US 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco - The goal was equity. The result: Meh.

'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

The goal was equity. The result: Meh. Frustrated by high failure rates in eighth-grade algebra, San Francisco Unified decided in 2015 to delay algebra till ninth grade and place low, average and high achievers in the same classes. The goal was to improve achievement for black and Hispanic...

www.joannejacobs.com

Frustrated by high failure rates in eighth-grade algebra, San Francisco Unified decided in 2015 to delay algebra till ninth grade and place low, average and high achievers in the same classes. The goal was to improve achievement for black and Hispanic students, preparing more for advanced math.

That didn't happen, concludes a study by a team of Stanford professors. "Large ethnoracial gaps in advanced math course-taking . . . did not change." Black students aren't more likely to enroll in AP math; Hispanic enrollment increased by 1 percentage point. Overall, there was no change in the number of students receiving credit for advanced math classes, or the number taking math in 12th grade.

A proposed new California math framework encourages other districts to copy San Francisco's math reforms, for which the district claimed success, writes Sarah Schwartz in Education Week.

Math reformer Jo Boaler, a Stanford education professor and advocate of the new framework, co-authored a commentary, How one city got math right, in the Hechinger Report.

Test data from 2015 to 2019 shows that racial "achievement gaps have widened," wrote Tom Loveless last year. The district "is headed in the wrong direction on equity." Black and Hispanic 11th-graders in San Francisco earned "appalling" scores on the state math test, "about the same as or lower than the typical fifth-grader" in the state.

The district had bragged that algebra failure rates had dropped. Families for San Francisco, a parent group, analyzed the data: Failure rates dropped after the district dropped the end-of-course exam.

"Algebra for none" made it harder for achievers to succeed without helping low achievers, writes Fordham's Jeanette Luna. Families face a "nightmare of workarounds" to get their high-achieving children on track for advanced math, write Rex Ridgeway and David Margulies in a San Francisco Examiner commentary.

"Families with resources turn to fee-required online algebra 1 courses in eighth grade, outside the public school system, or enroll their kids in private schools," they write. Those who can't afford it must take a compression class that combines advanced algebra and pre-calculus or take a year of double math to get on track for AP Calculus.

The district "will take credit for my granddaughter’s mathematical success as proof their policies work," one of the authors writes. "In reality, this took two of her summers and nearly $2,000." A group of parents have filed a lawsuit against San Francisco Unified charging the math policy violates state law by denying access to advanced math to disadvantaged students, reports Allyson Aleksey in the San Francisco Examiner.

SFUSD “kids with privilege can advance in mathematics, and those without privilege cannot advance," said lead petitioner Annesa Flentje. "Ironically, SFUSD made these changes in the name of equity, but putting in barriers to accessing (advanced courses) is not equitable. . . . those with privilege are opting into private school.”

On Feb. 6, Judge Carrie Zepeda ruled in favor of Palo Alto parents who brought a similar lawsuit.

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...Why would huwite supremacy do this?!

 

[Kulee Baba]

I'm a programmer and fucking algebra is second hand. I can't understand how you can't learn

calculus and trig, yeah OK, but fucking algebra?

I'm a fucking dunce and I loved the hell out of Algebra. It was the closest school ever got to video game puzzles.

For crying out loud I'm pretty sure the Professor Layton games have puzzles of basic Algebra and Geometry. Those games are brain teasers that are made so even Middle School level kids can be expected to beat it or at the very least understand the questions after using the hint system.

 

[Syikeblade]

I mean tutoring is free or cheap at this point. You can opt-in for summer classes, and there's literally after school activities.

I get that sometimes resources aren't advertised so people don't know them, like scholarships. But holy shit there is absolutely no takers for tutoring when I went.

When I went to an all-black middle school they had no tutoring programs along with a high rate of students being held back. It wasn't until we moved that things got better.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

The goal was to improve achievement for black and Hispanic students, preparing more for advanced math.

The goal was to fuck over white and asian kids by placing them in the same classroom as the could care less types.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

I think the most important thing to remember (and remind normies) is that these types of plans, progressivism in general, is not about making anything work better, it's about destruction of everything. In the name of fighting some moral evil. It's based on an extreme all-encompassing version of deconstructionism that subscribes to a false concept of critical thinking (critical theory) that twists and perverts the concept of looking at something in a serious unbiased way (critical thought/look) into something designed to selectively look for and dream up negativity in all (approved) things. Combined together they represent a societal, intellectual, factual, governmental, organizational and historical WMD to any society they are injected or set free into.

 

[Heed Not]

So for every 11th grader who tested at 7th grade level, there was another one who tested at 3rd grade level?

Jesus.

I don't understand why teachers are so reluctant to hold kids back because passing someone who struggles with one-digit multiplication is a pathetic look for the city schools.

Parents throw a fit and the school board gets pressured for the teachers being too bad at their jobs if they fail too many mouth-breathing brats from parents that don't give a shit.
I wish people would stop jog-guarding for black people. All it does is serve to erase the ones that actually do well.

 

[PaladinBoo]

Achieve equity. Dumb it down so that everybody is equally stupid.

So for every 11th grader who tested at 7th grade level, there was another one who tested at 3rd grade level?

Jesus.

I don't understand why teachers are so reluctant to hold kids back because passing someone who struggles with one-digit multiplication is a pathetic look for the city schools.

That is the goal. C.S Lewis talked about this in his book The Screwtape Letters in that the goal of the devils (i.e the elites) is to abolish education as humans can't stand seeing other people be better then them and want a world where everyone is "just as good as everyone else". Only then will we achieve true equality. Lewis wrote that in the 50's by the way so this shit has been going on for a while.