Statistics Is Not a Silver Bullet
Statistics and other data science courses are great. They provide knowledge that employers want and can keep some students engaged in math or STEM courses who might otherwise give up entirely. Whenever the pendulum swings entirely in a new direction, however, we never get the promised result. As Rick Hess wrote way back in 2010, “Reformers get swept up in enthusiasms and manias rather than in problem-solving.” Surrendering calculus, as Dintersmith advocates, will not suddenly result in thousands of high school students successfully completing higher-level math courses. It sounds smart, of course. A rejection of the course that serves as a proxy for the ability to handle elite college coursework! An embrace of 21st-century skills! But less of one thing does not automatically result in more of something else, even more so when the “more” we want is math.
There’s a real case to be made for expanding access to statistics and data science, and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine is making it: “Broadly, an understanding of data and computing is increasingly required to engage in society in general and in a wide variety of professions including but not limited to careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Increasing the number of people with literacy in data and computing has the potential to enhance civic life, facilitate learning to participate in society, and expand opportunities to improve our world.” The non-profit DataScience4Everyone says 25 percent of job listings today require at least some data science skills, yet 60 percent of employers say they cannot find candidates who have them. Simply prioritizing data literacy over traditional advanced math, however, is unlikely to change either student outcomes or the nature of American civic life. We’ve got to walk and chew gum.
There’s research showing that students who take AP Statistics rather than AP Calculus don’t see a meaningful difference in their long-term earnings. But that research looks at an already self-selecting group of students taking an advanced AP math course. The real benchmark is whether we can increase the number of high school students taking and passing any advanced math at all. Doing that will require an overhaul of how we teach math in elementary school.
The importance of younger students mastering foundational math skills is nowhere to be found in Dintersmith’s book, which leaves the reader without the well-established evidence that early math fluency is essential for later math success. Math, like reading, is a muscle that must be intentionally developed. You first build the cognitive routines so that when the child gets to more advanced topics, he spends minimal time thinking about the addition, multiplication, or factorization they require. Then you can interest students in an array of advanced math courses they can capably pursue. We want high school students ready for advanced math the way an Olympic sprinter is ready for the 100-meter dash—trained, conditioned, and ready to fly.
The idea of “learning by doing,” as Dintersmith describes the pedagogical principle undergirding his book, seems alarmingly similar to several of the “instructional illusions” outlined by learning scientists Paul Kirschner, Carl Hendrick, and Jim Heal in their 2025 book by that name. Whenever someone claims that what students need to succeed is more engagement or motivation, they should be reminded of the common misconceptions around engagement and motivation. Demonstrating math’s relevance might be one tool a teacher uses in developing a lesson plan aimed at building mastery of a complex subject. But ultimately learning is, in the words of one expert teacher, “built on often unpleasant friction: retrieval, reflection, feedback, and practice. Real learning demands focus and time, not constant novelty and high energy.”
Schools should offer statistics and include opportunities for students to explore data science in humanities courses as well as traditional STEM courses. The goal should be to give all children a strong math foundation and the skills to navigate a data-centric world while ensuring every child with the aptitude or interest to pursue advanced math can do so. It’s statistics and calculus. It’s dreaming of kids demanding more math than we could ever hope for. It’s a love for math in a world run by probabilities and integrals alike.
