For all elementary schools in Arcadia Unified School District (AUSD), math is kept uniform throughout every class. All students are given the same work, the same lessons, and are kept at the same level: a level which might be just right for some, too fast for others, and too slow for the rest. But with the beginning of middle school comes the end of combined math classes. 

At which point, fifth graders are introduced to the “double accelerated” program, which allows students in the sixth grade to take seventh and eighth grade math in one year, Algebra 1 in seventh grade, and so on. For me, and many other students with similar inclinations, this program was something of a savior. It allowed us an escape from the all-too-easy levels of math we were previously taught, and gave—and continues to give— students interested in math a chance for a challenge.

Despite the benefits that programs like these provide, advanced math tracks have been the subject of debate for some time. Recently, the new draft of California’s Mathematics Framework was released, and with the traditional rewrite came many new suggestions, sparking the debate yet again. One of the most important points of the framework was the idea to eliminate advanced math tracks—a process called detracking—until high school, claiming that keeping students in the same track has many benefits. However, I believe that advanced math programs do more good than they do harm.

Most arguments against advanced math tracks cite the benefits of keeping students in one uniform level, often stating that divisions in classes build mental barriers in students. In addition to race and gender divisions, critics of tracking claim that these separations cause students to believe that they are intrinsically worse at the subject than their more advanced peers.

An almost ideal example of the inspiration behind this new math framework is the temporary math track at San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), which made all students take Algebra 1 in eighth grade and repeat it in ninth grade, or again in tenth grade, if a student’s grade was below proficiency. The research provided from this change seems almost too promising: only 8% of students taking the course in ninth grade had to repeat it, which seems to show that something in SFUSD’s method is working.

However, this research doesn’t take into account the performance of high achieving students as a factor, focusing mainly on the performance of the district as a whole in comparison to California averages. In addition, the graphs that visualize data from this show that performance throughout the entire grade actually declined when the students reached junior year. 

Another notable aspect is how students who belong to minority groups actually performed worse in this track than the previous one. Most data that depicts the success of this program is in reference to the students in either ninth or tenth grade, during which students did perform better. But that doesn’t show the long-term effects of this kind of detracking: clearly, there are problems with this system, as well.

On another note, detracking math can lead to a situation where students may not advance fast enough: or, specifically, reach calculus. The writers of the mathematics framework do want to take the focus away from calculus and promote other types of advanced math, like data science, but that doesn’t change the fact that calculus is a benchmark at many highly ranked colleges, especially for STEM majors, even if it is not a requirement.

In some tracks, like the one that SFUSD follows today, students are kept in the same classes through the beginning of high school. Here, students stay in the same class until Geometry in tenth grade, after which they can take the advanced track and take a compression of Algebra 2 and Precalculus or stay in the normal track and take AP Statistics/Precalculus as a final math course.

This presents several problems: for one, Algebra 2 and Precalculus are classes that are integral to a student’s math understanding and cannot be skimmed over. Additionally, this kind of system does not allow students to take both calculus and statistics, something that students at Arcadia High School (AHS) can do. This kind of system doesn’t give high achieving students the ability to take multiple AP math courses or the chance to actually challenge themselves, and poses a detriment to the academic careers of these students.

While we don’t have any references to this specific kind of detracking/later advancement in AUSD itself, we do have students who advance in middle school, and those who take summer classes in high school in order to advance. Similar to the SFUSD math track, summer classes are not effective in giving students a proper understanding of the material. Mr. Albert Sylvia, who teaches Algebra 2 and Algebra 2 Honors, agreed that the compression of classes when taken as summer courses makes this kind of advancement less favorable for students.

“They’re taking a class like Geometry, which is really meant to be taught over a full year, for four hours a day, for, say, seven weeks,” Mr. Sylvia said.

To conclude, detracking math is not the end-all solution. While it may pose some benefits, there are more problems with the plans suggested on the framework than these benefits can make up for. Perhaps a more moderate solution could be put in place: to let students who need a more enriching class get the support they need, and the students who struggle with the material the help they need. Some ideas, like slowing students down in middle school, make sense and could also provide students the psychological benefits that the framework hopes to bring. But, overall, detracking math this way will not fix math education, and will pose harm to students on both ends of the spectrum.

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