The ongoing debate over when students should begin taking Algebra I is rooted in efforts to reduce inequities in access to higher STEM courses in high school. California, worried about marginalized students disproportionately being enrolled in lower-level math courses, required its districts to shift away from placing high-achieving students on advanced math pathways by implementing “Algebra for All” in the late 1990s.
In practice, however, “Algebra for All” yielded poor results. Perhaps most concerning, rather than providing new opportunities for students who would have been placed into lower pathways, taking Algebra in eighth grade was “unambiguously harmful” for the lowest performers—who often needed to repeat the course.
San Francisco’s solution? No Algebra for any student until ninth grade. Rolled out in 2015 with the state’s new math standards, policymakers claimed that the more rigorous middle school math framework would better prepare students for long-term success in mathematics. Though the reform removed Algebra as an option for eighth graders regardless of their math ability, students could accelerate to an advanced math pathway in later years by taking a new “compression” course, which combined Algebra II and Pre-Calculus or taking Geometry the summer after ninth grade.
A recent study explores how the controversial reform changed high school math course-taking patterns, student performance, and how the results varied by race. Using longitudinal data from over 23,000 students, researchers analyzed math course enrollment and credits earned across six cohorts that spanned the implementation of the new Algebra policy.
As expected, course-taking patterns changed significantly for the class of 2019, the first affected by the reform. Ninth grade enrollment in Geometry fell 45 percentage points from 52 to 7 percent, and Algebra enrollment increased by 53 percentage points. By tenth grade, Algebra II enrollment had fallen from 38 percent to 5 percent—while Geometry enrollment rose 40 percent. In the 2019 cohort’s junior year, Precalculus enrollment fell from 41 to 16 percent, but 20 percent of students signed up for the new “compression” course. Regardless, AP Calculus enrollment fell by 6 percentage points for seniors between the 2018 and 2019 cohorts.
Although subsequent cohorts made better use of their acceleration options (e.g., taking Geometry over the summer), enrollment in advanced math courses still remained lower than before the reform.
One of the primary goals of the policy was to narrow racial gaps in advanced math course-taking, but post-reform racial gaps remained largely the same. White and Asian enrollment in Precalculus was still over twice that of their Black and Hispanic counterparts, Calculus enrollment for Black and Hispanic students remained below 10 percent both before and after the reform, and the proportion of students who chose not to enroll in any math course in their senior year remained virtually unchanged.
Contrary to the policy’s intention, the number of students who received credit in an advanced math course did not change, either. Pre-calculus, Probability & Statistics, AP Statistics, and AP Calculus credit attainment were unaffected.
This study provides important evidence that delaying Algebra had a null impact on the advanced course-taking and credit attainment of marginalized students, contrary to what has been reported.
Furthermore, additional analyses and anecdotal reports provide evidence that the reform is exacerbating inequalities—as families with resources now enroll their students in more expensive tutoring, summer courses, and private schools to accelerate their child’s learning.
Any way you slice it, the reform effort failed to meet its goals. Rather than opening opportunities to all students, delaying Algebra until ninth grade limited opportunities for advanced math coursework. By mistaking equity for mediocrity, San Francisco Unified School District has disrupted its students’ math education with nothing to show for it.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Huffaker, Sarah Novicoff, and Thomas Dee, “Ahead of the Game? Course-Taking Patterns under a Math Pathways Reform,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (2023).
