Back in early 2024, Marquis Bryant, an Atlanta teacher went viral for his video on student performance in the classroom. Going by the alias @qbthedon on TikTok, the Atlanta public school teacher stated that “I teach seventh grade, they are still performing on a fourth-grade level.”
Across Atlanta Public Schools (APS), math proficiency rates have been low in comparison with the United States average. Nationally, students’ math proficiency rates are tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In 2022, the assessment showed that the average math proficiency score for a United States eighth grader was 276 out of 500. They have also found that Atlanta eighth graders on average scored 13 points lower than that. Only 48% of eighth graders in 2022 were at or above the NAEP’s baseline for math readiness.
These statistics are concerning for many reasons, including the barriers they put up to the futures of Atlanta students. According to The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Math readiness is essential for going into STEM careers, of which roughly 290,000 are projected to be filled by 2028 in Atlanta.
Various organizations and people have been working to try to combat this issue. Governor Brian Kemp signed into law the Georgia Promise Scholarship, which aids Georgia families in sending their kids to private schools. In addition, various nonprofits and universities provide scholarships for APS students. For example, The Achieve Atlanta Scholarship provides $5,000 a year for APS students pursuing 4 year degrees. This scholarship also promotes academic success amongst students, requiring a 75/100 GPA (which is about a 2.0 on the 4.0 scale) to receive the scholarship. In addition, schools like the University of Georgia automatically admit the valedictorians and salutatorians of any accredited Georgia high school, encouraging students to focus on their studies.
Beyond scholarships for high schoolers, there have been many efforts by various organizations to improve elementary and middle school education through regulations. The APS Board of Education recently launched a new initiative called the Readers are Leaders program. This program was put in place in order to improve literacy rates among young Atlanta residents, utilizing new higher quality instructional materials and new teacher training. Though test scores have improved slightly between 2023 and 2024, proficiency rates remain remarkably low. Despite these efforts, students who are not already engaged are continuing to fall behind.
Georgia Tech has a unique approach, putting quality education in Atlanta backyards. When I was a freshman in high school, I participated in their High School Math Day (HSMD).
Not only did I get to participate in their math competition, but I also got to listen in on a lecture that inspired the rest of my life since. Abhishek Dhawan, a Ph.D student at Georgia Tech led the lecture on combinatorics. Combinatorics is the math of counting quantities that are too large to be counted the conventional way.
The manner of teaching was able to draw me in, and the lesson was accessible for anyone of any math level. What made this experience unique was the passion of the organizers for math. Often, in school programs, there is an emphasis placed on curriculum over passion. However, in order to attract younger minds to STEM fields, they have to be shown how it can be fun.
During the competition, the problems utilized a familiar puzzle — Sudoku — mixed in with fun math problems in order to create a challenging but fun environment. Collaborating with my best friends during the team round was the most fun part. We got to share ideas and laugh all while doing math together, which made for some great memories.
According to Georgia Tech’s website, HSMD’s co-organizer Trevor Gunn has said that, “We wanted to broaden the appeal, make this a more inclusive event. We advertised to majority-minority counties in the area. And Atlanta is a very diverse region.” By making the competition more accessible to people who are less familiar with math and advertising to majority minority counties in the area, Georgia Tech was able to make an impact on the Atlanta community’s education.
Georgia Tech isn’t alone. Schools like the University of Georgia and Kennesaw State University also host math competitions that emphasize the fun of learning. The University of Georgia’s most recent testing included questions about infinitely small slices of cake and the probability of where a frog may land after he hops away, focusing on using math to solve fun problems. This competition, which I also attended, helped to show me how math can be fun and how math is not always just solving for “X.” It can be used to solve your mind’s biggest ideas beyond what you can just see in front of you — just like the infinitely small slices of cake.
Marie Tran, a Fulton County Schools student who attended Georgia Tech’s HSMD, said the competition made a lasting impact on their perspective about math. “HSMD, to me, was not only about winning but rather to immerse myself in topics about math that they didn’t teach me in school.”
