The federal government made a disastrous choice a decade ago when it abandoned an accountability system (known as No Child Left Behind) that required schools to focus intently on helping the lowest-performing students catch up with their peers. Since then, the already alarming achievement gaps that separate poor and wealthy children have only widened.
Math scores have plummeted, raising fears that the United States is destined to fall permanently behind its competitor nations when it comes to preparing young people for careers in science, technology and engineering.
As Troy Closson of The Times wrote this week, some school systems have opted for policies that disguise the achievement gap without remedying it. A decade ago, for example, the San Francisco public schools responded to high failure rates and achievement gaps by moving algebra — which is foundational to the study of math — from eighth grade to ninth grade, meaning that no one was allowed to take the course in eighth grade simply because some students struggled with it.
This system wrote off poor students who might have benefited from exposure to new material and denied well-prepared children the opportunity to forge ahead in their studies. Not surprisingly, the policy failed to achieve its central goal, which was to close racial gaps in the taking of advanced math courses. Chastened by parental outrage, San Francisco reversed course.
Only about a quarter of American students study algebra in eighth grade. That proportion needs to grow. Fortunately a few states, including North Carolina and Texas, are adopting systems under which children who meet specified performance levels on state exams are automatically channeled into advanced math classes.
In Dallas there are no hoops to jump through. As The Dallas Morning News reported last year, young people no longer have to wait for counselors to recommend them or for parents who know little about how schools operate to sign them up. Students who were unaware that honors courses even existed are now being enrolled.
The gravest challenge facing the country today is redressing the devastating learning losses that children suffered during the Covid pandemic. Among other things, solving this problem will mean equipping teachers to manage classrooms that include students of different preparation levels.
One new study offers reason for optimism. It shows that students who would ordinarily be tracked into remedial work can perform well in algebra classes that include higher-performing peers — and experience broader academic success — when teachers are trained to handle heterogeneous groups and are given more time to prepare.