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The Building Blocks of Math That Young Students Need to Excel — But Aren’t Always Getting

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — An analysis of state tests shows that few states have recovered students from pandemic math losses, with disadvantaged students from low-income neighborhoods hit especially hard

Published

7 months ago

June 9, 2025

Oakland Post

By Holly Korbey, Hechinger Report

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.

ATLANTA — Students gathered around a bright blue number board in Melissa Williams’ kindergarten class at the Westminster School, gazing at the bank of 100 blank squares, organized in rows and columns of 10. Their assignment was to pick a numbered tile and figure out where it should go on the board. The task seems simple, but Williams’ goal was to bolster students’ “number sense” — a difficult-to-define skill, but one that is nevertheless essential for more advanced mathematics. One student with a “42” tile carefully counted the squares in each row. “Ten!” he said. Counting each row by tens — 10, 20, 30 — he came to 40, then moved his finger to the next row and counted the next two to arrive at 42. The fact that the student was able to count by tens and then add two, rather than counting each square up to 42, is an example of number sense.

Other examples include understanding the size of numbers about one another, finding missing numbers in a sequence, understanding that written numbers like “100” represent 100 items, and counting by ones, twos, fives, and tens. Each of these skills is critical to understanding math, just like grasping the connection between letters and the sounds they represent is a must-have skill for fluent reading. Number sense is so innate to many adults that they may not remember being taught such skills. It is crucial to mastering more complex math skills like manipulating fractions and decimals or solving equations with unknown variables, experts say. Research shows that a flexible understanding of numbers is strongly correlated to later math achievement and the ability to solve problems presented in different ways. Unlike the recent surge of evidence on science-based reading instruction, research and emphasis on number sense isn’t making its way into schools and classrooms in the same way. Students spend less time on foundational numeracy compared with what they spend on reading; elementary teachers often receive less training in how to teach math effectively; and schools use fewer interventions for students who need extra math support.

Many American students struggle in math. According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 1 in 4 fourth graders and 39 percent of eighth graders scored “below basic,” the test’s lowest category. An analysis of state tests shows that few states have recovered students from pandemic math losses, with disadvantaged students from low-income neighborhoods hit especially hard. For those struggling students — including those diagnosed with dyscalculia and related learning challenges — lack of number sense often plays a significant role. “For kids that have a fundamental weakness in mathematics, 80 percent or 90 percent of the time that’s going to be linked to a lack of understanding numbers,” said Ben Clarke, an early math researcher and department head of special education and clinical sciences at the University of Oregon. “If we want students to be able to access other pieces of mathematics that are really important, then they need to build this foundational understanding of numbers.” Doug Clements, the Kennedy-endowed chair in early childhood learning at the University of Denver, said many American students struggle with seeing relationships between numbers. “Children who see 98 plus 99 and line them up vertically, draw a bar underneath with an addition sign, then sum the eight and the nine, carry the one and so forth — they are not showing relational thinking,” Clements said. “Children who immediately say, ‘That’s 200 take away three, so 197,’ are showing number sense.”

Even in the early years of school, researchers can spot students who can make connections between numbers and use more sophisticated strategies to solve problems, just as some students start school already reading. Also as with reading, gaps between students are present on the first day of kindergarten. Students from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds arrive at school with less math knowledge than high-income students. Boston College psychologist and early math researcher Elida Laski said research has found income-based differences in how families talk about math with children before they ever reach school. “Lower-income families are more likely to think about math as narrow, it’s counting and numbers,” Laski said. “Whereas higher-income families tend to think about math as more conceptual and around in everyday life.” These differences in thinking play out in how flexible students are with numbers in early elementary school. In one study, Laski and her team found that higher-income kindergarten and first-grade students used more sophisticated problem-solving strategies than lower-income students, who more often relied on counting. The higher-income students also had more basic math facts committed to memory, like the answer to one plus two.

The memory recall and relatively advanced strategies used by higher-income students produced more efficient problem-solving and more correct answers than counting did. Also, when students from high-income families produced a wrong answer, it was often less wrong than students who were relying on strategies like counting. Laski said many of the low-income students in the study struggled with addiction because they didn’t have a firm understanding of how basic concepts of numbers work. For example, “When we’d ask, ‘What’s three plus four,’ we’d get answers like ‘34,’” Laski said. “Whatever ways they’re practicing arithmetic, they don’t have the conceptual basis to make sense of it. They didn’t have the number sense, really.” Laski said early childhood classrooms could be “far more direct” with students in teaching number sense, weaving it in explicitly when working on more concrete skills like addition. Clarke, the early math researcher at the University of Oregon, agreed. “Our understanding has drastically grown in the last 20, 25 years about effective instructional approaches” to help students learn number sense, said Clarke. “If you are only going to get X number of minutes in kindergarten or first grade to support student development in mathematics, kids that are not responding to the core instruction — you have to be pretty focused on what you do and what you offer.”

