
Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? - impostervt
http://priceonomics.com/why-did-san-francisco-schools-stop-teaching/
======
pfarnsworth
A couple of weeks ago, my Uber driver was a math teacher in the San Francisco
school district. He advised me that if I could afford it, that I should
unequivocally send my kids to private school and not to public school. The
reason is that they now mix students of all abilities together, instead of
separating them out and concentrating on each group separately like they did
when we were kids. The thought was the good students would "pull up" and
"positively influence" the students with less aptitude. However, what it did
instead was to give the incentive to teachers to focus on worse students, who
tended to be more disruptive, and essentially abandon the good students and
let them fend for themselves. He mentioned that the "independent learners"
were identified, and instead of being accelerated, they were left alone so
that the poorer students could be concentrated on by the teachers.

As a side note, I don't remember being taught algebra before the 9th grade
either, in an excellent school district, and I was in a gifted class. I still
kept my algebra textbook from the 10th grade and it's pretty standard algebra.
In fact, I didn't even learn Calculus until college and I wasn't negatively
impacted by that at all. However, this was almost 30 years ago so I'm sure
educational standards have increased, but it's funny that what I learned back
then is no longer "good enough".

~~~
pc86
I'm 30 now and had a similar math education to you. Gifted track in middle/HS
yet no algebra until 9th grade. No Calculus at all (although AP Calc was one
of four AP classes my school offered).

I did not major in CS so I've never taken a formal Calc class. If anyone has a
good recommendation for a MOOC or similar for a working professional to learn
Calculus I'd love to take it. Doesn't need to be free, would probably be more
motivated to do well if it wasn't :)

~~~
mikecsh
Do they actually call it a "gifted" track?!

~~~
alistairSH
Yes. What do they call it where you attended school?

In the US, the term used is "Gifted & Talented" (abbreviated to "GT"). So, you
frequently see courses or tracks labelled "gifted", "GT", etc.

At the high-school level, the label frequently changes to "honors" or
"advanced". And you will also see Advanced Placement (AP) and International
Baccalaureate (IB) which are brand names for honors/advanced curriculums that
often offer college credit with high marks on exams.

~~~
mikecsh
Oh that's really interesting! I went to school in the UK and they just divided
it into numbered sets e.g Set 1 (top set) to Set 6 (bottom set). The US naming
is an interesting affirmation of the child's difference from their peers -
I've not heard of that sort of thing over here.

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mathattack
_But as UNC 's Domina points out, most schools have also found it very
difficult to institute what Katy Tang calls a "one-size-fits-all" mathematical
curriculum without boring the math nerds to tears._

Here in lies the fundamental issue of the (well intentioned) focus on No Child
Left Behind. The schools tend to underserve the best students because energy
is focused on the weakest. (If the weakest were being well served, this would
be a worthy trade. My experience in large cities is this is the exception
rather than the rule.)

This used to bother me quite a bit, but I think the best students can find
other ways to be intellectually stimulated. (Online, etc) The downside is for
most of school they're bored out of their mind, and this can develop bad
habits for when school eventually catches up to their abilities.

~~~
eitally
Your last point can't be overstated. It's a major problem, but imho can be
remediated during high schools years with things like dual-enrollment in a
local community college, MOOC participation, local special interest research
groups, etc.

My wife & I are taking the approach that responsibility for primary education
lies with parents first, then teachers, so, to your first point, we don't
particularly perceive this as a huge personal problem.... The fact is,
education in America is classist and the kids of white collars households have
incredibly unfair advantages. Bootstrapping from poverty & ignorance to
professional success and higher education is harder than it's ever been.

~~~
lettergram
I know several kids who never went to highschool. At 12-13 they enrolled in
the local community college and got their GED at 16-17. It cost (at the time,
in district) $2000 - $2500 per semester at the junior college. Although that's
significant, the school district was actually paying ~$10,000 per student per
year for public school so it was actually WAY cheaper.

Regardless, those kids who went straight to college from middle school seemed
10x better off and all of the ones I know (or am friends with) are doing
great.

~~~
jtbigwoo
A minor quibble: The state subsidizes all public colleges, most likely
including your community college. Where I live (Minnesota) that subsidy
accounts somewhere around half of the total cost. So community college
probably costs about the same as high school.

