Parents in a Massachusetts school district are expressing disappointment over a years-long decision to abolish advanced placement for high school math.
Cambridge Public Schools began phasing out advanced math courses in grades six through eight around 2017, when district officials noticed sharp racial disparities in the program.
Students placed in the advanced math track were predominantly white and Asian, while the lower levels were filled primarily with black and Latino students, the Boston sphere reported Friday.
As a result of the change, and due to further complications from the pandemic, none of the district’s four high schools offer Algebra I, which some parents say actually exacerbates the disparity by restricting advanced math to those who can afford private tutors .
‘The pupils who can move on to a higher mathematics class [in high school] are students with better backgrounds,” Jacob Barandes, a district parent and a Harvard physicist, told the Globe.
“They are depriving a significant number of students, mostly students with fewer resources, which is very unfair.”
Superintendent Victoria Greer (left) of Cambridge Public Schools says she is working to bring more advanced math back into the high school curriculum, but parents, including Jacob Barandes (right), are frustrated after being told to find tutors
Another parent, Martin Udengaard, told the outlet that he is taking his son out of the ward and considering whether to homeschool the child or send him to a private school that offers Algebra 1 in eighth grade.
The parents expressed concern that, without Algebra 1 in high school, their children would be forced to cram a compressed high school math course in order to achieve advanced courses such as calculus.
The origins of the decision to remove advanced math are murky, with a former school board member saying the original goal was for every eighth grader to take Algebra 1.
“Algebra has been voted many times in the past 30 years in eighth grade,” Patty Nolan, a current Cambridge City Councilor and former school board member, wrote in a May letter to the Cambridge day.
“And if I’m not mistaken, the school board hasn’t retracted its many votes that algebra be a goal for every eighth grader.”
in a 2019, Edutopia reported that county officials were concerned that students were being profiled and placed in advanced or lower-level courses based on race.
“Over time, you get lower-level math classes with black and Latino kids, and higher-level math classes with white and Asian kids,” Manuel Fernandez, then the principal of Cambridge Street Upper School, told the outlet.
“Students internalize it — they think the smart kids are the white kids. Our employees said that we cannot continue to distribute our students in this way.’
School superintendent Victoria Greer told the Globe that she and other district leaders are working on plans to add more elements of advanced math to the high school curriculum
“We have a huge focus on addressing both the academic achievement gaps and the opportunity gaps in our community,” she said. “One thing the district isn’t interested in is perpetuating those holes.”
Cambridge Street Upper School, one of four high schools in the district
Greer and the members of the Cambridge school board, known as the School Committee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday night.
Cambridge isn’t the only school district to scrap advanced courses in an effort to address racial disparities.
Schools in San Francisco and Escondido, California have also eliminated math tracking, or the practice of placing students on different course tracks of varying difficulty.
Critics of tracking argue that it promotes inequality, noting that because school achievement is highly correlated with socioeconomic status, initial track placement and subsequent achievement can result in class rosters segregated by income and race.
They say all students are better served when classrooms reflect a mix of both social backgrounds and academic ability levels.
It’s not the first time Cambridge Public Schools, located in an affluent and left-leaning city that’s home to Harvard University, have made headlines.
In 2017, a CPS librarian publicly rejected a donation of children’s books from Dr. Seuss of then-First Lady Melania Trump, who called the books “racist” and “cliché.”
The first lady had presented sets of the books to one district in each state for National Read a Book Day.
In a blog post, the school librarian Dr. Seuss a “tired and worn ambassador for children’s literature” and said his illustrations are “steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures and harmful stereotypes.”
At the time, the district said the post represented its personal opinion and was “not a formal acceptance or rejection of donated books.”