But elementary school teachers often aren’t trained well on the evidence base for best practices in teaching number sense. A 2022 report from the National Council on Teacher Quality highlights that while teacher training programs have improved in the last decade, they still have a long way to go. By their standard, only 15 percent of undergraduate elementary education programs earned an A for adequately covering both math content and pedagogy. Teachers aren’t often taught to look at math learning as a whole, a progression of skills that takes students through elementary math, beginning with learning to count and ending up in fractions and decimals — something that some instructional coaches say would help emphasize the importance of how early number sense connects to advanced math. Grade-level standards are the focus that can leave out the bigger picture.

Both the Common Core State Standards and Clements, who served on the 2008 National Mathematics Advisory Panel and helped create a resource of early math learning trajectories, outline those skills progressions. However, many teachers are unaware of them. Instructional coach and math consultant Neily Boyd, who is based in Nashville, Tennessee, said she often works with teachers on understanding how one skill builds on another in sequence, how skills are connected, using the progressions as a jumping-off point. “When teachers have been trained on both the whole math concept and how the pieces progress from year to year, they’re able to teach their grade-level piece in a way that builds from the previous pieces and towards the future pieces,” she said. “Learning math becomes about widening and refining understandings you’ve already built, rather than a never-ending list of seemingly disconnected components.”

Young students also spend less time with numbers, which often only appear during “math time,” than they do with letters, reading, and literacy. “Often I’ll go into classrooms with literacy stuff all over the walls, but nothing in terms of number,” said Nancy Jordan, professor of learning sciences at the University of Delaware and author of “Number Sense Interventions.” “In the early grades, there are so many ways to build number sense outside of instructional time as well — playing games, number lines in the classroom. Teachers can think of other ways to build these informal understandings of math and relate them to formal understanding.” On a recent fall day at Nashville Classical Charter School, in Nashville, Tennessee, fourth-grade math teacher Catherine Schwartz was walking students through a complicated subtraction problem with big numbers: “Lyle has 2,302 dog treats, but he needs 13,400. How many more treats does Lyle need?” To solve it, students had to “subtract across zeros,” regrouping from one place value to the next. Subtraction’s standard algorithm is an important skill to learn, Schwartz said, but can’t be done well without strong number sense.

Number sense for older students has some of the same ideas of magnitude and relationships, Schwartz said, but the numbers get bigger. Students began the subtraction problem using 13 thousand and four hundred to recognize the magnitude of the numbers in each place value, for example, but slowly simplified it into the classic stack-and-subtract method. Schwartz, who has taught for seven years, said at first she didn’t realize how big a role number sense played in calculations like subtraction with big numbers. ”Number sense or number flexibility, it’s never truly named” in the curriculum, Schwartz said. “We try to practice it.” Even something as simple as counting big numbers, including hundreds thousands, and millions, some educators say, can help develop number sense. Counting might seem simple, but for young children, it’s foundational and essential. “These are really big ideas for little kids,” Jordan said.

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A Nation in Freefall While the Powerful Feast: Trump Calls Affordability a ‘Con Job’

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — There are seasons in this country when the struggle of ordinary Americans is not merely a condition but a kind of weather that settles over everything.

Published

3 weeks ago

December 3, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

There are seasons in this country when the struggle of ordinary Americans is not merely a condition but a kind of weather that settles over everything. It enters the grocery aisle, the overdue bill, the rent notice, and the long nights spent calculating how to get through the next week. The latest numbers show that this season has not passed. It has deepened.

Private employers cut 32,000 jobs in November, according to ADP. Because the nation has been hemorrhaging jobs since President Trump took office, the administration has halted publishing the traditional monthly report. The ADP report revealed that small businesses suffered the heaviest losses. Establishments with fewer than 50 workers shed 120,000 positions, including 74,000 from companies with 20 to 49 workers. Larger firms added 90,000 jobs, widening the split between those rising and those falling.

Meanwhile, wealth continues to climb for the few who already possess most of it. Federal Reserve data shows the top 1 percent now holds $52 trillion. The top 10 percent added $5 trillion in the second quarter alone. The bottom half gained only 6 percent over the past year, a number so small it fades beside the towering fortunes above it.

“Less educated and poorer people tend to make worse mistakes,” John Campbell said to CBS News, while noting that the complexity of the system leaves many families lost before they even begin. Campbell, a Harvard University economist and coauthor of a book examining the country’s broken personal finance structure, pointed to a system built to confuse and punish those who lack time, training, or access.

