In the 2016–17 school year, more than half of the schools that served grades 6-8 provided math intervention classes all three years, finds a survey by the nonprofit Education Development Center.
The survey, based on a nationally representative sample of urban and suburban public schools, also found that only 21 percent of those classes focused just on enhancing grade-level content; 35 percent focused on helping students master foundational concepts from earlier grades, and 44 percent covered both.
More than half of the schools that offered math remediation in at least one grade chose students based on state test scores and teacher recommendations. About 64 percent of the intervention classes had fewer than 15 students.
Less than a third of schools did not offer any math-support classes. Most often, administrators reported they either lacked money or time in the school schedule to support them. The survey was part of the National Science Foundation’s Strengthening Mathematics Intervention project.
