Article content

Math education in Alberta has reached a new low. Our rate of math illiteracy has doubled for Grade 4 students since 2011, with our most vulnerable students hit hardest.

The latest results are part of a disturbing trend that has seen Alberta schools embrace an experimental method of teaching math in the past two decades while our students have sunk low on international tests.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or David Staples: Math results show we must end two decades of educational malpractice Back to video

Alberta students used to test well ahead of their Ontario counterparts but behind Quebec students. Alberta now ranks significantly behind both Ontario and Quebec and is not remotely close to top nations, such as Singapore, Japan, Northern Ireland and Russia.

In 1995, nine per cent of Grade Four students in Alberta ranked at the top level for math, meaning they could apply math to relatively complex problems and explain their reasoning. But just 2.4 per cent students hit that mark on the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).