Springing to Life - How Greater Educational Equality Could Grow from the Common Core Mathematics Standards

Oct 15, 2026

Education has long been seen as a driver of equal opportunity, yet U.S. schools still fail to ensure equitable access to essential mathematics knowledge, skills, problem-solving, and reasoning. After more than 20 years of reviewing standards, achievement, textbooks, tests, and classroom coverage, the conclusion is pervasive inequality, including unequal content exposure across states, districts, and even within schools. The article analyzes how the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) could reduce gaps in opportunity to learn by addressing obstacles to implementation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Pervasive Inequality and the Opportunity-to-Learn Gap

Why Classroom Exposure Matters

Inequality Across States, Districts, and Classrooms

Springing to Life How Greater Educational Equality Could Grow from the Common Core Mathematics Standards ILLUSTRATIoNS BY L IzA FLoRES By William H. Schmidt and Nathan A. Burroughs I n America, education has long been viewed as the main instrument for achieving equality of opportunity. Whatever our differences, the idea that every child deserves a chance to be educated enjoys widespread support. What has been contentious is how to go about promoting greater educational opportunities. Despite many reform efforts over the past several William H. Schmidt is a University Distinguished Professor, a codirector of the Education Policy Center, and the lead principal investigator of the Promoting Rigorous Outcomes in Mathematics and Science Education project at Michigan State University. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Nathan A. Burroughs is a research associate with the Center for the Study of Curriculum at Michigan State University. decades, the US educational system has patently failed to ensure equal access for all to the essential knowledge, skills, problemsolving abilities, and reasoning abilities that are necessary to succeed. Instead, American schools exhibit pervasive inequality. Pervasive inequality. A bold claim, but that’s the inescapable conclusion of more than 20 years of examining mathematics and science standards, student achievement, textbooks, standardized tests, and classroom content coverage. In mathematics, for instance, students are exposed to widely varying content not only across states and school districts but within schools. Such inequities in content coverage deny students equal learning opportunities. By the time they enter middle and high school, those students fortunate enough to have been challenged with rigorous, focused, and coherent content in the early grades are placed into courses that continue to challenge them, while their peers who were not 2 AMERICAN EdUCAToR | SPRING 2013 exposed to such content are tracked into lower-level courses. And so the differences in learning opportunities that contribute to the achievement gap only continue to grow. These problems aren’t found only in our lowest-performing schools; the typical US student does not receive the content coverage needed to compete with students in other nations. While some may want to blame ineffective teaching or unmotivated students for the mediocre performance of US students on international assessments, research comparing states’ standards (prior to the Common Core State Standards) with those of high-performing countries shows that a major factor is the lack of opportunity to learn. On average, our state standards have been about two grade levels behind. Need more convincing? This body of research was examined in the Winter 2010–2011 issue ofAmerican Educator (see the box Pervasive inequality. That’s the inescapable conclusion of 20 years of examining mathematics standards, student achievement, textbooks, tests, and classroom content. on page 5) and was explored in depth in a recent book, Inequality for All (see the box on page 6) . In this article, we move from demonstrating the existence of pervasive inequality to considering what to do about it. In particular, we examine the prospects for the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) to reduce inequalities in opportunity to learn. We discuss why the CCSS-M could provide greater equality of educational opportunity, and we offer some ideas about how to overcome the principal obstacles to successful implementation. Inequality in Opportunity to Learn Educational inequality has hardly gone unnoticed by policymakers, scholars, or the general public. In recent years, efforts to solve this problem have focused on the structure of education (highstakes testing, market incentives, etc.) and the amount and distribution of educational resources. What actually happ

FAQs

What does the research conclude about educational equality in the U.S. system?

The article concludes that U.S. education exhibits pervasive inequality in students’ access to essential mathematics content and learning opportunities.

How do differences in mathematics content affect the achievement gap?

Students receive widely varying content coverage across and within districts and schools, and tracking can compound gaps by placing students into lower-level courses if they were not challenged with rigorous early content.

Why do the authors focus on the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M)?

They examine whether CCSS-M can reduce inequalities in opportunity to learn by providing a pathway to greater equality of educational opportunity and by addressing key implementation obstacles.

Oct 15, 2026

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