“Creditors are just breathing down their necks,” Carol Fox told Bloomberg News, while noting that rising borrowing costs, shrinking consumer spending, and trade battles under the current administration have left owners desperate. Fox serves as a court-appointed Subchapter V trustee in Southern Florida and has watched the crisis unfold case by case.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump told those present that affordability “doesn’t mean anything to anybody.” He added that Democrats created a “con job” to mislead the public.

However, more than $30 million in taxpayer funds reportedly have supported his golf travel. Reports show Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel have also made extensive use of private jets through government and political networks. The administration approved a $40 billion bailout of Argentina. The president’s wealthy donors recently gathered for a dinner celebrating his planned $300 million White House ballroom.

During an appearance on CNBC, Mark Zandi, an economist, warned that the country could face serious economic threats. “We have learned that people make many mistakes,” Campbell added. “And particularly, sadly, less educated and poorer people tend to make worse mistakes.”

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The Numbers Behind the Myth of the Hundred Million Dollar Contract

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Odell Beckham Jr. did not spark controversy on purpose. He sat on The Pivot Podcast and tried to explain the math behind a deal that looks limitless from the outside but shrinks fast once the system takes its cut.

Published

3 weeks ago

December 3, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Odell Beckham Jr. did not spark controversy on purpose. He sat on The Pivot Podcast and tried to explain the math behind a deal that looks limitless from the outside but shrinks fast once the system takes its cut. He looked into the camera and tried to offer a truth most fans never hear. “You give somebody a five-year $100 million contract, right? What is it really? It is five years for sixty. You are getting taxed. Do the math. That is twelve million a year that you have to spend, use, save, invest, flaunt,” said Beckham. He added that buying a car, buying his mother a house, and covering the costs of life all chip away at what people assume lasts forever.

The reaction was instant. Many heard entitlement. Many heard a millionaire complaining. What they missed was a glimpse into a professional world built on big numbers up front and a quiet erasing of those numbers behind the scenes.

The tax data in Beckham’s world is not speculation. SmartAsset’s research shows that top NFL players often lose close to half their income to federal taxes, state taxes, and local taxes. The analysis explains that athletes in California face a state rate of 13.3 percent and that players are also taxed in every state where they play road games, a structure widely known as the jock tax. For many players, that means filing up to ten separate returns and facing a combined tax burden that reaches or exceeds 50 percent.

A look across the league paints the same picture. The research lists star players in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, all giving up between 43 and 47 percent of their football income before they ever touch a dollar. Star quarterback Phillip Rivers, at one point, was projected to lose half of his playing income to taxes alone.

A second financial breakdown from MGO CPA shows that the problem does not only affect the highest earners. A $1 million salary falls to about $529,000 after federal taxes, state and city taxes, an agent fee, and a contract deduction. According to that analysis, professional athletes typically take home around half of their contract value, and that is before rent, meals, training, travel, and support obligations are counted.

The structure of professional sports contracts adds another layer. A study of major deals across MLB, the NBA, and the NFL notes that long-term agreements lose value over time because the dollar today has more power than the dollar paid in the future. Even the largest deals shrink once adjusted for time. The study explains that contract size alone does not guarantee financial success and that structure and timing play a crucial role in a player’s long-term outcomes.

Beckham has also faced headlines claiming he is “on the brink of bankruptcy despite earning over one hundred million” in his career. Those reports repeated his statement that “after taxes, it is only sixty million” and captured the disbelief from fans who could not understand how money at that level could ever tighten.

Other reactions lacked nuance. One article wrote that no one could relate to any struggle on eight million dollars a year. Another described his approach as “the definition of a new-money move” and argued that it signaled poor financial choices and inflated spending.

But the underlying truth reaches far beyond Beckham. Professional athletes enter sudden wealth without preparation. They carry the weight of family support. They navigate teams, agents, advisors, and expectations from every direction. Their earning window is brief. Their career can end in a moment. Their income is fragmented, taxed, and carved up before the public ever sees the real number.

The math is unflinching. Twenty million dollars becomes something closer to $8 million after federal taxes, state taxes, jock taxes, agent fees, training costs, and family responsibilities. Over five years, that is about $40 million of real, spendable income. It is transformative money, but not infinite. Not guaranteed. Not protected.

Beckham offered a question at the heart of this entire debate. “Can you make that last forever?”

Stacy M. Brown

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FBI Report Warns of Fear, Paralysis, And Political Turmoil Under Director Kash Patel

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Six months into Kash Patel’s tenure as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a newly compiled internal report from a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI agents and analysts delivers a stark warning about what the Bureau has become under his leadership.

