Are timed tests too stressful? It's part of a 'math wars' controversy
- - Are timed tests too stressful? It's part of a 'math wars' controversy
N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAYDecember 27, 2025 at 6:01 AM
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Latrenda Knighten has always liked math.
As a child, she remembers breezing through timed tests ‒ high speed, low stakes assignments that challenge students to complete a number of simple problems in a short amount of time. Knighten couldn't understand why the drills, sometimes called mad minutes, sparked "extreme anxiety" in some of her siblings and fellow students.
So when she became a teacher herself, Knighten gave her students timed tests multiple times per week. The response shocked her.
"My students had a breakdown. They were crying because they couldn't do it that quickly. ... This was part of the curriculum, but because of how it affected my students, I stopped using them because we weren't getting any productive results," said Knighten.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, of which Knighten is now president, would eventually issue a statement saying that “timed tests do not assess fluency and can negatively affect students, and thus should be avoided.”
The pushback on timed tests was also briefly included in set of controversial guidelines issued by the New York State Department of Education in May on the best practices for teaching kids basic math skills.
It's all part of larger "math wars" that have been raging for decades as some educators fight against old teaching methods they say promote rote memorization over actual understanding. The New York state guidelines say they aim for students to understand basic mathematical concepts and to think critically about how to apply them in other situations, rather than simply memorizing and regurgitating facts.
But the guidance has drawn harsh criticism from those who say explicit instruction and repeated practice are proven to be the best way to get kids to retain the information they need to thrive.
Educators, education officials and politicians are duking it out at both the state and local level over which teaching philosophy works best, reigniting a debate that raged during the "math wars," a conflict over whether to prioritize conceptual understanding or mastering basic skills in math education that dates back to 1989, according to Education Week.
"I think that when it comes to learning and education that people get into ‒ almost similar to politics ‒ camps that are unproductive and unhelpful and it becomes so wrapped up in their identity that they can barely have a conversation with people who might think something differently from them," said Nicole McNeil, a professor of psychology who studies math cognition at the University of Notre Dame.
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New York education officials reached out to Deborah Loewenberg Ball, a professor at the University of Michigan and director of TeachingWorks, to compile research on best practices for teaching numeracy ‒ the math counterpart of literacy ‒ into easily digestible guides that could be used by policymakers, school districts and teachers.
Early math education is focused on developing "fluency" or "automaticity" with basic facts, like knowing the answer to five times six, Ball said. But memorizing facts isn't the end goal.
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"The major goal, what we really need, is a culture in which adults don't say, 'I'm not a math person,' and where, when given a math problem of some kind, they can reason about it correctly," Ball said.
Ball's briefs, released in May, argue that traditional methods like timed tests and providing step-by-step or "explicit" instruction thus aren't always the best teaching methods to accomplish this. Inquiry-based approaches, in which students learn partly by making conjectures about how to tackle math problems, can "enhance mathematical problem solving and reasoning," the guidance contends.
But more than 165 teachers, parents, school psychologists, special educators, administrators, and advocates signed a petition in October calling for Ball's guidance to be retracted. In an accompanying letter to the state's education commissioner, Benjamin Solomon, an associate professor in the department of educational and counseling psychology at the University at Albany, described the briefs as "critically flawed."
Solomon said explicit instruction, often described as an "I do, we do, you do" approach, should be "the dominant form of instruction for all kids." He said that timed tests don't cause math anxiety and they are the only way to measure math fact fluency.
Solomon said the briefs are "sowing an enormous amount of confusion" among New York educators, and though they don't force teachers to make any changes, he fears students' test scores could stagnate if they're implemented widely.
"I hope I'm wrong," he said.
But the New York State Education Department appeared undeterred by the pushback.
"While NYSED acknowledges the passion and commitment of those who signed the petition and shares their dedication to improving mathematics outcomes for all students, we will not be swayed by misinformation or efforts to undermine our work to advance equity and excellence in education," JP O’Hare, assistant commissioner for public affairs, wrote in response to Solomon's petition.
New York debate just the latest battle in the 'math wars'
The debate in New York reflects a broader fight sometimes dubbed the "math wars" that has been raging for decades, Solomon said.
The conflict has recently spawned entrenched camps like the Science of Math movement, which has criticized some of the teaching practices recommended by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and competing curricula like Illustrative Mathematics, an inquiry-based approach adopted in New York City and school districts in all 50 states.
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State test scores for public school students in New York City actually rose in the 2024-2025 school year, after Mayor Eric Adams overhauled the city's math curriculum, despite opposition from educators.
Pushback over math education has gotten so heated at times that one company filed a defamation lawsuit against a parent in North Carolina who was openly critical of their curriculum.
Some experts say the best method for teaching kids likely lies somewhere in the middle.
"It's not a black and white situation," said Gregory Cizek, a professor emeritus of educational measurement and evaluation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "My take, there's not a right side and a wrong side to this, but both groups really want the best for kids and their mathematical learning and that both sides have something to offer."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Are timed tests too stressful? Guidance warns of negative effects.
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