By Mia Hanuska
When I was in elementary school, just beginning my educational journey, I loved math. It was my favorite subject, and I aspired to be in the high-level math classes my older sister was taking in high school. Then, when I reached 7th grade, I was so excited to sign up for “CAP” Math, the advanced math course my middle school had offered in years past. Soon I learned they removed the course that year, following similar efforts in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to ban Algebra I before 9th grade. The principal of my middle school even wanted to remove the advanced 8th grade math class, but fortunately the PTA persuaded him against it. The most frustrating thing? Research shows that SFUSD’s Algebra I legislation has not benefited the minorities it was supposed to help nearly as much as promised.
In 2002, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in attempts to address the United States’ lacking educational system. The NCLB Act placed the control of educational programs in the hands of the federal government, which promptly strangled the educational system. Federally mandated standardized tests in math and English and four-year graduation rates determined a school’s performance. Each state could, however, create their own Common Core State Standards for the schools in their governing.
No Child Left Behind focused solely on mathematics and English courses, and since schools were now measured by how well their students did on mandatory tests, multiple teachers taught “to the test,” where the concepts on the standardized test determined the topics taught. NCLB aimed to provide equal education to minorities in school systems, however, it’s been shown that low-income and minority students typically perform worse on standardized tests than Caucasian students. Similarly, teaching to test, or “item drilling” only teaches how to solve the chosen problems featured on the test—students don’t learn the actual concepts behind the skills, reducing their ability to solve other similar problems. It can also result in the “dumbing down” of instruction, as the concepts need to be easily understood by struggling students and thus skills that could be used realistically in the future are withdrawn. However, this “dumbing down” ultimately leads to worse test scores. Due to NCLB, gifted students ended up bored and uninterested in school and lower-performing students continued to struggle; instead of raising the educational floor, it lowered the roof.
Additionally, under No Child Left Behind, California created the California Mathematics Framework (CMF) that all public schools in the state were required to follow. However, the CMF passed was highly flawed—containing incorrect citations, false interpretations of studies, and violations of previous educational acts. SFUSD used this new defective CMF as guidelines for their new math curriculums. The district forced students who already completed Algebra I in previous years to retake the course in high school, a clear violation of the California Education Code, which states:
“shall not assign a pupil enrolled in any of grades 9 to 12, inclusive, in a
school in the school district to a course that the pupil has previously completed and received a grade determined by the school district to be sufficient to satisfy the requirements and prerequisites for admission to the California public institutions of postsecondary education and the minimum requirements for receiving a diploma of graduation from high school established in this article…”
Instead of retaking the course, students also had the option to test out of Algebra I in high school, but the test offered was designed specifically to be extraordinarily more difficult than the Algebra I class. The only way to pass the test was to either study at a private school or pay for a $700 course to prepare for it, further exacerbating the discrepancy between minority and majority groups.
Ultimately, more students took Algebra I in high school. However, taking Algebra I in 9th grade means classes (Algebra II and Pre-Calculus) needed to be combined in order for students to take Calculus in the four years before college, a goal that became even more crucial due to the decline of importance of the SAT and ACT increasing the significance of taking AP Calculus in high school. By forcing students to take Algebra I later, the SFUSD directly reduced the amount of students able to enroll in advanced courses. But what about the SFUSD’s goal to reduce inequalities? Did reducing the opportunities for gifted students improve minorities joining the challenging course?
Not exactly. Access (enrollment) to AP Calculus by 12th grade for Black and Hispanic students stayed below 10% (Figure C), and although the access to probability & statistics by 12th grade increased greatly for these minorities (Figure B), there continued to be a large difference in the AP option of this course (Figure D). It should be noted however that the six high schools with Asian or Pacific Islander majorities all offered AP Statistics while only two of the six high schools with a Black majority offered the course. The year after the policy was enacted (2019) shows extreme reductions in enrollment of high level math classes. The following increases can be explained by new acceleration options (such as summer Geometry) and spreading word about the compression course (Algebra II/Precalculus) that already existed.
In the end, the racial/ethnic gaps were fundamentally unchanged by the educational policy.
The San Francisco United School District announced that it is reintroducing Algebra I to 8th grade after an overwhelming majority vote of 82% to 18% in the past election advocating for the course to be available before ninth grade. The removal of the course conclusively had no effect on the racial gaps prevalent in high school math education, it only increased the difficulties for students overall to access APs they’re interested in taking. No Child Left Behind and this Algebra legislation truly demonstrates the backward solutions the government takes in approach to problems with the educational system.
Instead of bringing all students down through “dumbing down” the curriculum, or creating compression courses that impact the high-achieving students, bring the struggling students up. Determine why certain minorities are not enrolling in the higher courses—are they not offered in predominantly lower-income schools? Are the students being raised to believe they are not smart enough to take the courses? These attempts had good intentions—to lower the gap between minority and majority groups in education—but their implementation led to their failure. Focusing on fixing the cause, rather than the result, would likely lead to the results the government, school district, and public all wish for. Providing more resources to one group to uplift them allows all groups to have the same opportunities. Equity paves the road for equality.