~~~
lettergram
Fair point, I also know our city and county tax went there as well.

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danielmorozoff
I grew up in San Francisco and experienced both public and private school
mathematics . The former of which was astoundingly poorly run. It seemed the
only way to actually make headway for students that were ahead was for them to
study on their own.

The primary issue imo is that math teachers do not seek to inspire students to
see mathematics for what is is- a structure way to reason as opposed to a
calculation tool replaced by computers. These breeds not only an aversion to
the subject by fails to fulfill the basic reason for teaching math.

My best math teacher in school gave us a lecture on chaos - this was algebra
class and we were able to generate a fractal by a simple set of coin tosses.
This evolved into the discussion of how prbability, physics/randomness of coin
tosses and the general notions of chaos and dynamical systems. But such
initiative and teachers were never rewarded.

It's sad to see that the education problems seem to be regressing

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Hexanite
Having finished high school, a little over a year ago, I cannot understand how
this can be beneficial in any way. We began pre-algebra in 6th grade and a
large majority of kids did Algebra I 7th grade, possibly a harder class like
Geometry, depending on how ahead they are. Sure, you could delve deeper into
each topic, but when your classmates, are still struggling with basic Algebra,
how much time does your teacher have to focus on giving you extra work?

The accelerated kids would essentially be forcibly held back. The curriculum
at my high school for the normal accelerated student was Algebra II, Trig/Calc
A (calc I), calc BC (calc II), then calc III, and we had students even more
accelerated than this. Starting at Algebra I in high school, would essentially
shift everything back two years.

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arebop
a teacher's rebuttal on reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/4p0uc3/why_di...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/4p0uc3/why_did_san_francisco_schools_stop_teaching/d4h7me7)

~~~
gshubert17
The teacher's last sentence:

tl;dr Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School?
They didn't. The topics of algebra are now spread through the middle school
courses along with other foundations of geometry and probability/statistics.
However, they did restructure the names and pathways in high school in such a
way that might impact the way ability of a student to take a 2nd course in
Calculus by Senior year of high school.

~~~
justaman
I don't understand why they can't teach algebra in tandem with lower levels in
math such as basic arithmetic. The abstract method of balancing both sides of
the equation could boulster overall understanding. --Introduce algebra in
grade school. As children learn things like fractions, introduce linear
algebra. This, I think, would reduce some of the "when am I ever going to use
this, i'm not going to even try".

~~~
brianwawok
They do, this is part of common core (which some people love and some people
hate). My daughter has been doing very basic algebra since 2nd or 3rd grade? I
do not remember EVER seeing an equation with an X in it until 6th grade.

------
Decade
> Why did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School?

Because the school superintendent and the board of education believe much more
strongly in wealth redistribution and social equality than many of the
constituents do. Local elections: They matter.

Also, as the article says, the headline is clickbait. Common Core scatters
algebra all over elementary school. The “traditional” curriculum, many years
of arithmetic followed by Algebra I and II, geometry (plus proofs),
trigonometry, and calculus, that is a harmful segmentation of math. Many
students learn to hate and reject math before they even reach the parts that
are useful to daily life.

The trick is getting teachers to teach the Common Core curriculum. The
uncomfortable truth is that many teachers have no business teaching math, and
leave students horribly confused about what math actually is. I even
encountered a (SFUSD) middle school math teacher who uses jokes to try to make
math fun, but his children (going to SFUSD schools) grew up hating math.

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fnayr
It's not all that great to be super advanced in math very early either.

I tested out of pre algebra in 7th grade because my dad basically taught me it
over the summer. Took geometry in 8th grade. Took algebra 2 at community
college over summer took pre calculus my freshman year, and took ap calculus
my sophomore year but halfway through the year I found it too slow so I took
calc bc online with Stanford.

But then I took multivariate calc my junior year at a local cc and got a B in
a math class for the first time ever. I got burnt out. And I hadn't learned
the study methods required to succeed in college level mathematics. So even
though I had always loved math and went into college first semester taking
upper div math, I found myself disliking it more and more and eventually
switching to economics. I think, had I not rushed so much, I may have have
actually enjoyed it more and fully majored in it.

