Math In the US: San Francisco and the "Math Wars"

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles looking at the national debate on math instruction and its potential impact on Virginia and APS.

Math reform is a hot topic across the US, with California revising its Math Framework and Virginia updating its Math SOLs. Proponents of reforms championed by Stanford Education School Professor Jo Boaler often point to San Francisco Unified School District's (SFUSD) 2014 math reform as a model for other districts/states to follow. However, despite initial claims of success, SFUSD’s math reforms appear to have led to unintended consequences, including contributing to wider achievement gaps and a surge in wealthier families working around the reforms.

Amidst rising public scrutiny of SFUSD’s claims, the California Math Framework (CMF) recently removed all references to SFUSD’s math reform (although it remains the unmentioned foundation of the Framework nonetheless). In fact, the close linkage between SFUSD policies & CMF recommendations has generated fierce public opposition to the CMF itself, prompting the CA State Board of Education to delay CMF consideration until 2023 so that revisions can be made.

As detailed below, SFUSD’s results are a warning about incorporating similar approaches in Virginia.

Background
SFUSD reformed its math program in 2014 based on the ideas of Boaler. Changes included among other things (background here and here):

• implementing heterogenous classes;

• delaying Algebra I until 9th grade;

• narrowing math content to focus more deeply on key concepts (known as “Big Ideas”); 

• employing rich tasks and collaborative group work; and

• utilizing discovery learning and math discourse.  

Initially, SFUSD and Boaler proclaimed success. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) echoed these claims in a Catalyzing Change case study and urged other districts to look to San Francisco as an example. However, the San Francisco community was skeptical based on their experiences and investigated the claims. A parent group found that SFUSD and Boaler significantly misrepresented the reform’s outcomes, and subsequently issued the following report (in summaryand full form).

SFUSD Claim 1:  The positive impact of detracking led to a fall in the share of SFUSD students having to repeat Algebra I from 40% to 8%. 

While the repeat rate did fall post-reform, SFUSD itself regarded the drop as “a one-time major drop” due to the change in course sequence and SFUSD’s simultaneous decision to stop holding students back if they failed state proficiency tests; in a district where roughly 50% of students fail state tests, this latter change was significant. Families for San Francisco’s analysis shows that course failure rates were similar before and after the reforms, indicating that the decision to stop holding students back was the main driver of the decline in rates of repeating Algebra I.

SFUSD and Boaler have now stopped making this claim and Boaler has taken out all references to it in the California Math Framework. 

SFUSD Claim 2:  Math reforms boosted the number of SFUSD students taking advanced courses.
This claim rests on SFUSD’s and Boaler’s decision to count a newly designed, “compressed” Algebra II/Precalculus course as advanced even though it had insufficient Precalculus content to garner a University of California advanced designation.

Absent the new “compression” course, the number of students taking advanced courses fell post-reform.

Results of SFUSD Math Reform:

1.     Rise in State Exam Failure Rates & Worsening Achievement Gap
Analysis reveals:

• Achievement gaps widened, particularly for Hispanic students. One contributing factor may be SFUSD’s emphasis on math discourse and communication which places heavy language demands on non-native English speakers.

• Scores for 11th grade SFUSD students on state proficiency exams faltered post-reform. The share of students not meeting standards rose, with the most notable jump occurring in 2017-18 with the first 11th grade class to have taken the full reformed math pathway. SFUSD’s approach to teaching via discovery learning is exactly the opposite of the US Dept. of Education's research-based best practices for struggling students, which call for teacher-led instruction and fluency practice.

2.     A Wider Equity Gap
SFUSD slowed down its math pacing, delaying Algebra I until 9th grade for nearly all students. On this path, students would not be able to take calculus in high school without workarounds. In order to accommodate students who wanted to take calculus, SFUSD created a one-year, combined Algebra II/Precalculus course. However, Harvard and Stanford STEM professors deemed this pared-down course “antithetical to responsible preparation” because it attempts to cover too much material too quickly, thus impairing students’ conceptual understanding.

Concerns over the lack of rigor in the compressed math pathway unleashed a flood of families trying to work around SFUSD's new reforms. For the Class of 2021, nearly 25% of students paid for outside coursework or doubled up/took summer courses during their first years of high school to avoid the Algebra II/Precalculus compression course. However, the pitfalls of such workarounds are described by a Lowell High School student:

“Two other ways to get to Calculus … is by doubling up freshman year (taking Algebra 1 and Geometry concurrently) or sophomore year (taking Geometry and Algebra 2 concurrently). You need to request permission from your school, however, and there aren’t enough spots for everyone who asks … However, some kids who double up may struggle with the workload of taking an additional math class on top of adjusting to high school. … In my Geometry class, I saw some students get frustrated when the homework required knowing some concepts they still hadn’t learned in their Algebra class. In addition, by doubling up you miss the opportunity of enrolling in other elective classes such as band, orchestra or art since there won’t be room in your schedule.”

If a quarter of students have to pay money and contort their schedules to avoid the reformed math pathway, that is not a good sign.

Students from less wealthy/savvy families were not as able to work around the reformed pathway and disproportionately relied on the less rigorous Algebra II/Precalculus compression course. Concerned with the equity implications, the City of San Francisco (not SFUSD):

• allocated $70,000 for low-income students to take online Algebra I so they could test out of Algebra I and enter Geometry in 9th grade like their wealthier peers; and 

• began funding summer geometry courses for interested students. 

It is astonishing that San Francisco's city government had to step in to offset its own school district's math reforms to ensure equitable opportunities for all students. 
 
San Francisco’s experience provides warning that if states and districts decrease rigor in their Algebra I – Calculus pathway (including pruning content to make space for data literacy), wealthier/savvier families with means who still desire accelerated math pathways will seek outside enrichment, leaving less-resourced students to bear the burden of the policy change and a widened equity gap.