Cabarrus County high schoolers will no longer have to take Math 3 or Math 4 under new state math standards set to take effect in the 2028-29 school year.
The North Carolina State Board of Education approved the new K-12 math standards on Oct. 1 without opposition, as first reported by WRAL. The state Department of Public Instruction then launched an online resource hub on Oct. 26 with training materials, crosswalk documents and the new standards themselves, according to WSOC-TV.
The changes are the first update to North Carolina's math standards since 2017.
Students will still need four math credits to graduate. Math 1 and Math 2 remain required. But instead of taking Math 3 and a fourth course, students will choose two electives tied to their plans after high school.
That is a significant shift. Currently, high school students must take Math 1, Math 2 and Math 3, with some flexibility on the fourth course. Under the new standards, Math 3 disappears entirely, and Math 4 goes with it.
Counselors will guide students toward electives based on whether they plan to attend college, enter the workforce or join the military. Options include Applied Statistics and Data Science, Mathematical and Statistical Modeling, Applied Logic and Reasoning (a renamed version of Discrete Mathematics), AP Precalculus, AP Statistics, AP Calculus, and approved International Baccalaureate or college math courses, according to the News & Observer.
Charles Aiken, section chief of math, science and STEM in the Department of Public Instruction's Office of Teaching and Learning, told the state board that employers increasingly say "calculus is less critical than statistics and data analytics."
Sunghwan Byun, an assistant professor in the North Carolina State University College of Education who directs its Education Research for Data Science and AI Academy, told WRAL the changes align with today's workforce. Students are too often pushed toward calculus for their fourth math credit even when other STEM careers, such as nursing, do not require it, Byun said.
The state plans to spend the next two years training teachers before the 2028-29 rollout. The resource hub includes materials for school leaders, administrators, educators and parents.
Open questions remain for Cabarrus County families. Students currently take a state-mandated end-of-course exam in Math 3, and the Department of Public Instruction has not yet determined what testing changes will follow the elimination of that course. Whether the UNC System will update its admissions math requirements to align with the new standards is also unclear.
A team of about four dozen people wrote the new standards after receiving feedback from roughly 5,700 survey responses. North Carolina is among more than 20 states reworking how they teach math, many working with the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
The resource hub is open to parents as well as educators at ncdpi.instructure.com/courses/12806. Parents can also subscribe to monthly K-12 math newsletters through the Department of Public Instruction's email updates page.