~~~
jboggan
No offense, but if you were really going to go for it as a math major I think
a minor stumble like getting a 'B' would have just made you double down. Point
set topology was the gut-check class for me.

On the article topic, this is pretty bad. Common Core 'intuitive' BS aside,
kids need earlier exposure to algebraic concepts, it was the main reason they
failed the elementary calculus and probability courses in college that I ended
up teaching them. It was very draining to be wasting my time trying to explain
to a senior at Georgia Tech how to solve 2x=1 and then by analogy 3x=1, though
they could see no similarities between the two equations.

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droithomme
I read the district's explanation.

[http://www.sfusdmath.org/uploads/2/4/0/9/24098802/ccss-
math-...](http://www.sfusdmath.org/uploads/2/4/0/9/24098802/ccss-math-faq.pdf)

It says that Algebra was previously introduced in 8th grade and students were
not prepared. Therefore they have moved that algebra content into normal math
for grades 6-8, gradually introducing contents, along with other concepts.
Then the full Common Core compliant Algebra class that focuses solely on
Algebra is in 9th grade and they are hoping that students will do better with
this approach.

The article and the commentary here indicate that neither the author nor any
but a very small number of commenters here bothered to look at the actual
program, preferring to revel in personal suppositions and speculations.

------
adwf
How old is 8th grade? I'm just curious to compare it to the UK school system
where the subjects aren't broken up so rigidly. I only learnt Maths, not
Algebra 1/Calc 1, etc.

~~~
alistairSH
The sibling responses are correct. A little further detail... US schools
generally follow this pattern...

Elementary School (Primary in the UK): Kindergarten First through Sixth grades

Middle School: 7th and 8th grades

High School (Secondary in UK): 9th through 12th grade (or, freshman,
sophomore, junior, and senior).

The boundary between each level varies, but I'd guess 70-80% of districts
follow the above. The most common variation seems to be grouping 6th grade
into middle school.

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blahblah3
This really hurts the talented kids with less educated parents. Educated or
well-off parents can always supplement with lessons at home or supplementary
school (kumon)

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frogpelt
And the answer is: because all the kids have to be taught the same thing and
they all have to be fit to the public school mold. I've heard it said that
public schools are great for making factory workers.

Of course, in most places private schools and even home schooling is an
option, so all hope is not lost. And public education is good for many kids.

It's the one-size-fits-all approach that is not always so effective.

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zdw
Why don't we start teaching the basics of set theory and algebra during
elementary school?

I know I'd have dealt with that far better than the "Do this page of 100
addition/subtraction problems as fast as you can" human calculator stupidity
thrust upon us as math education. At least it sounds like common core is
getting away from that sort of stuff.

~~~
jerf
"Why don't we start teaching the basics of set theory and algebra during
elementary school?"

Based on what I'm saw coming home from my first grader, they are. The common
core stuff at least comes from people who understood that having the student
do a couple thousand "1 + 2 = ____" problems tends to promote the incorrect
idea that the = symbol means "do the thing on the left and write it down", and
I noticed a mix of "1 + __ = 3" and "___ = 1 + 2" in the problem sets.

