I want to emphasize that I said "making it so that nobody can take Algebra 'early'", i.e. California education bureaucrats are in the process, moving in that di

I want to emphasize that I said "making it so that nobody can take Algebra 'early'", i.e. California education bureaucrats are in the process, moving in that direction. They have not succeeded or completed the process. (In retrospect, I wish I had said "far fewer" rather than "nobody", as I cannot read their minds to determine if they are against anyone in California taking Algebra before 9th grade. However, the possible slight exaggeration does not affect the substance of the claim.) I insist upon the precise nature of my claim because its precision is what makes it correct. So many in these comments imply that the changes proposed in the California Mathematics Framework (CMF) are hopelessly "complex" and impossible to understand for the layman, and so therefore we should trust the experts and not attempt to make any factual statement whatsoever about what is in the CMF. This is encouraged by the CMF itself, which is 800 pages long and does everything in its power to deny that it is anything in particular, merely generally wonderful [1]. This is smokescreening, obscurantism, credentialism, and most of all elitism. I do not accept it. It is absurd and anti-citizen democracy to insinuate that ordinary citizens are incompetent to understand and opine on math curricula. All that said, please read this, and links therein: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6146 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6146 Select passages follow. Again, please follow the links in the original for details: > ...the CMF encourages schools to stop offering Algebra I in middle school, while placing obstacles (such as doubling-up, compressed courses, or outside-of-school private courses) in the way of those who want to take advanced math in higher grades. When similar reforms were implemented in San Francisco, they resulted in an “inequitable patchwork scheme” of workarounds that affluent students could access but that their less privileged counterparts could not. The CMF also promotes trendy and shallow courses (such as a nearly math-free version of “data science”) as recommended alternatives to foundational mathematical courses such as Algebra and Calculus. These courses do not prepare students even for careers in data science itself! > The CMF states that “many students, parents, and teachers encourage acceleration beginning in grade eight (or sooner) because of mistaken beliefs that Calculus is an important high school goal.” Students, parents, and teachers are not mistaken. Neither is the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), which set in 2015 a goal to double the number of African American students taking calculus by 2025. Calculus is not the only goal of K-12 math education, but it is important for students who wish to prepare for STEM in college and beyond. See also: [1] "Ra" -- the quality, embodied by the CMF, of aspiring to general wonderfulness while evading being pinned down with any specifics https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/ra/ https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/ra/ [2] The shoddy and sometimes outright fraudulent statistics supporting the CMF https://www.familiesforsanfrancisco.com/updates/inequity-in-numbers https://www.familiesforsanfrancisco.com/updates/inequity-in-...