SUU Leader In Preparing Elementary Math Teachers

Southern Utah University has earned an A+ rating from the National Council on Teacher Quality for the university's elementary education program in mathematics. The NCTQ is a national research and policy organization that evaluates the core requirements and practices of over 1,100 that are preparing future elementary school teachers. SUU was one of only 79 programs to receive the A+ designation. Research studies have found that elementary math skills are a strong predictor of whether or not a student will graduate from high school. Recent data has found that students in many states have lost more learning in math than in reading over the past two years and pre-existing gaps in math achievement have worsened since 2020 between low-poverty and high-poverty schools and between majority-White and majority-Black schools, so the need for elementary teachers to be well-prepared to teach mathematics has never been more urgent. NCTQ evaluates programs for their coverage of both the key mathematics content that elementary teachers need, as well as how to teach those concepts. The recommended minimum instructional time that future elementary teachers need in these essential math topics was set based on guidance NCTQ received from teacher preparation programs, mathematicians, and math educators as part of an expert panel.