by Steven Yoder, The Hechinger Report
February 20, 2026
GREENVILLE, Ala. — Towards the top of a math lesson on a sunny Friday in October, fourth-grade trainer D’Atra Howard and math educational coach LaVeda Grey ducked out of the classroom to huddle. Howard’s college students at Greenville Elementary College had been calculating remainders in division issues on worksheets, and Howard wished to seek advice from Grey on which ones wanted further assist.
Howard is in her second yr of educating. She’s working on the college, 45 miles south of Montgomery, Alabama, with an emergency certificates — a brief license that enables somebody with no skilled educating credential into the classroom. Grey, who works with a half dozen of the college’s 16 academics, was observing Howard and stepping in to assist as wanted.
Alabama is betting that funneling more cash into enhancing instruction, together with hiring coaches like Grey, can overcome trainer inexperience and household poverty to boost scholar scores. State and nationwide leaders reward the state’s features up to now.
However on the bottom in poor colleges, employees say they’ve far to go to shut gaps with better-off components of the state.
A Hechinger Report evaluation of 15 of Alabama’s least-affluent districts — which represents about 10 p.c of the state’s districts — reveals that college students there have gained floor for the reason that pandemic and after the Alabama Numeracy Act handed in 2022. Solely about 1 p.c of scholars earned a proficient rating on the state math take a look at within the 2020-21 college yr, however round 14 p.c earned proficient scores in 2024-25.
Nevertheless, the hole between the poorest districts and the state common continues to be extensive. Statewide, round 24 p.c of scholars scored proficient in 2020-21, in comparison with round 42 p.c in 2024-25.
Greenville Elementary is an instance of a college that has seen scores rebound. Greater than 80 p.c of scholars on the college are eligible without cost and reduced-price lunch, and greater than 1 in 5 folks dwell in poverty in Butler County, the place it’s positioned. However the college’s proportion of fourth graders scoring proficient on the state math take a look at jumped from 7 p.c in 2023 to 24 p.c in 2024.
A part of that’s as a result of work of Grey, who stated that Howard has sharpened her eye for college kids who stumble. “Beginning out, it wasn’t all the time like that,” she stated. “I needed to level out, ‘Hey, this scholar, once we walked round, did you see that they didn’t have something written down or had the fallacious figures?’”
After a 10-minute dialogue, Howard and Grey pinpointed a number of college students who Howard would pull apart for particular person work on the approaching Monday. Then Howard hustled again to class.
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Analysis suggests elementary college math issues lots to tutorial and life outcomes. Early math achievement predicts success in studying and science via eighth grade, a 2013 examine discovered. Math expertise additionally higher predict future earnings than different components like studying scores, parent-child relationships or youngsters’s well being, in line with a 2024 City Institute report.
Alabama’s 2022 legislation reshaped math instruction on the elementary stage by offering cash for all colleges to rent math coaches and by mandating that struggling colleges use state-approved math curricula, amongst different modifications. It additionally required college trainer preparation applications to incorporate extra math instruction programs. To assist college students who’re behind, the state launched a summer season math program to get low-scoring fourth and fifth graders as much as grade stage.
The politics of spending cash on training in Alabama have flipped. On the 2019 Nationwide Evaluation of Academic Progress, often known as the Nation’s Report Card, the state ranked final within the proportion of fourth graders — 28 p.c — scoring at or above proficient in math. At 28 elementary colleges, not a single scholar scored proficient.
Legislators grasped the risk that this represented to the state’s financial ambitions, stated Peter Jones, affiliate professor of political science and public administration on the College of Alabama at Birmingham. In a state making an attempt to lure buyers from biotech, finance and different sectors, higher colleges assist corporations recruit certified employees and entice out-of-state workers with youngsters, stated Jones. The early success of the 2019 Alabama Literacy Act, which equally revamped how colleges within the state train studying, made it simpler to vote for a equally styled invoice concentrating on math, he stated.
The end result was that in a state the place Republicans dominate authorities, Republicans shepherded the numeracy legislation via the Legislature, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed it. The Legislature funded it at $15 million in its first yr, which state lawmakers have since elevated to $95 million.
The reform has received reward from nationwide training consultants. On June 3, the Nationwide Council on Trainer High quality launched its evaluation of elementary college math instruction insurance policies within the 50 states. It rated most as weak or unacceptable and just one as robust — Alabama’s.
The newest NAEP take a look at outcomes recommend the modifications are delivering. In fourth-grade math proficiency, Alabama went from ranked final in 2019 to thirty fifth in 2024. It was the one state to beat its 2019 fourth-grade proficiency price. And it was considered one of 18 states the place fourth-grade math scores amongst economically deprived college students grew between 2022 and 2024.
“Not all college students are to the extent that we need to see, however that progress is what we’re actually targeted on,” stated Mark Dixon, president of A+ Training Partnership, an Alabama-based training advocacy group that backed passage of the Numeracy Act.
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Nonetheless, there are immense challenges in narrowing the gaps between Alabama’s poorest and richest districts. Virtually 9 p.c of the state’s academics are engaged on emergency or provisional educating certificates, the most recent state information reveals. However in Alabama’s 15 poorest districts, the share of academics not absolutely licensed is 20 p.c. That disparity undercuts efforts to carry the standard of math instruction, say college leaders and employees.
