America has a math problem, and it is more than an education concern. It is a defense readiness concern.
The nation needs more young people prepared for the quantitative demands of engineering, cyber, artificial intelligence, data science, logistics, advanced manufacturing and other fields that underpin U.S. military strength. Yet too many students who may be ready for more challenging math are not given the chance to take it.
The recently released government assessment of how U.S. students are performing academically over time reveals the breadth of the problem. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education, has found that just 23 percent of the nation’s 13-year-olds reported being enrolled in Algebra I. For a country competing in an era of autonomous systems, precision weapons and cyber operations, that should be a warning light.
Algebra I matters because it helps build the foundation for academic success and, later on, national defense capability. It provides the intellectual underpinning for geometry, Algebra II, pre-calculus, statistics, calculus, computer science and other coursework essential for college, technical training and careers in an economy — and a defense enterprise — built around data and quantitative reasoning.
The Gates Foundation notes that students who pass Algebra 1 by 9th grade “are twice as likely to graduate high school and more likely to enroll and graduate with a bachelor’s degree and go on to well-paid careers.” Those are also the students most likely to become part of the talent pool from which the military and defense industry draw future workers.
In short, success in Algebra 1 is an early marker of whether the country is developing enough students who can thrive in the technical pathways that national defense increasingly requires.
A math “excellence gap”
Not every middle school student should be rushed into Algebra I. But for students who have already demonstrated the ability to advance, they should not have to depend on parent advocacy, teacher recommendation, school culture or luck to get the opportunity. Advanced math placement can vary from district to district and even school to school. A student may qualify on a state test but still miss the course because no one recommends it, because a parent does not know to ask or because teachers underestimate the student’s potential.
That creates an “excellence gap” — the distance between the number of students who are ready for advanced coursework and those actually placed in it. In defense terms, it is a talent-identification failure at the front end of the pipeline.
Virginia illustrates the problem. Statewide testing data in the state shows that in 2024 more than 53,000 7th graders were eligible for Algebra 1 based on their performance or the grade-level test they took. But in 2025, only approximately 32,000 eighth-grade students were enrolled in it.
Nationally, we do not know the full extent of the “excellence gap” because most states do not publicly report data on enrollment in Algebra 1. For those that do, inconsistencies across school systems make it difficult to determine how many students could be enrolled compared to those who are enrolled. That lack of visibility should trouble anyone concerned about the future STEM workforce and the country’s ability to compete technologically.
Building a better pipeline
Some states are moving in the right direction. North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Kentucky and Indiana have adopted or advanced automatic-enrollment approaches that place students into higher-level coursework when they meet academic benchmarks.
North Carolina’s experience is instructive. After its policy took effect with automatic enrollment, officials estimated that as many as 8,000 students in grades six and above were placed in advanced math courses they otherwise would have missed, including about 2,100 rising eighth graders moved into an algebra-based course typically taken in 9th grade.
Placement alone will not solve the nation’s math challenges or its defense talent challenges. Students need strong elementary math instruction, high-quality instructional materials, well-prepared teachers, tutoring when required and monitoring once they enter accelerated courses. A student should never be dropped into a harder class and left to sink or swim.
But if a student has shown readiness for advanced math, the default everywhere in the nation should be enrollment in advanced math. This approach helps ensure that capable students are not blocked from the first rung of a pathway that can lead to well-paying jobs in engineering labs, cyber units, shipyards, airframe and satellite manufacturers and specialized software developers.
“National security leaders must commit to a deliberate, coordinated effort to strengthen STEM pipelines from K-12 education through higher education and into the workforce,” defense industry experts wrote last year in National Defense magazine.
Strengthening that pipeline begins when schools recognize math readiness and open the door.
