San Francisco School Board Reverses 12-Year ‘Equity’ Math Experiment

In a 4-3 vote Tuesday night, the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education finally admitted defeat and reinstated Algebra I as a standard eighth-grade course offering — ending a notorious 12-year DEI experiment that delayed advanced math for the vast majority of students in the name of “equity.” 

The decision marks a humiliating reversal for school board officials and Superintendent Maria Su, who had defended the policy as a way to give “disadvantaged and minority students” more time on foundational concepts before tackling algebra in high school. Instead, the experiment backfired spectacularly: only two of 21 middle schools offered any pathway to algebra, forcing the other 19 to require counselor meetings and signed parental consent just to enroll in what used to be a routine class nationwide. 

A 2023 Stanford study confirmed what parents had warned for years — the policy failed to close racial achievement gaps and actually reduced participation in Advanced Placement math courses by 15 percent, with AP Calculus taking the biggest hit. Black student enrollment in AP math remained statistically unchanged, while Hispanic enrollment in advanced courses rose by a meager one percentage point. 

Parents, long incensed that the policy left their children a full year behind college-bound peers in STEM tracks, finally forced the change. 

In March 2024, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a non-binding measure demanding algebra’s return. Newly elected board members and Democratic Mayor Daniel Lurie, elected in November 2024, provided the political momentum to kill the failed experiment once and for all. 

Board Commissioner Phil Kim, who voted with the majority, made the case plainly: “Families want to see a public school system that offers rigorous coursework. This is absolutely an instructional strategy. But it’s also a retention tool to bring families to our district and demonstrate we will not only take care of your children, but we will teach them, too.” 

Under the new plan, Algebra I will return as an elective in 19 middle schools alongside regular eighth-grade math, with automatic placement for students who meet grade thresholds (and an opt-out option). 

Two schools will pilot an accelerated three-year track covering Math 6, 7, 8, and Algebra I. Superintendent Su has been tasked with implementing the changes. 

This latest retreat from radical “equity” policies comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed San Francisco Unified’s pattern of lowering standards while claiming to help the very students it harms. Just last year, the district attempted a so-called “grading for equity” scheme that would have allowed unlimited test retakes, eliminated penalties for late work, discarded homework and classwork from final grades, and based 100 percent of a student’s mark on a single summative exam — all dressed up in social-justice rhetoric. 

As the California Globe reported in June 2025, parents only discovered the plan after it had been deliberately withheld from them, sparking national outrage and forcing Su to announce yet another “delay.” Critics rightly called it grade inflation masquerading as equity, noting that similar programs elsewhere disincentivize actual learning and do nothing to improve standardized test scores. 

Lance Izumi of the Pacific Research Institute nailed the broader problem: “The real lesson of this fiasco is the near-total lack of transparency in the school district’s education decision-making process.” He warned that such policies are “basically grade inflation dressed up in social-justice rhetoric” and produce no evidence of improved student performance. 

“In California, nearly six out of 10 third graders–more than 57 percent– failed to meet grade-level standards on the 2024 state English test. Yet, with relatively few exceptions, most of these students with weak reading skills are promoted to the next grade despite their demonstrated deficiencies. This practice of social promotion has devastating impacts on children,” Izumi noted.

“So when a student comes to college,” he observed, “without algebra skills and without analytical skills there is really no hope. It causes a lot of problems because that person is not ready to be educated at the level of calculus. In my book The Great Classroom Collapse, I conclude that too many K-12 schools are putting political ideology over what works, whether it be a misguided equity agenda that seeks to dumb down learning to the lowest common denominator, or progressive curricula and instructional methods that are being used in intellectual defiance of empirical evidence showing that are ineffective and are damaging children.”

The algebra reversal is the latest proof that San Francisco parents are fed up with ideologues treating their children as social experiments. For more than a decade, SFUSD has prioritized “belongingness,” ethnic studies mandates, and every fashionable equity fad over the basics of reading, writing, and math. 

The result? Chronically low proficiency rates, enrollment hemorrhaging, and families fleeing to private schools or out of the city. 

Tuesday’s vote is a long-overdue win for common sense and parental authority. But the damage from years of deliberate dumbing-down will take time to undo. If San Francisco’s school board truly wants to regain trust, it must stop chasing the next progressive mirage and focus on what actually works: rigorous academics, accountability, and getting politics out of the classroom.