San Francisco middle schools will teach Algebra I again this fall — though concerns about implementation continue amid a shortage of qualified teachers.
The 6-1 vote by the San Francisco Unified School District board Tuesday followed a decadelong battle over eighth graders' access to higher-level math courses and a larger debate over academic opportunity and equity in math performance.
Stanford researchers found last year that large racial and ethnic gaps in advanced math enrollment persisted even after the policy change.
Yeah, pressing X to doubt that. You never thought something along the lines of "Hmmm, I've got $20. How many $4 sandwiches (or whatever) can I get with that?" Because that's algebra: 4*x = 20, x=5. The fact that you probably (and virtually everybody should be able to) did it in your head in 2 seconds without writing the formula out just means you understand the process intuitively.