In 2024, San Francisco Unified brought algebra back to eighth grade by popular demand after a decade-long absence, and began testing four options. The test period is nearly over, and the district announced yesterday a winning option. It was, in effect, a mash-up of different approaches, but not exactly what the district has been testing for nearly two years.
If the school board approves the plan next week, a large swath of the city’s roughly 10,000 middle schoolers will be able to take an extra math class without having to sacrifice an elective such as art, music, or a foreign language.
Algebra is an important step to get students into advanced math needed for science and engineering studies and careers, which is why many families want their students to take it as early as possible. The issue is part of larger worries about racial and economic equity, as well as SFUSD’s ability to attract or keep families with other options.
The loss-of-elective option was one of the four that SFUSD has been testing, and it returned the best results. According to Stanford University research, these students showed “nearly an additional year of learning on the state assessment.”
But when the district seemed to lean in that direction, it also fostered a storm of parent outrage.
“Every child should be able to take the math class they’re ready for without having to sacrifice their interests,” said Viviane Safrin, parent of a seventh grader at Rooftop School. “They may not have the opportunity to explore those interests anywhere else.”
District officials wouldn’t say if they bowed to pressure, but Sup. Alan Wong said that yesterday’s update “shows that community voices are making a difference.”
The district’s decision for a permanent curriculum, slated to start this fall, is a version of what some people call “double math.” It automatically enrolls students who qualify in both Math 8, the regular pre-algebra course, and Algebra 1 without sacrificing an elective. They can opt out of Algebra 1. The district will rejigger the daily schedule so kids taking both math classes don’t have to drop something else.
There are several caveats, however. Kids who don’t qualify for automatic enrollment can still take Algebra 1, but they must give up an elective. The district says it will use math grades and end-of-year tests to make the evaluations, but it’s not clear which tests.
The new plan could also create problems for English learners, special education students, and the kids who attend a handful of schools that only have six periods in the day instead of seven.
If that’s not complicated enough, the district has also decided to introduce another twist. In two of its 22 middle schools, the district will test a completely different plan. Instead of double math in eighth grade, Herbert Hoover Middle School and Alice Fong Yu Alternative School students will try something that would make Albert Einstein proud: compress three years into two.
A vote is coming
Until yesterday’s announcement, the district seemed to favor the elective option. Now that it has pivoted, there’s another step before the new plan becomes official. The school board must vote on it at Tuesday’s meeting. The Stanford University researchers who studied the pilots will present their findings to the public Monday night.
Approval isn’t guaranteed. There are plenty of unanswered questions. It’s all part of a controversy that began in 2014, when abysmal gaps in math scores along racial lines prompted the school board to remove Algebra 1 from middle schools. Members said the option forced schools to sort kids by math aptitude at an early age, resulting in racial segregation or “tracking.” But Stanford research showed that effort failed.
In 2022, after nearly ten years without improvement for Black and brown students, SFUSD began to reconsider. The pandemic-fueled school board recall signaled that parents wanted the district to refocus on academic standards.
The new school board approved the algebra reform in February 2024. That March, SF voters supported the move with 82 percent approval of Proposition G, which made it official city and county policy to “encourage” the district to offer Algebra 1 to students by eighth grade.
The district began the pilot with four options:
- Compression: A single 8th-grade class that was a mix of Math 8 and Algebra 1. Only one school, Rooftop, tried this option. With fewer than 70 8th graders, the results weren’t statistically significant, the district says.
- Algebra for All: Students skipped Math 8 and went straight to algebra. Three west-side schools hosted this pilot, but the results were poor, and more students had to repeat Algebra 1 in ninth grade than before. “Math 8 is a critical pillar in conceptual knowledge,” A.P. Giannini Middle School principal Tai-sun Schoeman said.
- Algebra as elective: At six middle schools, students took Math 8 but could add Algebra 1 as a separate but parallel class. Schools saw high demand for this option, and Stanford’s research showed that students made a year’s worth of improvements on state test scores.
