www.thecentersquare.com – By Lindsey Henderson | ExcelinEd – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-18 11:36:00
Harvard University recently announced a remedial algebra course to address some of the mathematical struggles its incoming students are facing.
This isn’t a reflection on the nation’s oldest and most renowned institution of higher learning. Remedial courses aren’t new. Plenty of colleges and universities offer courses geared toward helping students with precalculus and calculus.
The fact that students at a highly competitive school like Harvard may need help getting caught up in a core subject should be a bright red warning light that our K-12 system is falling behind when it comes to math education.
Looking at the most recent scores from the Nation’s Report Card, we know there has been minimal progress for students catching up from COVID learning loss, and most fourth and eighth graders on last year’s exam still performed below pre-pandemic levels, with a widening gap between disadvantaged students and their more resourced peers.
To ensure future generations are prepared for postsecondary success, we need to look for upstream solutions—state-level math policy that we know will help students build the foundation they need.
State leaders can act now on five essential math policies designed to transform math achievement.
First, we know that countries consistently performing above average on international math assessments spend an average of 60 minutes per day on instructional time. In America, Alabama is the only state actively requiring this instruction length, with Maryland recently passing a similar policy that will be implemented in 2026. If every state required 60 minutes of math instruction a day, students would see stronger outcomes.
Second, the adoption of High-Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) would ensure students have access to grade level content. Surprisingly, this remains a significant challenge across the country, with some research indicating students spend more than 500 hours per school year on assignments not appropriate for their grade level and expectations.
Next, we know that math coaches are an essential investment for all elementary and secondary schools and can be relied upon to lead professional development, facilitate lesson planning, teach model lessons and observe and provide immediate feedback. States like Alabama and Kentucky have implemented strong math coach programs.
Just as we look to NAEP as a national assessment tool, teachers should be implementing regular assessments in their classrooms that provide valuable student progress information and inform future instruction tactics. When assessments are followed by timely interventions to get students back on track, student learning outcomes can dramatically improve.
Finally, states should consider an automatic enrollment policy that ensures students who are mathematically proficient are promoted into higher-level courses in the next school year.
Automatic enrollment policies have proven to lead to a larger number of students successfully taking higher level math courses, including a higher number of low-income and minority students.
These policy essentials are not theoretical; we are seeing them in action in Alabama. Other states, including Indiana, Iowa and Maryland, are following suit.
And that’s a smart move. Alabama’s comprehensive approach to math policy has resulted in remarkable progress in just two years: it remains one of the only states where fourth grade students are back to pre-pandemic levels of math proficiency on the Nation’s Report Card.
By the time our students graduate from high school, they should be proficient in the math skills they need to succeed in higher education, the military or the workforce. We owe it to them to get them to that level in the K-12 system so they are not playing catch-up in subsequent years.
States can help educators and schools achieve that goal by implementing proactive, research-backed policy solutions that ensure all students build a strong foundation in mathematics.
Lindsey Henderson serves as the Math Policy Director at ExcelinEd.
The majority-Black communities in north Birmingham face ongoing pollution from coke plants, notably the now-idled Bluestone Coke facility, with their neighborhoods declared a Superfund hazardous waste site due to toxic soil contamination. The Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution (GASP) received a $75,000 EPA grant in 2023 for community air monitoring, aimed at addressing this environmental injustice. However, the Trump EPA abruptly terminated the grant, citing a mismatch with agency priorities, likely due to GASP’s emphasis on helping Black residents disproportionately affected. GASP’s director views the decision as racist and harmful to trust with affected communities. They plan to appeal but may rely on private donors to continue their vital work.
by Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News, Alabama Reflector June 15, 2025
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
BIRMINGHAM — When Jilisa Milton received the grant termination letter, she wasn’t surprised. She suspected this day would come.
The language the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution (GASP) had used in its application to the Environmental Protection Agency had been clear. “We’re talking about helping a community,” Milton, GASP’s executive director, said last week, “where Black people have been disproportionately impacted.”
Black residents had breathed heavily polluted air from a nearby coke plant for decades, and their neighborhoods had been declared a federal hazardous waste Superfund site after it was determined that waste soil laced with arsenic, lead and benzo(a)pyrene, a human carcinogen, from several nearby coke plants had been spread around their homes as yard fill.
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In light of this history and continued industrial pollution, GASP had obtained a $75,000 air monitoring grant from the Biden EPA in 2023.
Milton received the letter earlier this month from officials in President Donald Trump’s EPA terminating the grant because it no longer aligned with the agency’s priorities.
“I knew at some point they would notice the language of our grant,” Milton said, in that it made reference to services intended to help Black people.
Still, she said she doesn’t regret the way GASP characterized the situation on the ground in north Birmingham—that the need for air monitoring stemmed from the city’s history of corporate exploitation of majority-Black workers and residents.
Growing up in Birmingham, Milton said her grandparents often discussed the legacy of workers in the Magic City—so-nicknamed because of the seemingly supernatural economic boom spurred by steel production following the end of the Civil War.
“The majority of these workers were Black, and we can see the disparate impact that still has today,” Milton said. “And it’s really important for Birmingham to talk about our legacy and our history.”
