In James Bell’s math class at Chapman High School, sophomores are trying to pinpoint exactly where two lines cross.
The students in this rural Kansas high school already solved for that meeting point in previous lessons, using graphs and other techniques. But this recent lesson shows them how to use a matrix — a box made up of rows and columns representing a system of equations. Matrices are often used in engineering or video game design to calculate the locations of two objects moving through space.
Traditionally, this kind of complex linear algebra would be taught in the third year of high school math, when many students would take Algebra II. But a decade ago, the Chapman Unified School District, a rural district about 80 miles west of Topeka, Kansas, decided to drop the traditional high school math pathway — Algebra I for a year, followed by a year of geometry and then a year of Algebra II — in favor of what is called “integrated math.”
Integrated math takes concepts from both algebras and geometry, plus a little from trigonometry — the study of triangles and angles — and blends them over multiple years instead of teaching them separately, a year at a time. That means students can move from lessons in geometry to algebra and back again within the same year.
Bell, who helped write the math curriculum that Chapman High School uses, said he has seen how practicing both algebra and geometry throughout the year keeps them fresh in students’ minds.
“You’re going to have the opportunity to change course and change direction and see different things,” Bell said. “Students even do a little trig — which is a scary word for kids, but when it’s integrated into every year of math, it doesn’t sound as scary. It doesn’t make it as overwhelming.”
He added: “This is better for students. This is the best of both worlds.”
Chapman is part of a small group of districts and states moving to integrated math — all part of a larger movement to reimagine secondary math, give high schoolers more choice in courses, and modernize what some say are outdated ideas about what constitutes rigorous, college-level math by expanding course options beyond just calculus to include data science and statistics.
Some experts say blending algebra and geometry gives more students a shot at learning high-level math later on in high school and college, touting high-achieving European and Asian countries that have taught integrated math for decades.
But others say the integrated approach creates new problems. Some teachers have objected, saying they prefer to focus solely on algebra or geometry: Georgia mandated an integrated math approach in 2008 but made it optional in 2015 after teachers and parents complained. Others worry that integrated courses sometimes have to drop concepts that would be taught in the traditional math progression of Algebra I, geometry and Algebra II. That might leave some students unprepared for college calculus, because the integrated approach doesn’t stick with one subject for long enough for students to fully digest it.
In Chapman, where integrated math was installed along with other reforms, students went from 11 percent proficient to 41 percent proficient on the state math test the first year it was introduced, in 2015. In 2025, 67 percent scored proficient.
Kate Thornton, Chapman High’s principal, said the decision to move to integrated math had a lot to do with the Kansas state high school math test, which is administered in 10th grade. Many of the test questions were based on concepts from both Algebra I and II.
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Advanced students who took Algebra I in 8th grade and geometry the following year did well on the test, she said, but “regular students were not getting those concepts because they were taking geometry as sophomores. So they were having a whole year with no algebraic involvement.”
Integrated math still makes up only a fraction of high school math courses nationwide. A 2023 report from the Center for Education Market Dynamics noted that about 16 percent of districts offer integrated math either alone or as an option alongside the traditional Algebra I-geometry-Algebra II progression, often referred to as “AGA.” California and other Western states were seeing the most growth at the time of the report, based on the organization’s sample of over 900 districts around the country.
But more districts have adopted integrated math since the time of that report, said Lora Kaiser, the executive director of the center. “From 22-23 to 25-26, we’ve seen growth in every region outside of the Midwest, which showed a very modest decline. The West region, and California specifically, show most growth,” said Lora Kaiser, the executive director of the center. She also noted that fewer districts are offering a choice between the AGA and integrated models — instead, they are only offering integrated math to their students.
One factor driving the move to integrated math is the nationwide push to update high school mathematics for postsecondary education and the modern workforce. The Launch Years Initiative at the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, for example, is helping 27 states rework their transition from high school to postsecondary mathematics, mainly through offering more math options to students than the algebra, geometry, precalculus and calculus courses that have dominated high school math for decades.
Blending algebra and geometry courses can give students more room in their schedules to take other courses like data science or statistics, concepts that are very present in people’s everyday lives. Students take integrated math in ninth and 10th grade and then have the option of pursuing different math paths in 11th and 12th grades.
Lya Snell, director of building capacity for innovation at the Dana Center, said the AGA sequence is familiar to many and people are used to that framework. However, “where we are right now with tech and innovation is a lot different than where we’ve been before. We have to look at how we are preparing students for life today and in the future, and it requires us to create a more relevant experience.”
Maryland, one of the states working with the Dana Center, is rolling out a two-year course of integrated algebra and geometry that will be required statewide beginning in the fall of 2027. State leaders hope integrated math bolsters student achievement — only 30 percent of high schoolers scored proficient in math on the most recent state exam.
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Lyndsey Brightful, the director of mathematics in the division of instructional programs at the Maryland State Department of Education, said the previous math progression didn’t align with the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the 2021 state law providing extra funding to accelerate flagging student achievement.
Maryland now expects students to be ready for college-level math by 11th grade, which means condensing “the most essential content and concepts” from Algebra I, geometry and Algebra II into the first two years of high school, she said.
