It’s movie night at the Urban League of Greater Madison’s Black Business Hub.

“This evening, we’re going to do the film screening,” Stephanie Bradley said.

There’s a packed house for the first-ever public showing in Wisconsin of Counted Out, a documentary about the importance of math.

“Math is all around us,” said Bradley, president of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It is something maybe many of us might have had a negative experience with when we were in school, but we want to change that narrative.”

The film features two UW-Madison professors — Erika Bullock is one of them.

“I love teaching, period,” said Bullock, a professor of curriculum and instruction in the UW-Madison School of Education. “Math, for sure, but I don’t care what it is.”

By Bullock’s estimate, this is about her 15th time participating in a Counted Out screening.

“The goal was to get people exposed to the importance of mathematics in our lives,” she said. “When people are thinking about screening it, they think about, OK, this is going to help parents to understand how they can help their child with mathematics.”

Bullock emphasized how critical these skills are.

“I think it’s really difficult to convince people that there’s value in math, even though we use it all the time,” she said.

“Math is everywhere,” said Angie From, a teacher at Notre Dame School of Milwaukee.

“Understanding math is foundational just being able to function in the world,” said Colleston Morgan, Jr., executive director of the City Forward Collective.

Based on the numbers, educators everywhere agree that Wisconsin students need to do better in math. According to the Wisconsin Forward Exam, the test used to assess how well students are doing in the classroom, just over half in 3rd through 8th grades are proficient in math, at 54%. In Milwaukee schools, the number is just over one-fifth, at 22%.

“This question of math and numeracy is every bit as important as the conversation we’ve had around literacy,” Morgan, Jr. said.

He leads a non-profit team of educators and advocates in Milwaukee.

“We’re using numbers and math all the time to understand and go around the world,” Morgan, Jr. said.

Collectively, their mission is to eliminate educational inequity while providing students access to quality schools. One thing City Forward does is track state and national test scores of students at public and private schools statewide.

A father of two, Morgan, Jr. shared how he tracks his own kids and their journey with math.

“My fourth-grader probably just got through her times table. She’s working on the advanced multiplication-division. My sixth grader is doing her math skills as well, right? What keeps me up at night is thinking about the tens of thousands of students across our state who maybe aren’t getting that same level of instruction, who maybe aren’t getting that same level of attention at home,” he explained.

“We get to the point where we don’t even think about the ways in which we’re adding and subtracting, multiplying, dividing,” Morgan, Jr. added.

Bullock described how common math is in everyday life.

“When we sit and we say, ‘OK, it’s three hours away — if I go about 60, I’ll get there.’ You know, like those kinds of calculations we don’t see those as mathematical really,” she said. “Finding, calculating a discount in a store, or measuring, or visually eyeing something to see, OK, does this look about the same size?”

In politics, strategizing winning campaigns and mapping voting districts involves math.

“This is a battleground state — I need to invest my resources because there is something here that the data has shown that says, this is a possibility for me,” said Bullock about the mathematical considerations in politics.

“We’re using algorithms in order to determine if somebody will recommit a crime and return back to prison,” she said, noting an example of how math is used in government. “And maybe for every disciplinary infraction, I am going to subtract 10 points.:

Math is at the center of managing COVID and other diseases.

“You have one person who is infected, and then that person sits in a room with 30 people,” Bullock said.

Even something as mundane as crossing a busy street involves mathematics.

“I’m thinking about, OK,” Bullock said.

“You got 30 seconds to get across the street,” said Morgan, Jr.

“I’m looking at the distance,” said Bullock.

“How long before the light turns red,” Morgan, Jr. asked.

“Do I need to run? Do I need to walk fast?” asked Bullock.

Drivers likewise use math to make calculations.

“You’re driving 35 miles,” said Morgan, Jr.

“I’m pulling this,” Bullock said.

“Or you need to hit the brakes,” Morgan, Jr. said.

“Can I make it?” asked Bullock.

Morgan, Jr. said learning this type of day-to-day math is essential.

“These foundational skills are going to remain the basis for your ability to access and enter — and if anything, they’re only going to become more important,” he said.

Educators are working to help kids learn these skills.

“People need to hear that there are places in education that are working,” said Patrick Landry.

One of those places, on Milwaukee’s south side, is the Notre Dame Academy.

“There’s a special math culture here, and it’s evident in the numbers,” said Landry, the school’s president, about the culture of learning at Notre Dame, which serves students from K3 through 8th grade.

“For us, math is cool here. Math is fun,” he said. “When you ask the kids their favorite subjects, I’d say 70% of them are saying math. And that’s been a culture that we’ve built intentionally for a long time.”

From’s 8th grade all-boys algebra class at Notre Dame is one example, where the proof is all in the numbers.

“I love to teach,” she said.

And there are students who feel the same way.

“I honestly love math, always did,” shared Johnathan Todd, who said in this classroom, the passion for math adds up to positive perfection.

“The teachers here are just amazing. I think they’re like the best teachers in the world,” he said.

Sixth through 8th grade boys at Notre Dame scored a perfect 100% in math on the state’s Forward exam, and girls scored 70%. On the other hand, students at other Milwaukee schools in the same grades scored at 20%.

Todd wants to be a math teacher someday.

“The reason why people struggle with math is because you haven’t learned it yet,” he said.

The eighth grader believes the derivative of schoolwide success in math at Notre Dame is a combination of strict teaching, disciplined students supporting each other, plus parental support. And it’s OK to make mistakes — he and his classmates said they learn from them.

Outside the classroom, Todd said he uses math all the time, even when he plays basketball.

“So, if I’m at the three-point line and my brain is like, how much force I need to put in the ball, what angle I need to go upwards like this into the net, and then the probability of me making it based on my statistics,” he said.

After more than 30 years in the classroom, From said teaching how students learn has changed a lot. Today it involves more problem-solving, more critical thinking.

“Maybe you and I were kids where we just like, ‘OK, what is 2 times 5? Is 10,'” she said. “What is, it was, it’s more than computation. It’s more conceptual. You know, you have to really think about and use it for everyday situations, everyday life.”

Landry described his everyday situations.

“I’m not a mathematician, but I use math constantly,” he said. “I have numbers in front of me all day: financial data, fundraising trends, enrollment and demographic data, test scores.”

At Notre Dame School of Milwaukee, the formula for its students scoring more than their peers at other schools involves a simple equation centered around the basics.

\”Fluency in subtraction, addition and multiplication, and percents, decimals and fractions,” Landry explained. “If students don’t have those in 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade, it makes any type of more complicated or more advanced math in middle school or high school really hard.”

Morgan, Jr. said this formula needs to be used more broadly.

“We’ve got to make that teachers are getting the right training, we got to be sure that students are showing up,” he said.

Landry pointed to another important factor in this equation.

“I think it’s a partnership between the home and school,” he said. “And when that’s rolling, as you can see in some of our data, I think really remarkable things can happen.”