The war on standards: Eighth grade Algebra edition.

The Washington Post says that “schools are less likely to offer Latino and Black students early algebra classes, effectively shutting these students off from advanced courses and higher-paying jobs.” The Post cites research showing that schools in rural areas, high-poverty schools, and campuses with a large Black or Latino student body are “less likely” than other schools to offer Algebra to eighth graders. How much less likely? The Post does not say.

The Post also cites a source who says that even if a school does offer Algebra to eighth-graders, “access is often determined by a child’s race or ethnicity.” The Post’s source notes that “more than half of Asian eighth-graders took the course when their school offered it, compared with 22 percent of Latino students and 17 percent of Black students.”

But these numbers don’t show that access is determined by race or ethnicity. Compared to Asian eighth graders, blacks and Latinos might be far less interested in taking Algebra.

They might also be less qualified to take it. Indeed, a comment to the Post’s story cites Department of Education data showing that Black and Latino students score significantly lower in math than White and Asian students. It seems likely, then, that access to eighth grade Algebra is determined by qualifications and maybe interest, not race or ethnicity.

The Post acknowledges that “Algebra has traditionally been offered to teens starting in ninth grade.” There’s a reason for that. Not many eighth graders are ready to master Algebra.

I wasn’t. I struggled with that subject in eighth grade. Later on, I became an excellent math student, getting an A in all three college math courses I took. But in eighth grade, my brain wasn’t quite ready for Algebra.

The Post tries to counter the notion that blacks and Latinos might not be as qualified, as a group to take Algebra in eighth grade as whites and Asians are. It quotes a source who says the Algebra-taking gap “persist[s] even among top-achieving students.” Among these students, it says, ”about 60 percent of Black students are placed into algebra in eighth grade, compared with 84 percent of Asian students and 68 percent of White and Latino students.” (So the gap between blacks and whites is small and between whites and Latinos it’s non-existent.)

Neither the Post nor its source defines “top achieving students,” but it should be obvious that not all “top-achieving”, students are equally ready to take algebra in the eighth grade. A high-performing black in a predominantly black school might not be as ready for Algebra as a high performing Asian in a highly competitive school in the suburbs of a big city.

I can speak to this question from personal experience. Some years ago, I provided legal services, pro bono, for a charter school deep in the rural South. When I toured the school, the principal boasted that the top student in the senior class had gotten a “3” on the AP Calculus exam.

That’s a good score, one I doubt I could have topped in high school. At the same time, I knew that at the local public high school my kids attended in our D.C. suburb, there were dozens of students who got higher scores on the AP Calculus exam.

The top student at the school I visited had been capable of taking Algebra in eighth grade, and had taken it. My point, though, is that the term “top achieving students” covers a lot of territory, and that having that label does not necessarily mean a student is ready for Algebra in the eighth grade.

The Post concedes that “most schools use test scores, teacher recommendations and parent requests to determine who gets to take eighth-grade algebra.” Common sense tells us that this is how such admissions should be determined. However, the Post cites a source who claims that “those methods can be biased. . . because of implicit biases, racial biases, and mindsets about who is and who isn’t a math person.”

There is no bias, “implicit” or otherwise, in test scores. It’s possible that teacher recommendations sometimes reflect racial biases but, for two reasons, it’s unlikely that this happens often.

First, in most states, even Red ones, the education establishment tends to be oriented to the left. (Stanley Kurtz found this to be the case even in South Dakota, about as Red a state as one can find.) Left-oriented education establishments typically obsess over racial gaps in outcomes and try to reduce them. It’s unlikely that they will tolerate the systemic exclusion of qualified blacks from advanced courses.

Second, and perhaps more to the point, the teachers and administrators in schools with large black and/or Latino populations typically are themselves black or Latino. It’s unlikely that these teachers will be biased against black and Latino students and unlikely that these administrators would tolerate such bias.

The Post commends various jurisdictions that automatically enroll “high-achieving students” in rigorous classes like eighth grade algebra. In Central Texas, for example, “automatic enrollment policies increased the share of high-achieving Black students taking eighth-grade algebra from 40 percent to 70 percent between 2014 and 2021. Meanwhile, the share of high-achieving Latino students taking the course jumped from 50 percent to 70 percent.”

It’s easy enough to enroll more black and Latino students in eighth-grade Algebra. But what are the pass rates for black and Latino students on standardized Algebra tests? What are their math SAT scores? The Post doesn’t say.

The answers don’t seem to matter to the Post. Rather, the concern is simply with fast-tracking blacks and Latinos in the hope that doing so will enable them to have future success. As one of the Post’s sources puts it:

When we look at the kinds of careers that will be growing in those students’ future and the kind of skills that we need, there is a huge need for us to be communicating to all students, but in particular students who’ve been shut out in the past ... that anyone can be a math student.

But the harsh reality is that not everyone can be a good math student. To suppose otherwise is fantasy.

Furthermore, it’s fallacious to contend that taking Algebra in eighth grade is the path to great careers. It might well be true that most students who take Algebra in eighth grade go on to have successful careers. But it’s also probably true that their successes have more to do with the fact that they were qualified (based on test scores and teacher recommendations) to take Algebra in eighth grade than with the fact that they actually took the course at that stage. Correlation is not causation.

The left’s war on standards has receded as the “racial reckoning” has faced a reckoning of its own. But, as its article on Algebra shows, the war on standards is alive and well at the Washington Post.