California: Algebra for all Eighth Graders

As often occurs, California policy makers have gotten it wrong.

Research has shown that students who successfully pass Algebra in middle school are more likely to enter higher education. Algebra has been labeled a "gate keeper" to higher education. Apparently, success in Algebra in the 8th grade, rather than later, is the number one indicator of whether a student will proceed to college. So, what is wrong the policy that requires all 8th grade students to take algebra? In quaint terms, this policy places the cart before the horse.

The reason a student is successful and passes algebra, no matter the age of the student, is that the he/she has a fluent understanding of some basic math concepts that support taking algebra. In other words, it isn't that the student takes algebra in the 8th grade... the success of the student depends on the fact that he/she is READY to take algebra in the eighth grade.

There are districts in California that have a "no fail" policy, also called "social promotion", in elementary school. In other words, whether or not a student understands essential curriculum, he/she is promoted to the next course until, voilà, the student arrives in an 8th grade algebra class without knowing:

How to do long division
How to do operations with fractions
Their multiplication facts
Their addition facts

Yet... the powers that be think that such a child is going to have more success in the future just for the reason that he/she is taking algebra in middle school when, in fact, it is the opposite. A child will be successful in algebra BECAUSE he/she has mastered a fundamental amount of mathematical thinking BEFORE taking an algebra class.

This Week in Mathematics Education

I was given a set of bulletin board framing strips to use in the classroom. They are made by a publisher, not a teacher. Check out the red polygon. Oh by the way, recall that 'oct' means 'eight'.


A student appears in a Geometry class (10th grade). The teacher soon finds out that he/she is performing a very low level (2nd grade is the estimate). He/she doesn't know the difference between a square and a rectangle, doesn't understand the concept of 'half', and doesn't know the answer to twelve divided by three, or three divided by one. The situation is not an isolated incident. The same teacher had a student this year, enrolled in Advance Algebra, who couldn't find page one of the math book, couldn't graph a point, and also didn't know his multiplication tables.

What if Social Promotion in the elementary grades is the official policy of the school district? At what point is a student retained? Apparently not in high school. An administrator at one of the high schools said that if a kid is in the 11th grade then he/she should be in Advanced Algebra because that is the age appropriate class, even though the student hadn't passed math for years. Apparently the previous classes are not called "pre-requisites" until college.

 Also in the news, U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers. In my opinion, too many American elementary school and middle school teachers are under-qualified to teach math effectively. The comment at the end of the article by Dr. Gage Kingsbury, a senior research fellow at the Northwest Evaluation Association is ludicrous.

“...to suggest that you can’t be a good middle school math teacher unless you’ve taken calculus is a leap, because calculus isn’t taught in middle school. So I think they overreach a bit.”

It is essential that a teacher have a broad understanding of mathematics to be able to effectively teach Algebra and pre-Algebra, both of which are middle school courses.