Education Storm Makes Landfall in California

COMMENTARY

California just unleashed an experiment on its students, recommending harmful math education policies. 

The recently adopted California Math Framework begins an inexorable sweep through California public schools and, like a storm, will traverse the nation.

The California Department of Education suddenly sprang the final version of the framework — a document giving guidance on the math education for California’s 5.8 million public school children — leaving Californians 12 days, including the July Fourth holiday, to read, analyze and comment on a 1,000-page document.

The State Board of Education then gave itself two working days before its final vote to pretend to consider the detailed public comments — 343 opposing and 116 supporting.

Here’s how the framework harms students.

First, it sends a message that students can replace a crucial algebra II course with a data-focused “data science” course, which shunts students, unaware, into a dead-end math pathway.

Nearly 450 STEM faculty across California signed an open letter describing these classes as “data literacy,” such that “students who take a data science course as an alternative to algebra II in high school will be substantially underprepared for any STEM major in college, including data science, computer science, statistics.” Moreover, since all these majors start with calculus, taking data science as an alternative to the subsequent precalculus course leaves students inadequately prepared.

The California State University Academic Senate, realizing imminent harm, passed a resolution discontinuing policies that enabled these data science courses to replace algebra II for admissions requirements, because they are “inadequate preparation for college and career readiness.” 

The University of California followed CSU’s lead, disallowing data science to replace algebra II.

The framework ignored all this.

Second, the framework recommends a pedagogical approach pushed by its lead author — teaching through “big ideas.” This nice-sounding phrase becomes disconcerting once it’s realized discussion of the specific teaching of the Math Content Standards is removed. Instead, students learn through “authentic activities” covering “questions about which they actually wonder.” What if students don’t wonder about fractions, inequalities, decimals? Are they not taught? Learning these standards, fundamental to mathematical competence, cannot be left to whimsy.

Where will districts look for explanations describing these ill-defined big ideas? The framework references work by its lead author, who is heavily affiliated with a company that sells professional development for big ideas and data science (YouCubed). Her $5,000-per-hour consulting fees have been documented. The financial windfall YouCubed expects is obvious, raising significant conflict of interest concerns. Scandal in the making? You decide.

Third, the framework’s guidance discourages acceleration. It “recommends that all students take the same rich mathematics courses in kindergarten through grade eight,” and describes high school math as “reflecting a common ninth- and tenth-grade experience.” 

This means putting all students in the same class regardless of their preparation and motivation — a one-size-fits-all approach for math, removing accelerated pathways. The framework math course diagram places algebra I in ninth grade, and with a “common experience,” this means delaying this course for all students.

In a second open letter, also ignored by the framework, the STEM community clearly explained how blocking acceleration will derail STEM careers, especially for socio-economically disadvantaged students — apparently not a concern of the framework.

The framework’s idea of acceleration, within its one-size-fits-all model, is through “differentiated instruction” and “open tasks.”

To put this in perspective, imagine a tenth-grade math class that includes both students preparing for advanced placement calculus the following year, combined with students who barely passed algebra I the previous year — all in the same class, one teacher, one curriculum, and this supposedly optimally serves all students. This is a doomed plan.

Education codes might be the saving grace, requiring school districts to properly place ninth-grade students in math, expecting the placement of one student can differ from another. These codes protect students from being forced to repeat classes they are proficient in, making the framework’s recommendation of “a common ninth- and tenth-grade experience” illegal.

Fourth, the framework’s recommended high school math pathway diagram is a mirror image of, and its origins are, the failed San Francisco Unified School District math program — where achievement “gaps are widening” and AP calculus enrollment declined. This diagram has remained essentially unchanged through all three framework drafts, with the first draft explicitly referencing SFUSD as justification. However, when SFUSD’s poor performance was shown, the framework removed mention of SFUSD, yet indefensibly retained the diagram, unchanged.

The rationale the framework uses to explain why eighth graders should not take advanced math is ridiculous. While it acknowledges that taking algebra I in eighth grade “can support greater access to a broader range of advanced courses for them,” it then argues that when all students took algebra I in eighth grade “success for many students was undermined.” Instead of guiding districts to enable those students who are prepared to take algebra I in middle school to do so, while those who are not wait until high school (the solution many districts currently adopt as recommended by our state standards), the framework implies that this is unfair to those not prepared, and it is therefore better that no students receive this opportunity. No one wins.

What evidence does the framework provide for its recommendations? Recall, the previous drafts were lambasted for massively misrepresenting citations in attempts to justify its detrimental recommendations. 

The final adopted version continues in this vein. Stanford mathematics professor and director of Undergraduate Studies Brian Conrad concludes “citation misrepresentation persists,” and “these distortions indicate an ideological (rather than evidence-based) opposition to acceleration.”

While some elected officials opposed the framework in a congressional letter, the majority remained silent, enabling the framework through tacit compliance.

Families with resources may find opportunities elsewhere, including fleeing the public school system, while our most vulnerable families, who rely solely on the public school system, will be stuck with the framework. This education storm California created of implementing detrimental policies on students will harm the nation for years to come.

David Margulies has a Ph.D. from UCSD in material science and is a former IBM research staff member. He has numerous publications in scientific journals and has co-authored 34 U.S. patents. 

Rex Ridgeway is an African American grandfather of a rising sophomore at Abraham Lincoln High School in SFUSD, and a current board member of its Parent Teacher Student Association and School Site Council. He is also a retired interim chair of the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee.

The authors of this op-ed can be reached by email.