Students need to believe they can be "math people," writes Lance Barasch, who teaches algebra at the School of Science and Engineering in Dallas. But they need to take advanced math class in sixth grade to prepare for eighth-grade algebra to prepare for high school and college math, he writes on the Hechinger Report.
A new Texas law requires "school districts to automatically enroll sixth graders in an advanced math course if they performed in the 60th percentile or better on their fifth-grade state assessment or a similar local measure," he writes. He hopes more young Texans will be able to qualify for STEM careers.
El Paso Independent School District has a more ambitious plan, writes Claudia Lorena Silva on El Paso Matters. All sixth-graders this year will start on the advanced-math track with hopes that nearly all will take algebra in eighth grade.
“They’re not going to be ready for it. It’s going to be setting kids up for failure,” El Paso American Federation of Teachers President Ross Moore told Silva.
El Paso is emulating the Socorro Independent School District, also in El Paso, which places 96 percent of eighth-graders in algebra. “For the most part, we try to prep sixth graders with honors math, unless parents want to opt out of it, but they start getting that rigor in sixth grade," says Enrique Herrera, SISD’s assistant superintendent of schools. "They’re really doubling up in seventh and eighth grade, which then prepares them for the algebra that they’ll experience as eighth graders.”
Struggling students take an intervention class in addition to their regular math course.
Socorro, which is 98 percent Hispanic, started raising math expectations 10 years ago. Overall, the district earned a "B" rating from the state for academic achievement: 21% of elementary students, 24% of middle school students, and 40% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for math.
As was noted with every previous version of make all students above average. The school district will either lower the standards of what is covered to ensure most students pass while harming the students who could really benefit from Algebra in 8th grade. Or the school district will have large number of students will fail to meet the standards set.
Fighting against the S-curve is no way to reform education.
It sounds to me that Mr Moore is setting them up for failure more than the school district. Simply assuming that "they" will all fail is the easiest way to ensure failure.