Eighth graders with second-grade math skills — they can’t multiply, divide or solve fraction or decimal problems — are being placed in algebra classes, says a Brookings report on The Misplaced Math Student. Some 29 percent of students in the lowest 10 percent are taking advanced math in eighth grade.
(Tom) Loveless, who directs Brookings’ Brown Center on Education Policy, estimates about 120,000 kids are inappropriately enrolled in classes that are supposed to level the playing field and too often don’t. “It’s really counterfeit equity,” he says, noting that the mismatch inordinately affects black, Hispanic and poor kids in urban schools.
Loveless wants to wait till ninth grade to teach algebra to students with a weak math foundation. But, if they’ve been passed along all these years without mastering elementary math, what suggests they’ll catch up in eighth grade?