data, math is everywhere, and it matters. It’s more valuable than just a course to get you the credits needed to graduate and it isn’t just for those seeking a STEM-related degree or career. To know and understand math is empowering, enabling individuals to make informed decisions and evaluate information critical to their lives, communities, and society at-large.

Ten years ago, the Carnegie Math Pathways brought together educators, researchers, and institutional leaders to form a unique network committed to disrupting the inequitable status quo system of developmental math education, which was failing half a million students each year and depriving them of a degree or certificate to advance their goals.

In the decade since its creation, this network has expanded to thousands of educators across the country who are collectively pushing the boundaries in mathematics education to create quality learning opportunities that propel students to and through college more quickly and with greater success. We’ve always believed that we can accomplish more together than any one of us can accomplish alone. By harnessing the power of educators who know their students and communities best, our national network has developed research-based and educator-tested innovations that change how we think about and approach gateway math education.

“Why would colleges want to make students take two years of remedial courses when people like me are proving that we can be successful by starting out in college statistics?”

For too long, students, particularly low income and those of color, have been required to take multiple remediation courses, costing them additional time, money, and often derailing their education completely. American River College graduate, Cesar Bernardo Torres, could have been one of those students, but his advisor suggested Statway, a Carnegie Math Pathways statistical reasoning course, that gave him the opportunity to complete his math requirement in one year, stay on track to complete his program, and transfer to CSU Sacramento.

Reflecting on that opportunity, he questions: “Why would colleges want to make students take two years of remedial courses when people like me are proving that we can be successful by starting out in college statistics?”

Our goal is to bring opportunities like the one Cesar had to the half a million students who are failed by traditional math education each year. From math pathways that provide career-aligned, accelerated learning options to thoughtfully constructed corequisite courses, and online courses, this network has proven that with the right support, students can be successful in college-level mathematics from the start.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the program saved my education.”

And this success extends beyond students’ gateway math course. Carnegie Math Pathways students consistently earn college math credits at higher rates than their peers in traditional math sequences, leading to higher graduation and transfer rates.  Jacquelyn Lowe, a graduate of CSU Humboldt, sums it up best when she explains that taking Statway at Los Angeles Pierce College gave her the confidence to advance in her education and reach her dreams as a first-generation college student. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that the program saved my education,” Lowe said. “Statway was hard but there was so much support. I learned that I was fully capable of succeeding in college statistics. Statway did more than speed up my college career—it was the reason I graduated.”

These are just two examples of student success forged by a math class in which students’ connection to their class, instructor, and content are key. Developed by faculty, Carnegie Math Pathways courses bring a novel collaborative and community-based approach to math instruction that dispels the notion that math is simply a hurdle to overcome on the road to graduation. Instead, our course design, and the network of instructors behind it, are helping students make connections to the math they see around them, and to see themselves as capable math learners—in many cases for the first time ever. The result is students who not only pass their math class, but thrive in it.

Michelle Gay, a former Quantway student and graduate of Ridgewater Community College, describes a self-transformation that has been echoed by many Pathways students: “When I became successful at finding solutions I was amazed at the feelings of confidence that came with them. The world became less clouded, and I was becoming more assured of my ability in it.”

This year, we look forward to celebrating the accomplishments of our network over the coming months. We’ll share reflections from educators on what it means to be a part of the network, highlight insights and lessons learned on creating quality math learning experiences for students, and examine how our efforts have contributed to more equitable outcomes and opportunities for students in mathematics.

As we make it through an unprecedented academic year and look ahead to the next decade, we’ll continue to move forward, together, to create math learning experiences that enable students not only to advance their goals, but also to value the math around them, developing and spreading the confidence that math isn’t to be avoided or feared but appreciated and seen for what it is—empowering.