Middle school math teachers are all too familiar with a question—usually uttered with a groan—that students ask when they make an unsettling shift into more complex content: “When am I ever going to use this?”
“At the middle school age, that’s a fairly frequent conversation,” said Robert Cook, a math teacher from East Windsor, N.J.
As the evolution of artificial intelligence promises to reshape the workforce, schools struggle with persistent absenteeism, and perceptions change about the value of college and workforce training, answering that question has never been more urgent—or more complicated, teachers told Education Week.
Why would a student want to dig deep to solve a problem if they could just plug it into ChatGPT? As math achievement remains below pre-pandemic levels, can teachers motivate students who are already far behind in understanding foundational math concepts?
To get a sense of biggest challenges for math instruction—particularly at the secondary level—the EdWeek Research Center surveyed 729 educators, both teachers and administrators, between Jan. 28 and March 5. Here are four key findings.
1. Middle school is seen as the most challenging time for learning math.
The survey asked educators what level of challenge students in various grade spans face as they work toward math proficiency. While student struggles in early-grade math have received broad attention in recent years, 44% of respondents said the majority of their students in middle school face severe or very severe challenges, the highest level of any grade span.
Forty percent said high school students have severe or very severe challenges. Thirty-four percent indicated the same about upper elementary students in math, and the number was 19% for early elementary.
Those results aren’t surprising, said Katey Arrington, director of systemic transformation at the Charles A. Dana Center, a research center at the University of Texas, Austin, that focuses on math education.
Middle school is when math lessons shift from basic problems, like adding or multiplying two numbers, to more complex problem-solving that requires both procedural fluency and an understanding of the underlying concepts at work, she said. That transition is a time when math anxiety can take root.
“Teachers have to look at students and say, ‘You can do this. We are going to do this together,’” Arrington said. “‘You are going to see how this is relevant to you and the decisions you make every single day.’”
2. More than half of educators feel pressure to increase middle and high school students’ math achievement.
The survey asked educators how much pressure they feel to improve math achievement at various grade levels. Fifty-one percent said they feel “a lot” of pressure to improve middle school math performance, compared to 48% for high school, 50% for upper elementary, and 34% for lower elementary school.
Given a list of possible reasons why they feel pressure to improve secondary math achievement, the driving force is improving test scores: the administrators and educators cited internal data showing student weaknesses in math, concerns about insufficient improvement, and national tests showing student weakness in math.
Those concerns come as research and federal data show flagging student achievement in math.
While most states say they have graduation rates of 80-95%, math proficiency, as measured by state tests, is most often below 50%, found an April analysis by the Collaborative for Student Success, a nonprofit advocacy organization.
Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that, while math scores for 4th, 8th , and 12th graders they still remain below pre-pandemic levels.
3. Students struggle with fractions the most.
Asked which foundational math skills are hindering students’ academic progress, the greatest number of respondents, 90%, pointed to fractions. Close behind: struggles with pre-algebraic skills, fluency in basic operations, and spatial reasoning.
Fractions are a frequently mentioned pain point in math class, Arrington said.
“We’ve built them up in our society as this thing nobody gets,” she said. “We’ve taught [fractions] at such a surface level for so long. Students can do the calculations, but they don’t understand what’s happening.”
Cook, the middle school math teacher from New Jersey, agreed.
“When kids learn how to compute with fractions, there are so many rules they are supposed to follow,” he said. But without an understanding of when and how those rules come into play, fractions are oftenconfusing or overwhelming, he said.
4. Attendance, engagement are significant challenges in math class.
Asked to identify significant challenges with middle and high school math, respondents’ top answers all related to student engagement: poor attendance, disengagement across courses, and math anxiety.
Schools could address many of those challenges—and improve achievement—by presenting math as a problem-solving tool, rather than a set of rules and formulas, Arrington said.
“Part of the reason we have students with so much anxiety is they don’t see math as relevant,” she said. “We need to show them: ‘Here’s what math can do. And here’s what it can help you do.’”
She pointed to a January 2025 report from the World Economic Forum that surveyed employers about the future of work.
Respondents to that survey identified math as a skill that’s decreasing in importance. Among the skills they deemed as becoming more valuable: creative thinking, problem-solving, and analytical thinking.
In December 2025, Education Week asked senior executives of American companies from a variety of industries what skills schools need to address. They identified solving complex problems, adaptability, and synthesizing information as key skills gaps among their young workers.
“At the same time they say those things, they say math is less and less important,” Arrington said of employers responding to the World Economic Forum survey. “But those things are math.”
Data analysis for this article was provided by the EdWeek Research Center. Learn more about the center’s work.
