Late this year, California is due to release a new base for teaching math, and it is likely to contain controversial recommendation for school districts.

School districts are trying to make sure their students are prepared for a career in STEM when they move from high school to college, but the problem is that too many students, especially from underrepresented groups, lack math.

State education leaders believe the solution may be to postpone teaching math to a higher level until students become older.

The United School District Lucia Mar conducted a comprehensive study in 2019, looking at data from the previous 5 years, and assistant head of curriculum and learning Hillary Dixon says it is clear that the district has something to work on.

“We’ve had great success after analyzing this to say we really need kids to go to a level or higher when they start. And I’m proud to say we’re doing it this year,” she said. Dixon.

School districts are now encouraged to postpone teaching algebra until students go to high school. Many accelerated students take geometry and algebra 1 in high school. But this slow start could mean that students will have trouble enrolling in the best colleges.

Matthew Bornhorst is a third-year aerospace student at Cal Poly, he attributes his ability to enter university to his high school grade point average of 4.35 and a complete two-year advanced computing class, which he would not have been able to do if he had not taken geometry and algebra 1 in high school.

“I think I definitely had the upper hand,” Bornhorst said. “So when I came here, I was able to go to calculation 3 and 4, so I got half of the calculation classes I needed to take off the road.”

The state and school districts are in a small number of 22, as the students who most often fail math are from unrepresented groups, but a delay with math instruction to help them catch up means they won’t be competitive when it comes before admission to college.

“Yes, I would definitely say that since I went to a private preparatory academy for college, I was able to access those classes on campus where a lot of my friends had to go to a public college to access those classes on that the same levels that I was able to, ”Bornhorst said.

Deferring Algebra 1 is the main concept of this new structure, which will be released later this year, but the framework is a set of optional recommendations for districts. Dixon says Lucia Mar will review these recommendations and delve into local data to see what will be best for students.

“Once the state has finalized this, we will work with our math teachers, administrators and others to see which parts we want to implement and which we don’t,” Dixon said.

Dixon hopes the district can use the new recommendations to help all students.

“If in the future we move towards everyone starting algebra 1 in 9th grade, then we will look at what types of leaps to acceleration we will be able to implement,” Dixon said.

Administrators say that after the completion of the new state structure, the next step will be to study the document and its recommendations. It will probably take at least a year before significant changes are made.