America is facing a dramatic decline in testing scores across the nation, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. NEAP scores for mathematics in 2024 showed that just 22% of 12th graders were grade level proficient. But any student at Pioneer who is paying attention will know that this school’s Math Department is home to a community of teachers who are holding back Pioneer from falling into that national decline. Pioneer remains a stronghold of math education, and according to Math Department Chair Joe O’Connell, Pioneer math scores haven’t changed much and do not have rapid fluctuations year to year as some other districts do.
The conventional wisdom in education is that COVID-19 destroyed teenagers’ education, and we are still “bouncing back.” However, Pioneer’s data shows no evidence of such a shift, with a standardized test score mean of 65.6 percent before COVID, and a post-COVID mean of 64.6 percent, showing little decline despite scores plummeting in national averages.
O’Connell says that there’s an extreme and misguided narrative around test scores, “like the kids have fallen off the world” since COVID which just doesn’t apply to all districts.
While he has noticed some changes in student behavior, he says he does not see enormous shifts in his own classes. Students have always had certain issues, he says. “My experience is that students who find themselves easily distracted…are easily distracted,” he said.
One notorious difficulty emerging post-COVID has been a teacher shortage. According to Pioneer math teacher Abigail Edmonds, this trend did hit Pioneer hard. “We didn’t have enough math teachers for the amount of students last year, which means that I didn’t have a planning hour at all,” she said.
This tight schedule can make it incredibly difficult to maintain enthusiasm in newer teachers, but Edmonds says she has found a welcoming community behind her at Pioneer, including her department chair. “I think ‘OC’ has a great energy that he brings to it,” she said.
O’Connell is equally positive, celebrating new teachers as a valuable part of the department. “One of the nice things about this particular department in this building is that our teaching force flipped basically right around COVID,” he says. “We have a big group of young, both inexperienced and experienced teachers, and so it’s a nice synergy.”
Edmonds also enjoys the proportion of younger teachers, saying that she benefits from having fellow young teachers beside her. “Teaching pre-calculus with Miss Proctor is really nice because we’re both around the same age,” she says.
Ultimately, as Pioneer remains a stronghold of math education, Edmonds says that the students’ enthusiasm is the most important part. “I would say my approach is to be more rigorous. Here you can tell that there’s a lot of ambition,” she said.
Pioneer’s tradition of excellence has kept it squarely out of the math test score declines, and its Math Department and teachers have passionately enforced those values. “You really have to find that love for it, for sure,” O’Connell says.