There’s a disconnect between the math education Florida students get and what employers are looking for. That’s according to a new report from the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
The Aligning Math Education to Workforce Needs Report combined surveys and conversations with focus groups that included business leaders, teachers and parents, where they compared business needs to education.
The survey dug into how businesses work with schools and looked at what companies are seeing among applicants, including what skills they’re lacking.
Foundation Vice President of Research Keith Richard said business leaders identified critical thinking, data analysis and problem solving as important skills employees should have. Job applicants also need basic accounting, budgeting and financial literacy skills to be successful.
"A lot of employers were saying it was hard to find talent that are proficient in some of these key areas,” Richard said.
But the need for these skills goes beyond traditional “math-heavy” fields, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics professions.
“These skills were things that [business leaders] believe students should be learning in their K-12 math education and are transferring into necessary skills across a range of roles across a variety of industries in Florida,” he said.
In the survey, 94% of business leaders said they were concerned about the math skills of job applicants. Over half said they were concerned about current employees’ skills.
The report said graduates are “ill-prepared” to join the workforce because of the lack of practical lessons.
To bridge this gap, business leaders want curriculum adjustments and strong partnerships with schools.
These partnerships could include guest lectures or field trips to businesses where employers would explain why math skills are important to their companies.
But, Richard knows changing lesson plans is not an easy task.
“We recognize our teachers are working hard, but when there’s an opportunity to [adjust curriculum], we did hear our teachers and employers all agreeing on different recommendations,” he said.
Parents in the focus groups emphasized the importance of math skills in the home, including creating a personal budget, while teachers said these basic skills are the foundation for logical reasoning and data interpretation.
The report follows the Math Matters: Bridging Gaps for Florida’s Future Workforce Report.
That March report provided a quantitative analysis of math skills among prospective employees. It said over 128,600 Florida students in 10th, 11th and 12th grade were “not proficient” in math. The report linked this shortcoming to such things as chronic absenteeism and the need for additional support in rural schools.
In the 2023-24 school year, 65% of eighth graders passed their math exam at the end of the year. While that number is up 3% from the following year, the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s goal is a 100% pass rate by 2030.
Richard said the main goal of the research is to highlight the importance of math education for all careers.
This, he said, comes down to exposure.
To improve the pass rates, the findings suggest providing additional support during the transition from middle school to high school. It also proposes summer camps or workshops led by business leaders for these students.
Richard also suggested career fairs, internship programs and mentorship opportunities for students.
“We believe that doing a lot more of that will help provide contextual examples for students early so that they can be thinking about exposure to careers and exposure to the types of math and ground the theoretical concepts they’re doing in the classroom to real-world applications,” he said.
