When I was 22, I walked into my Teach For America Greater New Orleans interview confident that I’d be a history teacher. Therefore, it was a shock when I was asked to pivot to math to meet community needs. I was intimidated, but ready to rise to the challenge. Eleven years later, I’m grateful I did. That shift reignited a passion for math and taught me a key lesson: What matters most isn’t what I teach, but how I teach.
That lesson feels especially urgent today. Louisiana is the only state in the country where students have increased learning since 2019, according to recent NAEP results (a national report that provides benchmarks for student achievements).
But even as our state bucks national trends, gaps persist, especially for Black and Hispanic students and for students who are economically disadvantaged. Nationally, Black and Hispanic students experienced greater math score declines between 2019 and 2022 than their white peers, widening both achievement and opportunity gaps. Here in Louisiana, those gaps remain visible in the math and reading results of the very students I teach…