California has adopted a new plan to teach math. Why are people so riled up?

California is preparing to overhaul the way its schools teach math with new state guidelines, a 1,000-page effort that’s drawn both staunch support and fierce criticism over the nearly four years it’s taken to produce.

At its core, the new approach reignites a years-old debate about the best way to teach math and how to balance the needs of students with different skill levels.

The revision comes at a time when two out of three students are not meeting California’s math standards, according to state assessments last spring. Those results were even more staggering for minority students: Last year, 84% of Black students and 79% of Latino students did not meet those standards.

“The traditional approaches (to teaching math) have yielded really poor results, really inequitable results, and whole generations of people who do not like math,” said Rachel Ruffalo, senior director of strategic advocacy for The Education Trust-West. “We’ve made traditional math instruction so narrow that very few people excelled at it. And that’s a problem.”

The goal is to reverse those trends by helping students understand how mathematics is connected to everyday life, driving up interest among those who need it most. The new direction de-emphasizes tracking, which groups students according to their skill level. And it encourages more courses in data science throughout the K-12 curriculum, promoting a field of study that teaches students to collect, analyze and understand numbers and data in a variety of ways.

But critics fear the new framework will hold students back, both by taking away basic memorization fundamentals in lower grades and by slowing students’ acceleration in middle school.

At the heart of the debate is a longtime controversy over when students should start Algebra I — eighth or ninth grade — and how they can take calculus (which traditionally marks the end of a five-year mathematical track) if they only have four years to get there. There’s also the question of data science and whether it can truly prepare students for college math courses.

Though the hefty document is meant to serve as guidance, its influence is substantial. With nearly six million students in California’s public schools, the state represents one of the largest education markets in the country. By guiding publishers and curriculum companies, the ripple effects are expected to be felt far outside of the Golden State.

During the State Board of Education’s meeting earlier this month, officials heard two hours of public comment on top of 1,500 comments received in writing over recent weeks. Now that it’s been approved, curriculum design will begin, a process that can take up to two years.

Avery Wang, a father who lives in Palo Alto, is wary. He believes that trading traditional math education models for a conceptual approach will sacrifice rigor and leave kids unprepared for a career in a related field.

“I’m in the direct-instruction camp,” Wang said. “When you’re at that age, you don’t yet have a toolbox for math, and you need to build it. The fastest way to do that is to be told what the tools are and then practice for fluency.”

Wang also feels the new state framework mirrors Palo Alto Unified’s math curriculum, which has been tied up in a legal battle since 2021. Earlier this year, a judge ruled the district’s math placement policy — which attempted to de-track students and limit their acceleration in math — violated state law by slowing kids’ progress.

It’s something 1,763 STEM professionals and academics are concerned with, too, as evidenced by an open letter they sent to the State Board of Education saying the new framework should make it clear that students should take algebra in eighth grade if they are ready, so that they can access more advanced courses before college. They point to language in the guidance that encourages a “common ninth and tenth grade experience” that includes first Algebra I and then Geometry.

But Jo Boaler, a Stanford math education professor and one of the writers of the state guidelines, said students could “absolutely” take algebra in eighth grade if they choose to, as defined in the state’s new framework.

“The strong message is, give students a chance to show mathematical interest,” said Boaler. “Advanced students can be just as advanced as they’ve ever been.”

That’s an opinion held by others in the educational realm, including the multiple school districts, county offices of education and the California Teachers Association that signed a recent letter in support of the guidelines, which stated their hope that the new approach will spark students’ curiosity and bring more young people into the mathematical fold.

But algebra isn’t the only topic roiling the math debate. Data science and its place within the education system is also controversial. In a data science course, for example, high school students could use state information on poor water quality to see if it contributes to low birth weight. Students would analyze the relationship between those variables across communities, fit a mathematical function to those relationships, and visualize them with appropriate software.

Since 2020, public universities in the state have allowed students to swap Algebra II for data science, saying it was an “equity issue” that would open more doors for students to enter college. The new math framework encouraged data science as an alternate higher-level math class, and during the State Board of Education meeting, that component was celebrated by many. Former math teacher Joyce Straub said teaching data science opened her students’ eyes.

“Students who had a dislike for math suddenly were transformed into math lovers,” said Straub, who called into the meeting. “They became skilled in statistical analysis, computer programming and critical thinking, valuable skills needed to navigate this world.”

But earlier this month, the University of California questioned whether or not data science courses actually prepare high school students for college-level math. UC has formed a working group to study the issue. Once that piece is settled, the state will begin designing its new math curriculum K-12 schools.

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Teaching examples:

• Younger children in kindergarten through grade two may be asked to explore math through games. In the “moving colors” task, students are given colored circles to carry, andteachers prompt the students to count how many students have red circles and how many have yellow circles. Once those figures are counted, students move around the room to demonstrate when there are an equal number of the same colors or when there is more than one color. A similar exercise includes the “race for a flat” game, which creates two teams that roll dice to practice addition and subtraction. After each roll, the teams represent their sums on physical mats, and once they get 10 or more units, they trade them for another object that represents 10 ones. When a team reaches blocks worth 100 or more, they trade for another object that represents 10 tens or 100 ones. The first team to obtain that larger object wins.

• For middle schoolers, the tasks get more challenging. One exercise is called “missing paint,” which helps students understand ratios, proportional reasoning and progressions. Students are given a recipe for a particular shade of orange, one that calls for three parts yellow paint to four parts red paint. They are then asked how many parts of yellow are needed to make a batch that uses 20 parts of red.