- Summer and online: Rising ninth graders had to complete an online course before the start of high school.
In a Mar. 9 message to families, the district signaled its favor for the loss-of-elective option, which a majority of principals had favored among the four. Superintendent Maria Su said it “gave schools more choices, helped more students take the class, and worked well with different school schedules.”
The district also provided an overview of results for the four options and asked families to take a survey. (Many parents complained that they had to take the survey only based on the district’s analysis of data, but the data itself wasn’t available.)
“San Francisco is full of very smart people,” says Courtney Helland, a mother of a Denman Middle School seventh grader. “We can handle data.”
The test continues
While most of the district moves ahead with the new plan — assuming the board approves it next week — SFUSD will start yet another pilot program at Herbert Hoover and Alice Fong Yu. They’ll compress three years of middle school math into the sixth and seventh grades to prepare all eighth graders for Algebra 1.
It’s not clear why SFUSD didn’t test it along with the other pilots. “As soon as they knew they were bringing algebra back, I thought they would start getting the kids ready,” says Helland.
Sup. Wong, whose district includes Hoover and Alice Fong Yu, said the new pilot should be bigger. “Compression is also still limited to only two schools, even though it provides an accelerated pathway that allows students to reach algebra in eighth grade as part of their regular schedule,” said Wong in a statement. “The district should continue expanding strong options for students who are ready to move ahead.”
“How is this equitable? To just let kids who have money get to become engineers, and kids who don’t … they don’t get to have a STEM major in college?”
Courtney Helland, Denman middle School PARENT
Meredith Dodson, president of the San Francisco Parents Coalition, said the issue goes beyond eighth grade algebra. “It’s whether every student is getting the math foundation needed to make algebra a real opportunity in middle school,” she said in a statement emailed to The Frisc.
Parents like Helland and Safrin are relieved by the district’s about-face, but there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all math policy. This plan, if approved, will still be hard for some students.
English learners and six periods
A handful of schools in the district have a six-period bell schedule instead of seven, whittling down elective slots even more. (These schools had about 600 eighth graders last year, according to state data.)
A.P. Giannini, Rooftop, and Claire Lilienthal Alternative K-8 will try to work around this problem by offering Algebra 1 during a “zero period” before the day starts. But for some parents, this is easier said than done.
“Many families at Rooftop have children with siblings,” said Safrin. “What does my younger child do when [my eighth grader] is in the zero period? Are they just on the yard?”
The difference comes down to resources again. Working parents often can’t take on extra transport for their kids. And the alternatives, summer school or tutoring, privilege those with extra funds and time. “How is this equitable?” said Helland. “To just let kids who have money get to become engineers, and kids who don’t … they don’t get to have a STEM major in college?”
The district flirted last December with moving all middle schools to six periods to cut costs, but students and parents fought the idea. When the district relented, it acknowledged that a six-period day wasn’t compatible with the algebra-as-elective plan. “We hear loud and clear that for algebra as an elective to be successful for schools that have already had a seven-period day, to discontinue that practice would be hard right now,” Teresa Shipp, associate superintendent of educational services, told parents earlier this month.
Kids still learning English may have a harder time, too. Visitacion Valley Middle School math teacher Jiyoung Lee says the new policy could create “confusion and uncertainty,” for her students. Vis Valley is home to about 300 of the district’s 2,002 English learners.
Lee says many of her students are catching up in math and would probably not be ready for Algebra 1. If they want to take it, they’d have to forgo an elective. But English language development already takes up an elective slot, leaving them only one to work with. “English learners should have an equal opportunity to enjoy music and art,” says Lee.
The same is true for the roughly 1,600 middle schoolers in special education, who often have to use up an elective for study hall.
“Making algebra available to every eighth grader who is ready, without forcing them to sacrifice an elective to get there, is what parents have been asking for,” said Safrin, whose student chose Rooftop for the art electives. “This gives me hope that the district is refocusing on what matters most — core academics for every kid.”