Ontario has a math emergency

The latest provincial testing results show only half of Grade 6 students are meeting the required standard.

Source: Canva

Last week, The Globe and Mail published an op-ed by Nidhi Sachdeva on what she describes as Ontario’s growing math emergency. The piece is shared here to extend the conversation beyond the limits of a newspaper column — not because the problem is new, but because the implications are too important to leave unexplored. At its core, the argument is that persistent gaps in mathematics achievement are not the result of student ability or effort, but of long-standing instructional, curricular, and assessment choices that disproportionately disadvantage the students who rely most on school for learning. The hope is that this article encourages careful, evidence-informed discussion about what needs to change — and why.

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In December, Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) released its latest student-testing results, and delivered a sobering message: Only about half of the province’s Grade 6 students met the provincial standard in mathematics, and Grade 3 performance sits at just 64 per cent, inching up only slightly over three years. These numbers are not just statistics. They represent children – real students – moving through school with shaky foundations in the very subject that underpins science, technology, skilled trades, financial literacy and problem-solving.

Put differently, of the nearly 134,000 Grade 6 students who participated, only about 65,000 met provincial benchmarks. Of those, roughly 11,000 reached the highest level of proficiency. In a province that prides itself on innovation and global competitiveness, that is a troublingly small fraction.

Now imagine two Grade 6 classes heading out for recess. Of the 60 students playing outside, statistically about 30 are struggling to meet math expectations. Only a handful are achieving at the highest level. We would never accept this kind of performance in health care, engineering or aviation. Yet in classrooms, we have normalized it.

Behind these achievement graphs lies another, quieter crisis: confidence. Only about 39 per cent of Grade 6 students say they feel confident answering difficult math questions. More than one-third say they are unsure. That hesitation matters. Students who doubt their ability are less likely to persist, attempt challenging problems or take intellectual risks – even when they are capable.

In education research, this is known as self-efficacy: the belief that effort leads to improvement. When it drops, participation and persistence drop with it. Over time, repeated confusion without clarity, or struggle without support, leads students to disengage. Math slowly becomes something “for other kids, and not me.” This erosion of confidence is not a reflection of students’ potential; it is a signal that instruction is not consistently helping them experience success.

Equity complicates the picture further. When only half of students meet expectations, we must ask who those students are. How many are succeeding with support outside school – private tutoring, enrichment programs, online courses or parents able to step in at home? Ontario’s tutoring industry is booming. Parking lots outside learning centres are full, with wait-lists moving faster than school-based interventions. When achievement depends on families compensating for what schools are not providing, inequity widens.

Researchers refer to this as the Matthew Effect: Advantage compounds over time. Students with strong foundations and external support accelerate; those without them struggle longer and disengage earlier. This is not because of differences in ability, but because of differences in opportunity. Which brings us to the heart of the issue: Ontario does not have a math-ability crisis – it has an instructional one.

For years, math instruction has leaned heavily toward inquiry-first or discovery-based approaches, often without sufficient explicit instruction. The intention was sound: Promote collaboration, reasoning and problem-solving. But decades of cognitive-science research tell us something we cannot ignore: Students cannot reason effectively about ideas they have not yet learned. Working memory is limited. Without clear explanations, modelling and guided practice, even capable learners become overwhelmed.

We would never hand a child a flute and ask them to discover how to play before teaching notes and scales. Nor would we start swim lessons in the deep end. Yet in math, we often reverse this sequence.

Research is remarkably consistent: Students learn new concepts best when instruction is clear, structured and supported with examples, practice, feedback and review over time. This approach is not “old-fashioned.” It reflects how the brain builds knowledge and stores it for long-term use. Knowledge frees up thinking. Fluency makes problem-solving possible.

Crucially, explicit instruction benefits the students who struggle the most. When teaching aligns with how learning works, achievement rises – and equity improves.

Countries with high-performing education systems, such as Singapore, Japan and Estonia, have long built their math programs on these principles. Britain has recently moved in the same direction, with measurable gains. Ontario could too. But improvement will not come from more testing, new apps or hoping for different results. It will come from changing how we teach and how we support teachers to teach.

If Ontario wants better outcomes, three actions are clearly needed. We have to strengthen teacher education in evidence-based math instruction; adopt curriculum materials that guide teachers toward clarity rather than guesswork; and build foundational fluency with math facts early and explicitly. Memorizing math facts (e.g. times tables) so that they can be recalled with speed and accuracy does not limit thinking – it enables it.

This is not a call to return to “old math.” It is a call to align instruction with how learning actually works. Ontario has the research, the expertise and the educators to lead. What remains is the will to act.

This article was first published in The Globe and Mail. Where cited or shared elsewhere, please credit The Globe and Mail as the original publisher.