Published

3 weeks ago

December 2, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown

Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Six months into Kash Patel’s tenure as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a newly compiled internal report from a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI agents and analysts delivers a stark warning about what the Bureau has become under his leadership. The 115-page document, submitted to Congress this month, is built entirely on verified reporting from inside field offices across the country and paints a picture of an agency gripped by fear, divided by ideology, and drifting without direction.

The report’s authors write that they launched their inquiry after receiving troubling accounts from inside the Bureau only four months into Patel’s tenure. They describe their goal as a pulse check on whether the ninth FBI director was reforming the Bureau or destabilizing it. Their conclusion: the preliminary findings were discouraging.

Reports Describe Widespread Internal Distrust and Open Hostility Toward President Trump

Sources across the country told investigators that a large number of FBI employees openly express hostility toward President Donald Trump. One source reported seeing an “increasing number of FBI Special Agents who dislike the President,” adding that these employees were exhibiting what they called “TDS” and had lost “their ability to think critically about an issue and distinguish fact from fiction.” Another source described employees making off-color comments about the administration during office conversations.

The sentiment reportedly extends beyond domestic lines. Law enforcement and intelligence partners in allied countries have privately expressed fear that the Trump administration could damage long-term international cooperation according to a sub-source who reported those concerns directly to investigators.

Pardon Backlash and Fear of Retaliation

The President’s January 20 pardons of individuals convicted for their roles in the January 6 attack ignited what the report calls demoralization inside the Bureau. One FBI employee said they were “demoralized” that individuals “rightfully convicted” were pardoned and feared that some of those individuals or their supporters might target them or their family for carrying out their duties. Another source described widespread anger that lists of personnel who worked on January 6 investigations had been provided to the Justice Department for review, noting that agents “were just following orders” and now worry those lists could leak publicly.

Morale In Decline

Morale among FBI employees appears to be sinking fast. There were a few scattered positive notes, but the weight of the reporting describes morale as low, bad, or terrible. Agents with more than a decade of service told investigators they feel marginalized or ignored. Some are counting the days until they can retire. One even uses a countdown app on their phone.

Culture Of Fear

Layered over that unhappiness is something far more corrosive. A culture of fear. Sources say Patel, though personable, created mistrust from the start because of harsh remarks he made about the FBI before taking office. Agents took those comments personally. They now work in an atmosphere where employees keep their heads down and speak carefully. Managers wait for directions because they are afraid a wrong move could cost them their jobs. One source said agents dread coming to work because nobody knows who will be reassigned or fired next.

Leadership Concerns

The report also paints a picture of leaders unprepared for the jobs they hold. Multiple sources said Patel is in over his head and lacks the breadth of experience required to understand the Bureau’s complex programs. Some said Deputy Director Dan Bongino should never have been appointed because the role requires deep institutional knowledge of FBI operations. A sub-source recounted Bongino telling employees during a field office visit that “the truth is for chumps.” Employees who heard it were stunned and offended.

Social Media and Communication Breakdowns

Communication inside the Bureau has become another source of frustration. Sources said Patel and Bongino spend too much time posting on social media and not enough time communicating with employees in clear and official ways. Several told investigators they learn more about FBI operations from tweets than from internal channels.

ICE Assignments Raise Alarm

Nothing has sparked more frustration inside the FBI than the orders requiring agents to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The reporting shows widespread resentment and fear over these assignments. Agents say they have little training in immigration law and were ordered into operations without proper planning. Some said they were put in tactically unsafe positions. They also warned that being pulled away from counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations threatens national security. One sub-source asked, “If we’re not working CT and CI, then who is?”

DEI Program Removal

Even the future of diversity programs became a point of division. Some agents praised Patel’s removal of DEI initiatives. Others said the old system left them afraid to speak honestly because they worried about being labeled racist. The reporting shows a deep and unresolved conflict over whether DEI strengthened the organization or weakened it.

Notable Incidents

The document also details several incidents that have become part of FBI lore. Patel ordered all employees to remove pronouns and personal messages from their email signatures yet used the number nine in his own. Agents laughed at what they saw as hypocrisy. In another episode, FBI employees who discussed Patel’s request for an FBI-issued firearm were ordered to take polygraph examinations, which one respected source described as punitive. And in Utah, Patel refused to exit a plane without a medium-sized FBI raid jacket. A team scrambled to find one and finally secured a female agent’s jacket. Patel still refused to step out until patches were added. SWAT members removed patches from their own uniforms to satisfy the demand.

A Bureau at a Crossroad

The Alliance warns that the Bureau stands at a difficult crossroads. They write that the FBI faces some of the most daunting challenges in its history. But even in despair, a few voices say something different. One veteran source said “It is early, but most can see the mission is now the priority. Case work and threats are the focus again. Reform is headed in the right direction.”