American students are terrible at math, and it can affect the country

Americans commonly joke about how they hate math. As it turns out, comedy meets reality, and the country's students are getting worse at math.

Math scores for 13-year-olds in a national test known as the nation's report card are at a record low. Reading scores also fell, but math's plunged by the widest margin in history.

The test results showed how persistent the learning setbacks of the pandemic are in the country. Earlier tests showed how confinement and online schooling affected student performance.

Still, two years after students returned to classrooms, their performance has not improved but declined. In a statement collected by AP, Peggy G. Carr from the National Center for Education Statistics said it was a concern.

The math problem is not new, however. The US scores for the international PISA test, taken by students from developed nations, were also low in the last edition, in 2018.

The results place the country in the 32nd position among rich nations and below the total average. American students performed better than the students of only six countries.

Asian countries mainly held the leading scores: China, Japan, and South Korea. European nations, like Estonia, the Netherlands, and Poland, followed them. Canada is in 7th place.

That is a problem for the country because math is increasingly becoming fundamental for every economic sector, including vital ones for US global leadership: intelligence, technology, and industry.

Technology highly depends on mathematics for engineering, development, programming, and related activities. The sector needs workers with solid math skills.

Manufacturing and STEM-related industries (from farmaceuticals to defense) also need workers and students with solid math skills.

The lack of math proficiency affects the overall competitiveness of the US in the global market, putting trade adversaries like China at an advantage.

But a lack of math skills will not only affect the country as a whole. It can also hurt students individually, closing doors of opportunity in their futures.

Experts are concerned that students with poor math skills deflect from STEM careers that could grant them larger salaries. Math is turning into a vital skill to secure a job.

Bureau of Labor Statistics figures collected by the AP show that the number of jobs in math-related occupations will increase by about 30,000 annually during this decade.

The news agency also said that only one in five graduate students in math-intensive careers, like software or electrical engineering, at US universities are American.

Most of those students will then return to their countries of origin, leaving a hole in the job market. Meanwhile, universities open remedial classes for freshmen or summer courses for high schoolers, hoping to attract national talent.