School board candidates challenge detracking: Is it fair to smart kids?

One way to narrow achievement gaps is to slow down the fast learners. Eliminate accelerated classes. Tell parents it will be less stressful for their high-achieving kids. Talk about "equity."

School board races in several San Francisco Bay Area districts hinge on proposals to remove honors classes to "close persistent academic achievement gaps, reports Molly Gibbs for Bay Area News Group.

My daughter went to Palo Alto High School with the children of the founders of Silicon Valley and of very smart immigrants recruited to keep the high-tech industry growing. There were two levels of honors math.

The school board voted last year to eliminate ninth-grade honors biology, placing all students in the same class and asking teachers to "differentiate" instruction for students at different levels.

"Merging courses promotes equity by ensuring all students have access to the same foundational coursework and higher expectations," according to supporters, Gibbs writes. It removes the stigma of non-honors classes.

But two of the three candidates for two open school-board seats oppose de-laning. "People go to private school and that takes dollars out of the public school system,” said John Craig, an engineer. Tech executive Avery Wang also promises to maintain honors classes. The third candidate, Linda Henigin, a teacher's aide, said she sides with detracking but also wants students to have access to advanced courses.

"Craig and Wang are part of a larger group of school board candidates across the Bay Area running on the promise to push back against the trend in the region’s school districts — including in Oakland Unified, Fremont Union, Morgan Hill Unified, San Francisco Unified and Los Gatos-Saratoga Unified," reports Gibbs.

San Francisco Unified cut advanced middle and high school math classes in 2014-15, she writes. Students couldn't take algebra until ninth grade -- unless they paid for a private summer school class.

Instead of raising the floor, they lowered the ceiling, says Thomas Dee, a Stanford professor who studied the results. His 2023 study found fewer students took AP Calculus -- and equity gaps persisted.

Eighty-one percent of San Francisco voters backed a proposition calling for the return of eighth-grade algebra for students who want the challenge. It's now an option.

Detracking algebra has helped lower-performing students improve in Sequoia Union High School District, just to the north of Palo Alto, says Dee. Teachers got help in how to manage a mixed classroom, "raising the floor."

But parents aren't happy. "In reality, what happens is you cap opportunity for kid," says Alon Shiran, a parent of three Sequoia students who's running for school board. "Those who have the means go to private school, which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve with closing opportunity gaps.”