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In Texas, students referred to developmental classes are 50 percent less likely than their peers to earn a credential or transfer to a four-year college. Math is often their biggest hurdle, and students are steered into algebra-based remediation regardless of their majors.

Texas appears to be the first state to adopt such a drastic rethinking of remedial math in all its community colleges.

Garcia said the first-year cost of the project will be around $2 million, a figure that doesn't include instructor salaries. The Texas Community College Association will contribute $300,000, with donors and individual colleges making up the balance.

Those questions are behind a new movement to create doctoral programs in remedial and developmental education.

Sam Houston State plans to admit 15 students to its first Ed.D. class, while Texas State plans to admit four full-time students to its first Ph.D. class and eight to its Ed.D. class.

“Developmental mathematics has become a burial ground for the aspirations of myriad students trying to improve their lives through education,” said Carnegie senior partner Uri Treisman. A MacArthur fellow, Treisman is also a professor of mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin.

In 2010, The Kresge Foundation added its support – a two-year, $2 million grant – to that of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Lumina Foundation.

By completely reimagining the way math is taught, Statway and Quantway align with Kresge’s goal of supporting innovation that improves higher education productivity. The programs also provide pathways to and through college for students who might otherwise be left behind.

The report shows huge disparities among the standards states set when their tests are converted to the NAEP's 500-point scale. In eighth-grade reading, for example, there is a 60-point difference between Texas, which has the lowest passing bar, and Missouri, which has the highest, according to the data. In eighth-grade math, there is a 71-point spread between the low, Tennessee, and the high, Massachusetts.

South Carolina was the only state to drop standards on every math and reading exam during the study period.