Texas
Texas children are still struggling with math after the pandemic. Some schools are trying a new approach.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
DALLAS — In Eran McGowan’s math class, students try to teach each other.
If a student is brave enough to share how they solved a math problem, they stand up in front of the other third graders and say, “All eyes on me.” The classroom responds, “All eyes on you,” and the student explains how they did it.
This collaborative method of learning math is part of a new curriculum, named Eureka Math, that was launched in the Dallas Independent School District this school year. It emphasizes helping students better grasp mathematical concepts instead of their performance on the state’s standardized test. The new curriculum is described as a step away from memorization.
The new curriculum “moves away from using tests as a way to measure success,” said McGowan, who teaches at the Eddie Bernice Johnson STEM Academy. “It’s more focused on the kids understanding the concept, and in turn, that will help a child pass assessments.”
While the teaching approach is different, the intent ultimately continues to be helping students do better on the math portion of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Last summer’s results showed that Texas students have still not caught up to the math scores they had in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Forty-five percent of students who took math in third through eighth grade or Algebra I last year passed the STAAR test. While their math scores represent a slight increase from last year, they are still 7 percentage points behind the state average in 2019.
What’s more, the number of students who went above and beyond and “mastered” the subject has not recovered since the pandemic. In 2023, 19% of all Texas students mastered math at their grade level, down from 26% in 2019. While Texas students’ overall math scores last year were four points higher than the national average, the percentage of students who master math in the state is significantly behind the national average of 38%, according to the Nation’s Report Card, which samples fourth- and eighth-grade students’ reading and math grades across the country.
Policymakers and educators worry that the low number of students who master math will mean not enough Texans will have the skills to meet the demands of the most lucrative, in-demand jobs in the next few decades. They fear Texas will not be able to produce its own workforce and will be forced to look for talent elsewhere. According to a Stanford University study, students who do not bring their math scores back up to pre-pandemic levels will earn 5.6% less over the course of their lives than students with better grades just before the pandemic hit.
“Is our inability to get kids back towards this increased level of mastery — for math — going to limit them in the long run for the types of jobs that you’re going to be able to access, or even feel like they can access, in the future?” said Gabe Grantham, a K-12 policy analyst at Texas 2036, a public policy think tank. “If we don’t do anything about this at the state level in 2025, we’re going to be behind the ball.”
Texas won’t know how well Eureka Math is working until later in the year, when the next STAAR results are released, but there is optimism. About 400 other Texas school districts, both private and public, are using the curriculum. Across the country, districts that have adopted the curriculum have seen scores improve. Dallas ISD piloted the program at Anson Jones Elementary before adopting it districtwide and found that students’ math scores and confidence in their handling of the subject went up.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/491968fc8164a88ad1e7dec0c9a853f9/0205%20Math%20Scores%20AS%20TT%2018.jpg)
The Texas Legislature has also taken steps to make it easier for students to advance in their math studies. Lawmakers last year passed Senate Bill 2124, which automatically promotes middle schoolers to a higher math class if they do well at a lower level.
The law’s author, state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said having students perform at a high level in math will increase their lifetime earnings and contribute to a healthy Texas economy. Lawmakers, policy analysts and public education officials are looking for other ways to help students bring up their math scores ahead of the 2025 legislative session, he said.
Grantham said Texas is behind other states when it comes to math reform at the legislative level, but it’s better to design policies based on data and a careful review of what’s working and what’s not.
“We don’t want to throw things at the wall and see what sticks,” he said. “Everyone wants the same silver bullet, but we’re trying to parse out what that actually looks like.”
For now, Texas is betting on laws passed over the last couple of years to help struggling students, such as mandated tutoring and, more recently, a law that makes it easier for teachers and districts to have access to “high-quality” instructional materials. Texas education experts and school administrators believe both policies are promising, though they say staffing shortages have made it difficult to comply with mandatory tutoring.
Teaching challenges
When the pandemic forced Texas schools to close and shift to virtual learning, STAAR scores plummeted to lows not seen in a decade.
Schools and families weren’t ready for the change. Some children didn’t have internet access or computers at home; others were completely absent. Academic achievement in both reading and math took a hit.
Four years later, reading scores have surpassed pre-pandemic levels but students are still struggling with math.
“The pandemic was just such a large-scale interruption, one that our system didn’t really know how to engage with,” said Carlos Nicolas Gómez, an assistant professor of STEM Education at UT-Austin. “And due to that, even coming back, we’re still dealing with the interruption.”
Gómez and Grantham said the reason why students have recovered faster in reading is because they can practice it at home much easier than math.
“Reading, it’s a lot easier for parents to read to their kids at home,” Grantham said. “Math is going to take a lot more direct instruction. That was just lost when kids were out of school.”
When kids came back to the classroom, many didn’t have a grasp of mathematical concepts they should’ve learned in previous years, said Umoja Turner, principal of the Eddie Bernice Johnson STEM Academy.
It fell on teachers to come up with learning plans that incorporated the concepts students are supposed to learn at each grade level, plus fill out the gaps in learning caused by the pandemic.
But Michelle Rinehart, superintendent of the Alpine Independent School District, said the state’s teacher shortage crisis and the departure of experienced teachers from schools have made it difficult to help students catch up. Only two out of her seven math teachers in grades 3-8 have taught math before, she said.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/6e9bb33f43a5453fd5aa58f07d20d0b2/0205%20Math%20Scores%20AS%20TT%2022.jpg)
Experienced teachers lead to increased student achievement, according to the Learning Policy Institute, an education policy think tank. But during the last school year, 28% of new teachers hired in Texas did not have a certification or permit to teach, and 13% of all teachers left the profession. Both figures represented historic highs.
“That is a really high challenge right now,” Rinehart said.
The teaching shortage is especially hard for rural districts compared to their urban counterparts. For starters, Rinehart said, small districts like Alpine can’t pay teachers as much and usually have far fewer resources.
A new way to learn
Before Eureka Math was introduced in Dallas and Alpine ISDs, teachers could use a variety of different curricula, mostly geared toward passing the STAAR and memorizing how to solve equations.
This led to differences in how students across the state learned math. Turner said this sometimes causes students who move to a different campus to struggle when adapting to a new teaching method.
With Eureka Math now being widely adopted across Dallas ISD, students have a more consistent way of learning math, which hopefully will result in better test scores, he said.
McGowan said the curriculum he used in the past heavily emphasized passing the STAAR.
“With previous curriculums, it was just, ‘we have an equation, we solve it,’ but the kids cannot explain the process well,” he said.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/058a1dbe88f54f8d63857664e2c4e8de/0205%20Math%20Scores%20AS%20TT%2021.jpg)
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/cf3f2a01ccce08abc908be0e67f63a9e/0205%20Math%20Scores%20AS%20TT%2013.jpg)
Brittany duPont with Great Minds, the company that designed Eureka Math, has been helping Dallas teachers adopt the new curriculum. She said it’s been a huge shift in math teaching, and some veteran teachers have pushed back.
But duPont said the teaching tactics that Eureka Math proposes are needed to help kids catch up with their math studies after the pandemic. They’re also timely because the recently redesigned STAAR test now focuses more on how a child solves a math problem, she added.
Kids are more excited to learn and master concepts with Eureka Math, McGowan said. Another upside of the new curriculum is that it gives teachers room to test kids’ knowledge on a topic before each lesson, making it easier for teachers to collaborate on ways to help students catch up, he said.
The new curriculum also emphasizes collaboration. McGowan lets his students debate concepts with each other and figure out how they got to certain conclusions. The process allows them to gain a deeper understanding of mathematics.
Moving to a new curriculum always poses a bit of a risk and challenge, especially when it’s easier to stick to what you know, but McGowan said he’s seen kids enjoy learning math in a way he never has in his 18-year career.
“It’s about trusting the process. Trusting that the kids will learn,” he said. “But we have to be consistent.”
Disclosure: Texas 2036 has been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
We can’t wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas’ breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.

