Reality is a harsh, harsh mistress

From 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco by Joanne Jacobs.   The subheading is 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 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. 

[snip]

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. 

The failure is not what is being acknowledged by the reformers.  Apparently 

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. 

Just teach them in a structured and consistent way with good school discipline.  It is not that hard but it is an approach universally reviled by the Education establishment who always want to pursue different goals poorly and end up failing everyone badly.