“We had sort of a mismatch in our math progression,” Brightful said. “If we wanted students to be ready for an entry-level college math course by grade 11, then we needed students to be finished with their foundational math skills by the end of 10th grade. With the traditional Algebra I-geometry-Algebra I progression, that was not true for on-grade-level students. It required acceleration.”
After students have completed two years of integrated math, Maryland will offer them multiple pathways of what it calls rigorous, college-level math courses beginning in 11th grade, including calculus, college algebra, data science and statistics. Students will also have access to high school data science, discrete mathematics, and AP and IB math courses. For decades, the calculus pathway was considered the only choice for advanced and STEM students, but even top universities are now saying it’s “not the only advanced math,” she said.
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“Higher-level statistics is advanced math, data science is advanced math,” Brightful said. “For students who are going into humanities majors, or even in some cases students who are going into nursing or business majors, they need to have strong math application skills or statistics skills, so pursuing other math pathways is still advanced.”
Brightful said the state is currently working with community colleges and the University of Maryland system to align admission requirements with the revised pathways. Currently, the state system requires four years of math for admissions, including Algebra I, geometry and Algebra II. Ideally, the state’s university system would accept the two-year integrated math course in place of the three years of AGA, Brightful said.
Because integrated math can cover a range of math topics over different time frames — states like Maryland are only offering two years, while districts like Chapman offer three or four years, depending on whether students choose to take calculus — it’s hard to determine whether the approach makes a difference in student achievement or helps more students with other goals, like succeeding at college-level math.
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Some states have seen gains they believe are tied to the integrated approach. Mike Spencer, secondary math specialist at the Utah State Board of Education, cites the state’s move to three years of integrated math a decade ago as one factor among many contributing to Utah students’ consistently strong math performance on both the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the ACT.
“Some of the value in integrated math is you see things come up each year, versus having gaps in some of that content knowledge,” Spencer said. “And when it’s done well, you make connections” between topics.
California, on the other hand, hasn’t seen the same testing improvement. Even after more than a decade of districts using integrated math, only 37 percent of California students are proficient in math, lagging behind most states.
Research on implementing integrated math — at least in the complicated U.S. context — is relatively limited, said University of Florida education policy researcher Elizabeth Huffaker. A 2015 study, for example, showed that teacher effectiveness may improve while teaching integrated math.
Huffaker recently examined California districts to compare students who took integrated math to students in the traditional math pathway. Her just-published study showed a “small and positive” effect on 11th grade test scores among students who took integrated math, but she said this has to be taken with a grain of salt: Districts were also implementing Common Core math at the same time. The gains were equivalent to two to three months of high school math learning, about the same effect as Common Core implementation, Huffaker’s study showed.
“I would not make this change expecting giant, transformative, high-impact-tutoring-type impacts,” Huffaker said. The costs of switching to integrated math may well outweigh the benefits, she said, “but I do think that the idea of creating more coherence and more opportunities to revisit key topics is sensible.”
But many educators find aspects of integrated math frustrating. Students may not be getting the message that higher-level traditional math like trigonometry and calculus is still essential for college STEM majors, especially at selective schools. David Merryman, a professor of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said the handful of students he’s advised over the years who arrived at Vanderbilt without high school calculus were completely lost in their first-year math courses.
And even if integrated math courses promise they are covering trigonometry woven in with geometry and algebra concepts, Merryman is not sure it’s enough to really prepare students for the rigors of college engineering courses.
“The kids who come to my class and are weak in trig, they struggle,” Merryman said. “For the non-STEM students, integrated math is probably great, you get a better understanding of how everything relates to each other. I don’t think it serves kids who’re going into STEM.”
Ben Kitchl, a first-year global studies major at Loyola University in Chicago, briefly thought about being a STEM major early in high school. But his eighth grade Algebra I credit wouldn’t transfer to his new high school that only offered integrated math, and he had to start over, putting him behind.
“I had to take Integrated Math II and III, even though I already knew a lot of it,” he said. He would have had to take two math courses in one year in order to make it to calculus his senior year.
It’s some of these tensions that are causing some states, including high-performing Utah, to revisit their integrated math requirement. Even some teachers are questioning it. “A lot of our veteran teachers, they’re the ones who say, ‘Oh, I miss teaching the AGA format, of being compartmentalized a little bit,” Spencer said. The state education agency plans to survey secondary teachers for their thoughts on the integrated model compared to the traditional math sequence and report back to the board of education on its findings.
In North Carolina, which like Utah has a three-year progression, the state board of education is also revisiting integrated math, looking into a possible two years of choice like Maryland to make more time for statistics and data science. Emily Hare, the director of pre-K-12 math at the state board of education, said attitudes are slowly shifting away from what she called the “race to calculus.”
“I think that we have proven that the integrated pathway can work. I also think that sometimes folks think that it’s a little more different than what it is,” Hare said. “Sometimes, yes, you have the opportunity to mix algebra and geometry, but it’s not like we’re teaching different math. It’s just teaching it in a different order.”
This story about integrated math was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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