Sanitizing that history, then, to comply with the Trump administration’s stated opposition to all things DEI and environmental justice—as if they were the same thing, just because they both often involve Black people—doesn’t sit well with her.
“I think the narrative work is gone then,” Milton said. “And we have to think about history so we don’t live it again.”
The grant, awarded through EPA’s small grants program, was set to fund GASP’s efforts to train residents in using air monitoring equipment to help establish a community air monitoring program, allowing those in north Birmingham access to critical information about the pollutants filling their lungs every day.
In addition to what is now the 35th Avenue Superfund site, encompassing the neighborhoods of Collegeville, Harriman Park and Fairmont, north Birmingham remains home to several polluters, leaving its residents in the 90th percentile for particulate matter, according to EJ Screen, a government tool also recently shuttered by the Trump administration.
That context of present and past pollution was what made securing funds for air monitoring so important, Milton said, giving residents an opportunity to learn more about the continued impact of industry on their health.
“For decades, residents of North Birmingham and other historically marginalized communities have been forced to live in the shadow of toxic industries with little support or transparency,” Milton wrote in a statement after receiving the termination letter. “The grant made it possible for us to monitor and document the pollution people live with everyday. Revoking this support sends a message that the health of Black, Brown, and low-income communities in Alabama is disposable.”
In its letter, EPA officials said the agency no longer supported the grant’s objectives.
“The purpose of this communication is to notify you that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hereby terminating Assistance Agreement No. EQ-02D22522 awarded to GASP,” the letter said. “This EPA Assistance Agreement is terminated in its entirety effective immediately on the grounds that the award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities. The objectives of the award are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.”
Piles of coal and coke waste remain on the ground at the Bluestone Coke in Birmingham nearly three years after the plant closed. (Lee Hedgepeth/Inside Climate News)
GASP’s isn’t the only environmental justice effort in Alabama nixed by federal officials. In April, Trump announced the termination of what the administration termed an “illegal DEI” settlement aimed at addressing sewage issues in the state’s black belt that have left its majority-Black residents sometimes unable to flush their own toilets.
The agreement, reached under the Biden Administration, required the state’s Department of Public Health to improve sanitation efforts in the region. It’s still unclear what that termination will ultimately mean on the ground.
In the end, Milton said the impact of the administration’s decision to terminate the north Birmingham air monitoring grant is racist.
“Look at the way they talk about environmental justice,” she said of administration officials. “They say it’s illegal to address these issues. So you hear the things they say, and it’s reasonable to discern from that that the impact is racist, and that what they’re doing is intentional.”
People of all races are forced to face the consequences of polluted air and water, Milton emphasized, but ignoring the reality that people of color have borne and continue to bear the brunt of industrial exploitation isn’t helpful. In fact, she explained, doing so could undermine the relationship organizations like hers have built with residents of color living through the impacts of pollution every single day.
“I don’t want to sacrifice the trust we have in communities that want to be heard because they notice that we start to change the way we talk about these issues,” she said. “Because they are the most important stakeholders. They’re who we’re here to serve.”
Moving forward, GASP plans to appeal the termination with EPA officials, Milton said, though she suspects the agency is unlikely to change its mind. If that’s the case, the nonprofit will do what they’ve always done—look to individual donors to fill in the gaps. It’s work that can’t be abandoned, Milton said. Not if she can help it.
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Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Left-Leaning
This article exhibits a Left-Leaning political bias through its framing, language, and emphasis on environmental justice, racial disparities, and criticism of the Trump administration’s policy decisions. While it is presented under the banner of a nonprofit, non-partisan outlet, the narrative foregrounds the disproportionate impact on Black communities and casts recent Republican-led actions—particularly the termination of air monitoring and civil rights-related initiatives—in a negative light. It frames these decisions as racially motivated and harmful, aligning with progressive values on environmental equity and systemic injustice, without offering counterarguments or perspectives from the opposing side.
SUMMARY: Rabbi Steven Silberman of Congregation Ahavas Chesed discussed challenges to faith on Faith Time, emphasizing how global instability prompts deep spiritual questioning, such as “Where is God?” He highlighted the importance of community in Judaism, tracing its roots from Abraham to modern Jewish identity as an extended family. In today’s mobile society, he stressed the need for individuals to find belonging in local Jewish communities. Healthy questioning includes seeking purpose, understanding suffering, and connecting with God. Silberman encouraged engagement through prayer, charitable acts, activism, study, Hebrew language, and ties to Israel as essential ways to navigate and strengthen faith.
We talk about facing challenges to fundamental beliefs.
SUMMARY: Alabama will experience scattered heavy storms on Father’s Day afternoon, following a cloudy and foggy morning with improving visibility. There’s no severe weather threat, but storms may bring frequent lightning, heavy downpours, and localized flooding, especially in areas like Walker and Winston counties affected by previous heavy rain. Temperatures will be in the mid to upper 80s with hot, steamy conditions. Storm coverage is expected to be more widely scattered than yesterday, but outdoor plans should account for possible rain. Summer storms will continue throughout the week, with decreasing storm activity later, leading to higher heat indices and approaching triple-digit feels-like temperatures by week’s end.
Scattered summer storms in Alabama for Father’s Day.