Two hours north of Greenville is Glen Oaks Intermediate College in Fairfield, a suburb of Birmingham. Ringed by a cover of tall southern pines and dwell oaks, it sits in the course of a neighborhood of newer brick split-level and ranch houses with trim bushes and neat lawns.
However practically a 3rd of Fairfield residents dwell under the poverty line, and 93 p.c of Glen Oaks’ youngsters qualify without cost and reduced-price lunch, making it one of many state’s most economically deprived colleges. Of its academics, greater than a 3rd weren’t absolutely licensed in 2024, in line with state information.
College math educational coach Shenea Robinson stated she devotes most of her time to working with these academics. “It’s simply going like, ‘A, do that, B, do that.’ I really feel like I am taking them via a crash course in a trainer training program,” she stated. “It’s fast-paced. We’ve had lots of tears.”
Sooner or later in October, one of many academics with emergency certificates, Ellanise Hines, labored with 17 fifth graders on calculating the quantity of stable shapes. Whereas one group of scholars labored on a pc, a second group measured Amazon Prime packing containers that Hines was utilizing as hands-on fashions. A 3rd group sat with Hines round a desk doing quantity calculations on worksheets.
Hines has been within the classroom for 2 years and is working towards getting licensed. Two days earlier than this class she’d sat with Robinson to go over one of the simplest ways to show this lesson after which taught it to Robinson as she would her college students. They talked via methods to assist college students having bother.
Fifth grader Haleigh Jackson stated that due to Hines she lastly can calculate volumes and decimals this yr after not getting them in fourth grade. “She broke them down and defined how they labored till I obtained it,” stated Jackson.
State training advocates stated coaches and the usage of high-quality curricula are particularly necessary for academics like Hines who’re nonetheless working in the direction of certification. “When you didn’t have that teaching and also you had that inexperienced trainer coming into the classroom with zero assist, you’d proceed to see the poor outcomes we’ve seen earlier than,” stated Dixon, with the Alabama training advocacy group.
However Robinson stated that for all of the features she makes with inexperienced academics, many don’t return. “Having to start out the method again over with model new folks yearly is difficult,” she stated.
In contrast to at Greenville, proficiency amongst Glen Oaks’ fourth graders has been flat, with simply 6 p.c scoring proficient in each 2023 and 2024 on the state take a look at, effectively under the state 2024 common of 38 p.c. “We’re at 90 to 95 p.c in tutorial progress, so we’re making a distinction,” stated Robinson. However the majority of the college’s third via fifth graders are acting at kindergarten to second-grade stage, she stated.
“A scholar in fifth grade who was on kindergarten stage could have moved to 3rd grade, however they nonetheless are so far-off from proficient,” she stated.
Training advocates reward Alabama for doubling down on elementary math educating. In Might, Ivey signed an training price range that included $27 million to rent an extra 220 math coaches. “Many states will not be investing in enhancing math instruction,” stated Heather Peske, president of the Nationwide Council on Trainer High quality. “So Alabama is kind of a frontrunner.”
States’ willingness to spend on trainer coaching may very well be particularly necessary in coming years. The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 price range requires eliminating greater than $2 billion in devoted federal funding for improved trainer effectiveness, a part of an administration proposal to show devoted training funding streams into state block grants.
Whether or not features among the many state’s least well-off fourth graders will maintain stays to be seen. The advance in Alabama’s poorest districts since 2021-22 would possibly mirror that they’re making up for dropping extra floor through the pandemic. Among the many state’s 15 poorest districts, the decline in scores from the 2018-19 college yr to 2020-21 was higher than the state common.
Some frontline employees wish to see enhancements to maintain the momentum going. Pupil attendance is non-compulsory on the summer season math applications designed to assist struggling fourth and fifth graders, and a report by the state training division discovered that in 2024 simply 1 p.c of eligible fourth and fifth graders confirmed up. At Glen Oaks, lower than half of eligible college students enrolled in summer season math though the college supplied transportation and meals, stated Robinson, and she or he’d like attendance to be necessary.
Lisa Adair, an assistant superintendent on the Butler County district, stated she’d wish to see the Legislature fund math interventionists — specialists who work with particular person college students.
“In the course of the legislative session final yr, we had been making an attempt to elucidate to legislators the distinction between coaches and interventionists,” Adair stated. “Of their heads, coaches are doing the identical factor.” Ultimately, a proposal to fund interventionists didn’t advance, she stated.
Adair hopes the state’s math push opens up alternatives for Butler County college students. Lots of their dad and mom work in native factories in tough circumstances and get house exhausted after being on their ft all day, she stated.
Not too long ago, a workforce improvement group invited district leaders and some academics to tour a few of these crops to assist college employees study in regards to the expertise their college students will want to get jobs there. Producers had been telling the district that some graduates couldn’t do fundamental math and had been struggling of their manufacturing facility jobs.
Adair left with an extra message, one that offers extra urgency to the district’s efforts to enhance math instruction.
“It was a wake-up name,” she stated. “I’m grateful for our workforce improvement, don’t get me fallacious. However for me, it was reaffirmation that I don’t need my youngsters to be a part of the working poor. I need extra for them.”
Information intern Kristen Shen contributed to this report.
This story about elementary college math was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, impartial information group targeted on inequality and innovation in training. Join the Hechinger publication.
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