I noticed enough other places where the good ideas had been visibly chewed on
by "the process" that I'm still not ecstatic about "common core", but at least
the bits I've seen (up to first grade now) I do concede that there were good
ideas at the beginning of the process. I'm not entirely convinced they made it
through correctly, but they were there at the start. (Still a bit pissed that
they took my kid who was adding single-digit numbers in his head and _forced_
him to count on his fingers because That's What The Curriculum Says, though.
Seems to have gotten over it by the end of the year, though, so no permanent
damage. Still.)

~~~
vonmoltke
> I noticed enough other places where the good ideas had been visibly chewed
> on by "the process" that I'm still not ecstatic about "common core", but at
> least the bits I've seen (up to first grade now) I do concede that there
> were good ideas at the beginning of the process. I'm not entirely convinced
> they made it through correctly, but they were there at the start. (Still a
> bit pissed that they took my kid who was adding single-digit numbers in his
> head and forced him to count on his fingers because That's What The
> Curriculum Says, though. Seems to have gotten over it by the end of the
> year, though, so no permanent damage. Still.)

The standards are being ruined by terrible curricula providers, to the point
where people conflate the standards and the curricula.

------
jrkatz
Over the past ten years I've spent a lot of time volunteering in poor urban
middle schools, mostly in math tutoring/teaching roles. Sure enough, one of
the big hangups kids have is algebra. The article is right that it's one of
the first real abstract problem solving skills we try to teach kids, and that
definitely makes it harder for them. In my experience there is an additional
problem: Basic arithmetic skills.

If a kid can't do division and knows it, how can they approach a problem like,
"It is 800 miles from Denver to LA by train. train A leaves from Denver to LA
at 80mph while train B leaves from LA to Denver at 70mph. How far from LA do
the trains cross paths?" We can start breaking this down:

    
    
        70mi*x/h + 80mi*x/h = 800mi
        x * 70mi/h = M
    
        150mi*x/h = 800mi 
        x = 800mi/(150mi/h)
        x = 5.33...h
    
        M = 5.33h * 70mi/h
        M = 373.333...mi
    

OK, that's all well and done. Now do that without division. Do that without a
clear grasp of 1. what division does and 2. how to do division. The only thing
you really know about division is that when you take tests on it, you tend to
do poorly. You can't do this problem. You look at it and don't see any tools
you can use to attack it because the only thing that works on it is division
and you do not get division.

The problem is, a _lot_ of kids don't get division. Why? That's above my pay
grade. If I was going to take a stab in the dark, I'd say that at the highest
level it's to do with passing kids who shouldn't be passing, and then teaching
the next year's class as if they already know what they need to know. Every
year they fall a little bit more behind, until finally they're so lost it's
hopeless. It's easy to take aim at algebra but what about the shaky foundation
we're trying to build it on? Of course, this would require a lot of kids to be
held back, and that's not an appealing solution. I think we need to assess
where in our math education kids start to fall behind, and figure out what's
wrong there. Unfortunately for the kids, the solution will probably involve
more multiplication/division drill sheets, and more word problems to test
those skills.

The article also points out the difficulty in starting a STEM degree without
calculus. I started a STEM degree without calculus. I was lucky to get into
the university I got into without calculus, and the calc 1 course was taught
as a remedial class for all the folks who got 4s instead of 5s on their AP
calc exams. This is where I had my own first brush with trying to build the
next layer of mathematics education on a shaky foundation. It was very
difficult, I nearly quit, and it fucked up my GPA enough I was still paying
for it four years later at my graduation. I was 18 and had a bright future to
look forward to in graduating from a respected university with a STEM degree,
and it was nearly too much for me. I don't see how we can ask 13 year old kids
to do the same with algebra. We need to work out the kinks on the way there.
When it's time for them to learn algebra we want them to have all the tools
they need so they can focus on the algebra, not on the arithmetic.

To be clear, I don't have any solutions here. Just a lot of problems.

~~~
crispyambulance
You're absolutely right. I volunteer for an adult literacy program and focus
on adult basic education for math and see many of the same problems that you
see with school-age students.

There are many reasons why students fall behind (many of which have nothing to
do with school at all), but one of the reasons they _stay_ behind is failure
of the educational system to focus on "THE BASICS" before moving on to more
advanced topics.

The thing about mathematics education is that there are no shortcuts. Students
HAVE TO understand and master previous material before moving on to the next
topic.

I think it is smart the SF schools are waiting until high school to teach
algebra. Most kids simply aren't ready for algebra before that time. The few
that are ready can always get on an advanced track but it won't be many.

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kingmanaz
>Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School?

Mandated equal outcomes coupled with racial diversity.

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FuturePromise
hmmm...

> but ensures that all students enter high school with the same mathematical
> foundation

There's a saying among conservative wags: "The opposite of quality is
equality."

That seems to be the case here.

