| Summary: | <p> In the United States, high school students have performed lower in mathematics than all the industrialized countries since the First International Study was administered in 1964. Studies revealed that a large number of high school graduates are not proficient in mathematics and are not ready for college mathematics or the workforce. This qualitative research intended to answer the question of why the U.S. high school students underperform in mathematics through teacher perceptions on the current curriculum and methods of instruction used in high school mathematics classes. The question was answered by exploring the perceptions of 12 high school mathematics teachers in northwest Florida through a survey of 16 open-ended questions and a focus group discussion that guided the research. Furthermore, the survey and focus group data were triangulated with teacher artifacts that included lesson plans. This resulted in an aggregate of 15 themes that included time, professional development, gap in the students’ knowledge, student encouragement, application to real world, resources, rigor, student encouragement, teacher collaboration, student ownership, standardized testing, traditional teaching, too many topics, two-tracks courses, practice and mental math, and student collaboration.</p><p> The findings of this research support the need to provide teachers with more time to teach, plan, and collaborate. Teachers also need more support from the educational leaders to provide professional development that will help teachers apply real-world, collaborative learning, and move away from the current traditional teaching that most of the participating teachers in this study prefer.</p>
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