Purpose: To discover possible improvements the United States can make in math curriculum

and schooling.
Thesis: Considering the various reasonings behind students’ difficulties with math, the United
States should adopt similar policies to Finland by eliminating the ranking system and making
effective teaching decisions, not political decisions.
1) Why U.S. Math Achievement is an Issue
a) Statistics
i) In a 2004 Gallup poll, 24% of students said that math was their favorite
subject, which was the highest ranking subject (Saad, 2005).
ii) 37% of students say that math is their most difficult subject
iii) 56% of adults say that basic math is required in their job on a day to day
basis.
iv) According to Achieve, Inc., 90% of 2010 college graduates believe that
some form of education is required after high school, illustrating the
importance of math comprehension in lower levels of education (2013).
v) Completing advanced math courses in high school has a greater influence
on whether students will graduate from college than any other factor—
including family background. Students who take math beyond Algebra II
increase their likelihood of persisting to sophomore by about 20
percentage points and nearly double their chances of earning a bachelor’s
degree (Achieve Inc., 2013).
vi) This evidence demonstrates that there is a lack of math achievement in the
United States among students. The fact that people who are in the
workforce and have been through schooling say that education after high
school is required shows the need to fix this issue.
2) Student Difficulties
a) Approximate Number System
i) Strauss argues that it is the slow progression of the approximate number
system in the early stages of development in young children (2013).
ii) This evidence can be used to introduce a reason as to why students have
difficulties with math.
b) Cumulative Qualities
i) Fleming takes a different approach and states that since math is a
cumulative subject, students who have “average” grades in elementary and
middle school have difficulty in high school and college because they
have not mastered the foundation of mathematics (2018).
ii) Then, once students are behind, these “weaker performing students in
particular resort to memorisation strategies in studying mathematics”
(Välijärvi et al., 2003).
 iii) This evidence will be used to illustrate the way students should be taught
and what teachers and schools do wrong in the United States.
c) Math is a Language
i) In 2014, 26% of 12th graders were proficient in math because they have
been learning it all wrong (“Math isn’t hard,” 2014).
ii) This evidence shows that math achievement is an issue and also provides a
reason as to why students have difficulties in math.
d) Math Anxiety
i) In 1988, a study was conducted that examined the math anxiety in middle
and high school students (Wigfield & Meece).
ii) “Highly anxious students are overly concerned with the possible
consequences of failure. The negative emotional states that these self-
focused cognitions evoke can interfere with attentional and learning
processes so that test or task performance is impaired” (Wigfield &
Meece, 1988).
iii) Many students exhibit math anxiety, so this will relate to the students who
read this paper. This evidence also provides another reason as to why
students have problems in math.
3) Motivation and Math
a) Impacts of Motivation
i) Posamentier argues that a large part of student success in the classroom is
due to intrinsic motivation. “Many students demonstrate intrinsic
motivation in their desire to understand a topic or concept, to outperform
others, or to impress others” (Posamentier, 2017).
ii) Adele Gottfried studied the correlation between motivation and
mathematical achievement. In a longitudinal study, students from 9 to 17
years old were examined and it was determined that both achievement and
motivation decline over time (2007)
iii) Gottfried analyzed her results and determined that “from childhood
through adolescence, across varied populations, those with higher
academic intrinsic motivation have been found to be more competent in
school, generally evidencing significantly greater academic achievement,
more positive perceptions of their academic competency, lower academic
anxiety, and less extrinsic motivation” (2017).
iv) All core subject in school have had a progressive decline over the years in
terms of intrinsic motivation, yet math was the steepest (Posamentier,
2017).
v) This evidence will help provide another reason as to why students struggle
in math. Schools need to motivate students more to increase their
achievement in the classroom.
4) Finland Schools
a) How They Operate
i) Teachers are selected from the top 10 percent of the nation’s graduates,
while there is no ranking system in these schools and there is only one
standardized test required for the students when they are a senior in high
school (Hancock, 2011).
ii) The New York Times presents the fact that all high school students in
Finland schools must take physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy, music
and at least two foreign languages, making it a very difficult curriculum
(“Why other countries,” 2013).
iii) “There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students,
schools or regions” (Hancock, 2011).
iv) Finland teachers “prepare kids for life” (Hancock, 2011).
v) Many schools are small enough so that teachers know every student
(Hancock, 2011).
vi) Nearly 30 percent of Finland’s children receive some kind of special help
during their first nine years of school (Hancock, 2011).
vii) “We try to catch the weak students. It’s deep in our thinking” (Hancock,
2011).
viii) This evidence will help provide ways that the United States can improve,
as Finland schools do these things and are much more successful than U.S.
schools.
b) Results of Finland Schools
i) The gap between the worst and best student is the smallest in the world.
Students of all levels of achievement are put into the same classrooms and
they are taught a third language beginning at age 9 (Hancock, 2011).
ii) “Finland showed the highest mathematical literacy performance in the
OECD and the second highest performance within all countries” (Välijärvi
et al., 2003).
iii) The gender gap between the performance of boys and girls in Finland was
smaller than other OECD countries; however, boys typically had a
stronger self concept of mathematics than girls (Välijärvi et al., 2003).
iv) The more a teacher was involved with students, the worse a student
achieved, yet this can be explained by the fact that lower performing
schools reported more teacher support (Välijärvi et al., 2003).
v) Many factors have been found to affect student performance, including
“students’ own interests, attitudes, and learning strategies, learning
opportunities offered by home and school, and parents’ and schools’
expectations” (Välijärvi et al., 2003).
 vi) “Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from academic or vocational high
schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the United States, and 66
percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in the European Union.
Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United
States” (Hancock, 2011).
vii) After providing how Finland schools operate, showing the results of these
tactics is effective because illustrating the success they produce is vital.
Finland has accomplished the academic goals that the United States
currently has.
5) The Impact of Mandatory Schooling
a) Impacts
i) Absenteeism can negatively impact grades in economics courses (Park and
Kerr 1990, Romer 1993, Devadoss and Foltz 1996, Marburger 2001,
forthcoming)
ii) High attendance rates can improve student performance in a variety of
classroom settings (Sheets et al. 1995, Johnston and James 2000).
iii) Attendance rates are particularly important to track in large lectures
because studies have found absences to increase with class size (Romer
1993, Devadoss and Foltz 1996) and motivation and attention problems
more likely to occur in larger classes (McConnell and Sosin 1984).
iv) Students in the large class were more likely to be absent even with the
attendance policy (when compared to students in the smaller section with
an attendance policy), however, they did not perform significantly better
or worse after accounting for student characteristics and other factors. It
appears that the large class design can increase the incentive to miss class.
However, this is just one marginal factor in determining the student’s
decision to attend.
v) In the estimation of the three exams administered in the course, results
reveal again that SAT scores and student GPA are the most significant and
consistent predictors of performance. Although the OLS estimations
indicate that attendance rates can impact grades, once simultaneity is
addressed, attendance rates are found to be insignificant.
vi) One such finding is that after accounting for student motivation, the
number of absences is not found to impact exam grades, confirming a
point that most instructors recognize: better students attend lectures more
frequently on average (Deere 1994), and due to this inherent motivation
receive higher grades.
vii) This evidence will qualify possible objections, as United States education
is compulsory and some may argue that this affects achievement.
However, mandatory attendance does not have a large impact on
achievement.