Texas
Supreme Court sides with Texas’ age verification law for porn sites

The Supreme Court
Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images
The Supreme Court
Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring consumers to provide age verification in order to gain access to commercial websites that provide sexually explicit material. It was the first time that the court has imposed requirements on adult consumers in order to protect minors from having such access.
Free-speech advocates argued that while the law’s goal is to limit minors’ access to online sexually explicit content, it is overly vague and imposes significant burdens on adults’ access to constitutionally protected expression. Lawyers for Texas said in their filing, and during arguments, that the law’s opponents had failed to show a single person whose rights have been “chilled” by it.
By a vote of 6-3 along ideological lines, the court agreed with Texas, saying the law “only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults.”
The Texas measure, enacted in 2023, was aimed at protecting kids under the age of 18 from exposure to sexually explicit material.
It did that by requiring every user, including adults, to first provide proof, typically via a government-issued identification, that they were at least 18 years old. The statute applies to all websites that contain content that is one-third or more “sexually suggestive” in nature and “harmful to children.”
More Supreme Court decisions from today:
Just what the term “harmful to children” means is debatable because, according to the websites, the term covers any sexually suggestive material, including romance novels and R-rated movies.
The Free Speech Coalition, an adult industry trade association, and several adult industry producers challenged the law in court, contending that it violated the First Amendment guarantee to free speech and expression.

