Thinking about how to improve math outcomes

One of my more interesting sessions at the Education Writers Association conference was on how to improve math outcomes. It was moderated by a Washington Post reporter who has actually spent the past year taking an Algebra II course at a high school in Fairfax County. But most of the workshop was spent debating whether states and school districts should focus on creating new and higher standards or improving the quality of math instruction through better recruitment and training of math teachers. The panelists agreed that both are necessary, and it's clear that states focus on the standards more because it's easier and considerably cheaper. But it was also clear that raising standards requires considerable buy-in from math teachers, and maybe a new way of doing business for them. Also, there was a big debate on whether Algebra II is really necessary for life/college success. The guy from Achieve Inc. trotted out all his statistics that showed people who take Algebra II and beyond in high school are far more likely to succeed in college. I asked whether that might be because those kids are smarter in general, so it's more a correlation than causation. He said nobody's really studied that question. Oh. (Of course, I say this as a person who never went beyond high school geometry.)