As the school year gets rolling in West Virginia, teachers and administrators throughout the state are once again tackling a persistent problem — the drop in math proficiency from elementary school to middle school to high school.

Once again, West Virginia Department of Education data show a consistent decline in math proficiency as students get older. It’s a problem the Northern Panhandle is not immune to.

Department of Education information shows that, in Ohio County, 58% of fifth-graders were proficient in math last school year, which fell to 43% of eighth graders and 27% of 11th graders. In Marshall County, 37% of fifth-graders were proficient in math, which fell to 36% in eighth grade and 21% in 11th.

The rest of the panhandle is mostly the same in math proficiency:

– 58% of Hancock County fifth graders, 43% of eighth graders and 27% of 11th graders;

– 42% of Brooke County fifth graders, 35% of eighth graders and 23% of 11th graders;

– 38% of Wetzel County fifth graders, 31% of eighth graders and 16% of 11th graders;

– 46% of Tyler County fifth graders, 48% of eighth graders and just 11% of 11th graders?

It’s very disconcerting to watch math scores in West Virginia plummet as students progress through school. What allows that trend to continue?

Motivation is a factor. The older a student gets, the less motivated they may be to excel on a standardized test, especially if they feel such a test isn’t going to do anything for them for the future. The easiest solution there is to create consequences for poor performance. Maybe a substandard score makes a student ineligible for an AP class or puts them into a remedial class.

Other solutions are out there. Those same data show improvements in reading scores as students age. Perhaps look at the methods used in teaching reading and use that structure in math instruction. Ohio County has seen scores improve by using Khan Academy.

However the solution is found, it must be found. We must do right by our students to have them ready for the world as they enter it.