The groups noted, among other things, that while the statute does bar companies from retaining the identifying information, it does not prohibit transfer of that information or impose any other protection from disclosure to protect adults’ privacy. Moreover, the challengers maintained the state’s defense of the statute fell apart in light of the fact that it exempted from the law’s coverage the search engines and social-media platforms that are the principal gateways for minors gaining access to sexually explicit content.
Federal judge David Alan Ezra, a Reagan appointee, initially barred the law from taking effect, on the grounds that it was likely unconstitutional.
But a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel voted 2-to-1 to uphold the law, clearing the way for it to take effect. The appeals court said that because the state justified the law as rationally related to its purpose of protecting children, that is all that is necessary. The so-called rational basis test used by the appeals court means essentially that a law passes muster as long as the legislature had any rational justification.
It is the court’s least rigorous standard, and the challengers maintained that it was far too lax and ignored the impact on adult users.
Texas
Armed woman sitting on folding chair shuts down I-45 during standoff in Spring, Texas

SPRING, Texas (KWTX) – A woman armed with a gun has created a traffic nightmare during a standoff on I-45 South in Spring, Texas, according to the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office.
The constable said the woman “apparently turned her vehicle directly into the path of an 18-wheeler” and caused a collision.
She reportedly then exited her vehicle and sat down in the main lanes of the interstate.
A trained mental health officer has arrived at the scene. Authorities say the woman is saying she wants her kids who are being held hostage.
There is a heavy police presence on I-45 near Cypresswood Drive and the interstate is shut down.
Avoid the area.
Copyright 2025 KWTX. All rights reserved.
Texas
DOJ ends investigation into Muslim-centered EPIC City project in North Texas

The U.S. Department of Justice has officially closed its investigation into EPIC City, a proposed Muslim-centered community in North Texas.
The project is affiliated with the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), one of the largest mosques in the region.
The DOJ’s decision comes after U.S. Sen. John Cornyn raised concerns about potential religious discrimination tied to the development.
Attorney calls probe political
Dan Cogdell, a criminal defense attorney representing both EPIC and the EPIC City organizers, called the investigation politically motivated.
“Several politicians have tried to pervert these so-called investigations for their political benefit,” Cogdell said. “Ultimately, I think it will backfire.”
He added that the DOJ’s decision to drop the case is a win for the project and reaffirmed that the development will move forward.
Community Capital Partners
EPIC City still under state review
EPIC City is planned for 400 acres in Josephine, pending approval from Collin County Commissioners.
The developers, Community Capital Partners, say the community will be open to people of all faiths. However, the project still faces at least three ongoing investigations from state agencies, including the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Texas Workforce Commission.
“Never in 42 years of practicing criminal defense have I seen the number and absurdity of the accusations lodged here,” Cogdell said. “We will comply fully and completely.”
New law targets religious developments
Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 4211, which his office says is designed to prevent developments like EPIC City from creating “no-go zones” by restricting land sales or rentals based on religious affiliation.
Despite the bill’s implications, Dan Cogdell, attorney for EPIC City, said the development supports the legislation.
“Anyone is welcome to buy and live there,” Cogdell said. “This is nothing more than a political opportunity for Abbott and others to claim they defeated an evil that never existed.”
CBS News Texas reached out to Rep. Candy Noble, the bill’s author, for comment but has not yet received a response.
In a statement, Andrew Mahaleris, press secretary for Gov. Abbott, said:
“Governor Abbott was proud to sign HB 4211 into law last week to ensure developments like EPIC City are unable to create ‘no-go zones’ by selling or renting land only to individuals who subscribe to a developer’s religious preference. Texas will continue to defend our communities from any threats posed by EPIC City or other entities seeking to create a discriminatory or illegal compound, and we will continue to monitor this proposed development for compliance with all Texas laws.”
Project delayed but still moving forward
EPIC City organizers say they are still in the planning phase and have not yet submitted a permit application to the county. However, they admit the ongoing state investigations have delayed progress by several months.
“Community Capital Partners is committed to building an inclusive community that follows the guidelines of the Fair Housing Act and we are glad the DOJ found that to be true in their investigation,” Cogdell said.
-
Arizona1 week ago
Suspect in Arizona Rangers' death killed by Missouri troopers
-
Business1 week ago
Driverless disruption: Tech titans gird for robotaxi wars with new factory and territories
-
Business1 week ago
Protesters are chasing federal agents out of L.A. County hotels: ‘A small victory’
-
Technology1 week ago
Meta held talks to buy Thinking Machines, Perplexity, and Safe Superintelligence
-
Technology1 week ago
SpaceX Starship explodes again, this time on the ground
-
Technology6 days ago
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 has returned to its lowest-ever price
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago
‘8 Vasantalu’ movie review: Phanindra Narsetti’s romance drama is ambitious but lacks soul
-
Politics6 days ago
Trump demands special prosecutor investigate 'stolen' 2020 election, loss to Biden