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Math education: Raising expectations for engaging instruction
数学教育：推动各方携手改善教学效果
When scores on the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress were released in October 2022, we saw the greatest decline in fourth- and eighth-grade math scores ever captured in the test's 50-year history. We didn't need those scores, however, to know that in too many K-12 classrooms, math is a chore and not a joy – and a proven barrier to high school and even college graduation, especially for Black and brown students. That's why we are investing US$1.1 billion over four years to improve the quality of math instruction for all kids.
当美国国家教育进展评估（National Assessment of education Progress）在2022 年10月公布结果时，我们看到四年级和八年级的数学分数出现了这项测试50年历史上的最大滑坡。然而，我们不需要这些分数就能知道，在太多K-12教室里，数学都是件苦差事，而非乐趣——事实证明，数学还是高中乃至大学毕业的障碍，尤其是对黑人和棕色人种的学生来说。这就是为什么我们将在四年内投资11亿美元以提高面向所有孩子的数学教学质量。
As a share of U.S. education spending, that's not a huge amount – only about one-sixth of what's likely to be spent on public schools in Wyoming, America's least populous state, over that time. But we hope it will make a big difference nonetheless.
作为美国教育支出的一部分，这并非巨额资金——在美国人口最少的怀俄明州，这个数字可能只占其公立学校支出的约六分之一。但无论如何，我们希望它能带来重大的改变。
Most educators say the math curriculum they're given is not engaging, effective, or relevant to their students' lives. They spend lots of time – of which they have so little – adapting the materials or creating their own. Yet educational publishing companies have not done nearly enough to understand what teachers want and students need and improve what's available.
大多数教育工作者表示，他们拿到的数学课程不吸引人、效果不好，和学生的生活也缺乏关联。他们花了大量时间——本来他们的时间就少得可怜——去适应教材或创造自己的教材。然而，教育出版公司在了解教师想要什么、学生需要什么以及改进现有内容方面做得还远远不够。
So we are. We'll be funding teams of school districts and universities to conduct research, which they'll define, on what works and what doesn't in elementary and middle school math instruction. Educational technologies that give teachers more tools in their toolkit will be part of that effort, as will new approaches to teacher training and even the variety of math courses offered.
所以我们希望在此发挥作用。我们将资助学区和大学的团队进行他们所需的研究，发现哪些做法能够改善小学和中学的数学教学，而哪些不能。为教师提供更多教学工具的技术、教师培训的新方法，甚至各种数学课程，都将是这一工作的组成部分。
With a consortium of other funders, we will partner with a small number of innovative publishers and educational technology companies to develop amazing new products; evaluate their efficacy in improving motivation, engagement, and persistence; and make the best of them available to as many classrooms as possible.
我们将联合其他资助者，与少数几个创新的出版商和教育技术公司合作，开发优秀的新产品，评估其在提高积极性、参与度和持久性方面的效果，并让尽可能多的教室用上其中最好的产品。
Our ultimate goal is not just to foster the development of better, more engaging math materials that serve the students furthest behind standards, but also to prove to major publishers that there's a market for those materials. If we do our job well, publishers will take it upon themselves to create better resources too.
我们的终极目标不仅是促进更好、更吸引人的数学教材的开发，为那些远远落后于标准的学生服务，而且还要向大出版商证明这些教材是有市场的。如果我们的工作做得好， 出版商也会有动力自主开发更好的教学资源。
The promise ahead
满怀希望，不懈努力
While we're optimistic about the potential for progress, we're also realistic. When it comes to the issues we work on, this is the toughest period in the foundation's history. And the challenges the world faces aren't likely to be resolved in 2023.
虽然我们对未来取得进展感到乐观，但我们也很务实。就我们致力于解决的问题而言，现在是基金会历史上最艰难的时期。而世界面临的挑战也不太可能在2023年得到解决。
That means we'll be looking for even more effective ways to accelerate innovation and spur action toward the global goals.
这意味着我们需要寻找更有效的方法，为实现全球目标加速创新、激励行动。
That doesn't mean we will set the agenda of multilateral organizations like WHO and the Global Fund. Nor will we decide which malaria drugs regulators approve, or what research scientists pursue. We won't decide which seeds farmers plant in their fields or which curriculum a school system adopts or whether a bed net is hung in a home.
这并不意味着我们将为世界卫生组织和全球基金等多边组织制定议程。我们也不会决定监管机构批准哪些疟疾药物，或者科学家该进行哪些研究。我们不会决定农民在田里种什么种子，也不会决定学校系统采用什么课程，更不会决定人们的家里是否挂蚊帐。
Our role is to ensure that decision-makers – be they school board members or cassava growers or health ministers – have the best possible options to choose from and the best possible data to inform their decisions. But make no mistake: Where there's a solution that can improve livelihoods and save lives, we'll advocate persistently for it.
我们的作用是确保决策者——无论是学校理事会成员、木薯种植者还是卫生部长——都能拥有最好的选择，以及最好的数据作为他们的决策依据。但有一点是肯定的：只要有改善生计和挽救生命的解决方案，我们就会对此进行不懈地倡导。
We won't stop using our influence, along with our monetary commitments, to find solutions – as long as hundreds of thousands of children die of malaria just because of where they live, as long as students of color and low-income students don't have equitable educational opportunities, and as long as famine threatens entire populations.
只要还有成千上万的儿童仅仅因为他们居住的地方就死于疟疾，只要有色人种学生和低收入家庭学生得不到公平的教育机会，只要饥荒还威胁着脆弱人群，我们就不会停止利用我们的影响力和我们的资金去寻找解决方案。
We see so much promise ahead, and we're excited to play a part in realizing it.
我们对未来充满希望，也很高兴能为实现这些希望尽一份力量。
Mark Suzman,
马克·苏斯曼
Chief Executive Officer
盖茨基金会首席执行官
