What kind of education best helps students learn math?

In the province of Ontario, the most recent provincial standardized results (2024–25) show modest improvement in elementary mathematics achievement, but overall performance remains uneven, particularly in the junior grades.

Provincially, 64 per cent of Grade 3 students met the provincial standard, up from 61 per cent the previous year. In contrast, only 51 per cent of Grade 6 students met the standard, indicating that about half of students are not yet achieving expected levels by the end of the junior division.

Student attitudes toward mathematics also decline with age: while 67 per cent of Grade 3 students reported liking mathematics, this dropped to 48 per cent in Grade 6.

These results suggest gradual recovery following COVID-19 pandemic disruptions, but they also point to the necessity for more work to be done for both teachers and students to develop a deeper understanding of the 2020 math curriculum. This curriculum incorporated new priorities like social–emotional learning, coding, mathematical modelling and financial literacy.

Read more: 6 changes in Ontario’s not-so-basic new elementary math curriculum

My research has examined Ontario math education taught by generalist elementary school teachers in dialogue with Chinese mathematics instruction taught by specialist math teachers. Grounded in this work, I believe we should firstly be proud of Ontario math education instead of criticizing it.

This research was part of a partnership grant project from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, with education........

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