Trend-starting Texas drops algebra II mandate

[Ms. Toad]

138. As a former math teacher, I have very mixed feelings about this.

I taught "Applied Math," back when specific math courses weren't required for graduation. It was the second of two courses which would satisfy the 2 years of math requirement. I jokingly (but not by much) referred to it as, "Now that you know 1+1 = 2 (the first course), what do you do with it?"

Many, many of my students would not have graduated if even Algebra I had been required - and the lack of a diploma is one of the things which is an instant rejection when there are piles and piles of job applications from people who have a solid work history, but lost their job in the recession. It didn't matter so much when they were hired in decades ago, but now it does. They aren't yet ready or able to retire - but can't get a job now even with a decent work history because they don't have a diploma.

The students I taught were predominantly minority (in 11 years I taught one white student) and poor. In other words, they already have the deck stacked against them. Poverty, at least the kind my students lived with, leads to significant transience (in my Applied Math class, the class composition at the end of the year typically included 30-50% of the students who started the year, with enough new ones to keep the class the same size). Constantly moving from one school to the next means you never really learn the material being taught. When you have 10 years of that kind of instability before you reach high school, catching up in math enough to pass two years of Algebra is a near impossibility - and we don't need to be putting more barriers between these students and graduation, because it will perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

On the other hand, math (and the reasoning which is required in order to succeed at it) are crucial skills which can open many doors - and we ought to be strongly encouraging a solid background in high school level math for anyone who has the foundation to succeed at it. (And, it should go without saying that we need to be better at creating that foundation - but I try to be realistic about what is, rather than what should be.)

I don't know what the solution is - but putting (or leaving) barriers to acquiring a diploma increases the gap between the haves and the have nots.