Tuesday night, Superintendent Maria Su is expected to land the big fish of restoring algebra for most eighth-graders in San Francisco public schools. Her recommendation to the school board represents the reversal of a 12-year adventure of superintendents and commissioners designing their own curriculum initiatives that, while well intended, failed to improve educational outcomes. The plan still needs some modifications but is expected to be approved by the school board as an essential element of a larger mathematics policy reform to be implemented this fall.
In February 2014, in response to disappointingly few students achieving Algebra II proficiency by 10th grade, the school district delayed offering Algebra I from eighth- grade (when most California students enrolled in it) to ninth grade. The delay was thought to give students more time to develop mastery in basic math concepts and to close racial gaps in both Algebra II enrollment and proficiency. According to then-Superintendent Richard Carranza, the percentage of Latino students who achieved proficiency in Algebra II was one-sixth, and African Americans one-fourteenth, of the district as a whole. School district leaders attributed the gap to students being rushed through math concepts in earlier grades and arriving in eighth-grade unprepared for Algebra. The remedy was to delay the course for all students.
Last month, the school district reported that its 10-year Equity Imperative in English Language Arts also failed to achieve positive outcomes. As calculated by the percentage of students meeting or surpassing proficiency standards, the gap between the highest and lowest student demographic groups was 58 percent in both 2014–15 and 10 years later in 2024–25…