The Land Board of Education ended a decade-long controversial policy of pushing eighth graders to take Algebra I when members voted unanimously Wednesday to strip California's Algebra I standards from the country's eighth form math standards.

Those standards will now mirror the national Common Cadre standards, which practice not include Algebra I for eighth graders. The State Board volition create curriculum options to accelerate math-taking in middle school and high school and to exit it up to local districts to determine who'southward eligible for them. About 2-thirds of 8th graders enrolled in Algebra I last twelvemonth. That number is probable to reject; supporters of Common Core debate that many will exist better off taking it a twelvemonth afterwards.

Board members stressed that the new arroyo is not a reversal but a more nuanced policy encouraging Algebra I in eighth course for students with the skills to handle it and a vote of confidence in Common Core'due south more than gradual arroyo to algebra mastery.

Ilene Straus said the goal should be to encourage students to take Algebra I when they are ready.

Ilene Straus said the goal should be to encourage students to take Algebra I when they are ready.

"The intent is not to water down standards but to deepen rigor," said Ilene Straus, the vice president of the Lath, who is a former school master. "The business of some in the field is that they don't desire to lose incentives for students to take algebra, but not (for them to take the class) earlier they are ready."

The lath's vote resolves two½ years of uncertainty. Facing a deadline in August 2010, previous members of the State Board adopted an amalgam of Common Cadre and California math standards that reflected the segmentation between those who favored Common Core's arroyo to math – incorporating fewer concepts, developed in depth, leading up to a full Algebra I course in ninth grade – and those who favored universal Algebra I in 8th grade.

Some seventh and sixth grade Common Core standards were pushed downwardly to a lower grade to create a pathway for students to take  Algebra I in 8th grade. The eighth form standards adopted in 2010 consisted of two full sets of standards: 8th grade Common Cadre, including some algebra concepts like functions, and a full set of the old California Algebra I standards. This patently put the country in conflict with the federal regime's requirement under the No Child Left Behind law that states offer only one set of standards per form. It also created defoliation for committees creating curriculum guides or frameworks and criteria for textbooks and materials.

Last yr the Legislature jumped in to restore order. Its passage of SB 1200 also foreshadowed this calendar week's vote. It authorized the State Board to meliorate math standards to eliminate duplication, save expense (no more unique California standards) and prefer a Common Core version of Algebra. That'due south what the Board voted x-0 to do yesterday.

In providing an incentive for districts to enroll students who might non otherwise take taken the course, California's electric current policy of docking API scores of schools that don't offer Algebra I in 8th grade has proved to exist controversial and, past some measures, very successful.

Equally Board member Trish Williams (the former executive director of EdSource) noted, in the by nine years the per centum of African American enrollment in eighth class Algebra went from 24 percent to 60 pct, while those testing skilful on the California Standards Test (CST) doubled to 36 per centum. For Latinos, enrollment nearly tripled to 63 percentage, while the proficiency rate also doubled, to 42 percentage.

For minorities that had been denied access to a course leading to college, she said, the "social justice concerns are non insignificant."

Only at the same time, Williams and others acknowledged that sixty pct of the eighth form minority students in Algebra I did not exam proficient on the CST. Many were required to repeat the course; of those, but i in five ended upwards scoring proficient on the CST. And if they did go a passing grade in Algebra I, they and then "hit a wall in Algebra II," becoming discouraged or failing the course.

Bill Honig, right, and Tom Adams lay out the strategy for Common Core math at the State Board meeting (click to enlarge).

Pecker Honig, right, and Tom Adams lay out the strategy for Common Core at Land Board meeting (click to overstate).

There is no disagreement that eighth grade Mutual Core math will be more challenging than the class now taken by students not enrolled in Algebra I. "Nosotros cannot phone call information technology pre-algebra," said Nib Honig, chair of the Instructional Quality Commission, which is guiding the implementation of Common Core. "It is non a watered-down class; it is demanding."

Honig and supporters of Common Core are confident that students who accept Common Core eighth grade math volition be better prepared to succeed in ninth class, when they will have Mutual Core's version of Algebra I. In his testimony before the Land Board, Marking Sontag, curriculum coordinator for math and science in Irvine Unified, said that a decade under the electric current California math standards produced "a generation of students that were technicians rather than mathematical thinkers." Under Common Cadre,  students will empathise and be able to explain math concepts, he said.

Paths for dispatch

Students identified as candidates for Algebra I in eighth grade may start accelerating their way through the standards in sixth grade, under one possible scenario (click to enlarge).

Students identified equally candidates for Algebra I in eighth course may get-go accelerating their manner through the standards in sixth grade, under one possible scenario (click to enlarge).

Over the adjacent several months, the committee creating the math curriculum frameworks will create the pathways that districts could prefer to accelerate math so that students will be ready for Calculus. Ane option could exist to offering Algebra I in eighth grade; another could exist to combine two years of loftier schoolhouse math into 1, as Massachusetts is planning. Publishers will be asked to include accelerated math in the materials they blueprint, said Tom Adams, the Department of Education's director of curriculum frameworks  and instructional resource.

But those who advocated 8th grade Algebra dismissed promises of alternative pathways. Doug McRae, a retired testing specialist from Monterey and frequent critic of the country's policies on testing and accountability, said that the Board should accept insisted on clear language in the standards stressing acceleration to Algebra I. He also disputed Adams' and Honig'due south claim that the federal regime, for accountability purposes nether NCLB, will permit the state to offer just i set of standards with i examination per grade. Massachusetts is designing a second test for those taking Algebra I in eighth grade that volition meet federal government's technical requirements, he said.

"What you lot exam for is what you teach," said McRae. If Algebra I isn't tested in eighth grade, so districts will take the path of to the lowest degree resistance and not encourage students to take information technology.

Patricia Rucker says the State Board must delve into how districts decide who takes Algebra I.

Patricia Rucker says the Land Lath must delve into how districts decide who takes Algebra I.

Districts or perhaps individual math teachers in each school will ultimately make up one's mind who'due south ready for Algebra I or another accelerated course in eighth class. The State Lath's policy will be neutral, without incentives.

But Lath member Patricia Rucker reminded the Lath that decisions by local educators about whether to place students in Algebra I take been declining the bulk of students, so it's not sufficient to say the Board has no role in the effect. What was in the commune's placement decision that resulted in a student failing? she said. "We need to know. We don't want kids coming out saying, 'Math is not for me' or 'I am horrible in math,' because we started them besides before long or without the supports they demand."

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