Test scores declined and racial gaps persisted after the district removed algebra from the middle school curriculum in 2014
San Francisco school officials voted Tuesday to restore eighth-grade algebra more than a decade after the district eliminated the course in the name of “equity,” a policy that attracted intense criticism as math scores declined across the district.
The city’s school board approved the measure Tuesday evening by a narrow 4-3 vote.
The move reverses a district policy, implemented in 2014, that removed algebra from middle schools in an attempt to give minority students more time to learn basic math skills. Instead, math proficiency declined across the district—including among black students.
Eighth-grade math proficiency in San Francisco public schools fell from 51 percent in the 2016-17 school year to 40 percent in the 2022-23 school year. Proficiency among black students fell from 11 percent to 4 percent. The policy led some parents to use tutors or enroll their students in summer school, often paying out of pocket, according to the New York Times.
Under the old policy, San Francisco “tried to achieve equity not by raising the floor, but by lowering the ceiling,” Thomas S. Dee, a Stanford University economist told the Times. “It’s a problem we see nationally,” he continued.
The failed policy sparked a 2024 ballot initiative in which voters overwhelmingly demanded the San Francisco school board restore accelerated math options. While the measure wasn’t binding, it did “encourage” the district to reinstate the course.
School districts across the country have nixed honors classes and lowered standards in the name of DEI. In 2025, the Palo Alto Unified School District moved to eliminate honors biology courses for high school freshmen, and a Detroit-area school district in 2023 ditched middle school honors math courses. In 2017, schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts, axed Algebra 1 in middle school before eventually restoring the course in 2023.
Bringing algebra back could ease San Francisco’s struggle with declining enrollment in public schools, according to school board president Phil Kim. “Families want to see a public school system that offers rigorous coursework,” Kim told the Times. “This is absolutely an instructional strategy. But it’s also a retention tool to bring families to our district and demonstrate we will not only take care of your children, but we will teach them, too.”
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