“The equation is simple: No matter what their background, students who take challenging math courses in high school get better jobs and earn more money throughout their entire lives.”

Do you have a reluctant math student living under your roof? The Math Works advocacy kit from Achieve.org is written for every student who has uttered the famous words: “I won’t use math in my job, so no sense suffering through more than I need to graduate.”

If this sounds even a little familiar, it’s worth your time to download Math Works, a series of one-page fact sheets written for high school students to explain the lifetime advantages of taking advanced math:

• Advanced Math Equals Career Readiness
• All Students Need Advanced Math
• Advanced Math: Closing the Equity Gap
• Americans Need Advanced Math to Stay Globally Competitive
• The Value of the Fourth Year of Mathematics
• Math’s Double Standard and Exposing the Myth: Advanced Math Does Not Increase Drop Out Rates

If your student is still not convinced that, regardless of post-graduation plans, engaging in rigorous math will lead to greater opportunities, the Mathematics at Work brochures may offer enlightenment. Drawn from leading industries nationwide, these case studies illustrate the advanced math knowledge and abstract thinking skills necessary to advance in today’s workplace.

For more in-depth reading, download The Building Blocks of Success: Higher-Level Math for All Students [pdf], a policy paper which synthesizes current research on why math is so important to all students and how it serves as a foundation for higher-order thinking and improves access and success in college and careers.

Created in 1996 by the nation’s governors and corporate leaders to help raise academic standards, Achieve is an independent, bipartisan, non-profit education reform organization based in Washington, D.C. The intent of the Math Works materials is to help policymakers, advocates, educators, parents, and students understand the connection between higher-level math courses and college access and success, workplace and career readiness, and personal and U.S. competitiveness.