Wisconsin DPI, Legislators Working on Plan to Improve Math Education

Fifth grade students in math teacher Missy Sperle’s class work independently on classwork Tuesday, April 29, 2025, at Winskill Elementary School in Lancaster, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

In late 2025, legislative Republicans introduced a bill to strengthen math education for Wisconsin’s youngest students.

The plan would have required schools to implement consistent math assessments and intervention plans for students who fell behind in math — similar to the sweeping reading legislation known as Act 20 passed in 2023.

The bill didn’t make it out of committee.

But lawmakers and the state’s Department of Public Instruction say they haven’t shifted their focus from solving the state’s math problem.

DPI is working with a regional group through the U.S. Department of Education to develop a state math plan to provide a “unified, scalable, and practical approach to improving math teaching and learning.”

The group, called the Midwest Comprehensive Center, will spend the next several months working with DPI, school districts, higher education faculty and community partners to develop the plan, said Tacara Lovings, who heads DPI’s office of strategic initiatives.

“This plan should not be viewed as guidance coming from the department, but it is about presenting a vision for mathematics, for instruction, and a plan that helps lay out that roadmap and a set of resources or technical assistance that the Department of Public Instruction can provide,” Lovings said.

The Midwest Comprehensive Center is also working on statewide math plans with school leaders in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio.

Last month, the Illinois State Board of Education formally adopted a Comprehensive Numeracy Plan for the state.

Fewer than half of Wisconsin students are proficient at math

For many years average student test scores in math have been lower than they have been in reading.

Reading scores sit more than half a grade below pre-pandemic levels. Math scores also lag, with many students over a full grade level behind.

Forty-two percent of Wisconsin’s fourth graders and 37 percent of the state’s eighth graders tested “proficient” in math, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, sometimes called the “Nation’s Report Card.”

State Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, chairs the Assembly Committee on Education and was one of the legislators who co-sponsored Act 20 legislation.

In an email, Kitchens said “math is different than reading because there is no generally accepted way that it must be taught, but we can model a lot of our legislation after Act 20.”

Wisconsin’s Act 20 law requires all public schools to teach reading using the Science of Reading for 4K to 3rd-grade students. It bans the “three-cueing” method where kids guess words using pictures. Instead, schools must use explicit phonics instruction.

Kitchens says with math, students will have to be put on an individualized plan if they are not at grade level.

“In many ways this is even more important in math, because it builds on itself,” he said. “If a kid does not understand the concepts they are taught in early elementary school, it will be impossible for them to ever understand middle or high school math. There is a very high correlation between math proficiency in very early elementary school and career earning potential, it is even higher than with reading.”

Kitchens says he has spoken with Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy several times about legislation in the next session that would tackle math.

“We worked together to get Act 20 done and we should be able to do the same thing again,” Kitchens said. “The main thing is that neither us nor DPI will be successful by ourselves. It will take a joint effort, which isn’t always easy in our current climate.”

Wisconsin DPI, lawmakers working on statewide plan to improve math education was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.