Like learning to read by third grade, taking eighth grade math is a pivotal moment in a child’s education. Students who pass Algebra 1 in eighth grade are more likely to sign up for more advanced math courses, and those who pass more advanced math courses are more likely to graduate from college and earn more money. “Algebra in eighth grade is a gateway to a lot of further opportunities,” said Dan Goldhaber, an economist who studies education at the American Institutes for Research, in a recent webinar.

Researchers are trying to understand why so few Black and Hispanic students and low-income students of all races are making it through this early gate. While 25 percent of white students passed algebra in eighth  grade in 2021, only 13 percent of Black students did, according to the most recent .

A collection of surveys of teachers and principals, conducted by the research organization RAND, suggests three problems at the poorest middle schools, which are disproportionately populated with Black and Hispanic students. Many don’t offer algebra at all. Their teachers have less training and math expertise, and they describe how they spend classroom time differently than teachers do at wealthier schools. That means the most advanced students at many middle schools in poor communities don’t have the opportunity to learn algebra, and many students at high-poverty schools aren’t receiving the kind of math lessons that could help them get ready for the subject. 

In 2023 and 2024, RAND surveyed more than 3,000 school principals and almost 1,000 math teachers across the country. The educators are part of a specially constructed national sample, designed to reflect all public schools and the demographics of the U.S. student population. A  analyzing some of the survey findings was released in October 2024. (That analysis was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is among the many funders of The Hechinger Report.)

The poorest 25 percent of schools had vastly different course offerings and teachers than the wealthiest 25 percent. Most strikingly, nearly a quarter of the highest poverty schools didn’t offer algebra at all to any eighth graders, compared with only 6 percent of the wealthiest schools. 

Conversely, poor schools are much less likely to adopt an algebra-for-all policy in eighth grade. Nearly half of the wealthiest schools offered algebra to all of their eighth grade students, regardless of math ability, compared with about a third of the poorest schools. 

Math teachers at high-poverty schools tended to have weaker professional preparation. They were far more likely to have entered the profession without first earning a traditional education degree at a college or university, instead completing an alternative certification program on the job, often without student teaching under supervision. And they were less likely to have a graduate degree or hold a mathematics credential. 

In surveys, a third of math teachers at high-poverty schools reported that they spent more than half of class time teaching topics that were below grade level, as well as managing student behavior and disciplining students. Lecture-style instruction, as opposed to classroom discussion, was far more common at the poorest schools compared to the wealthiest schools. RAND researchers also detected similar discrepancies in instructional patterns when they examined schools along racial and ethnic lines, with Black and Hispanic students receiving “less optimal” instruction than white students. But these discrepancies were stronger by income than by race, suggesting that poverty may be a bigger factor than bias.

Many communities have tried putting more eighth graders into algebra classes, but that has sometimes left unprepared students worse off.  “Simply giving them an eighth grade algebra course is not a magic bullet,” said AIR’s Goldhaber, who commented on the RAND analysis during a Nov. 5 . Either the material is too challenging and the students fail or the course was “algebra” in name only and didn’t really cover the content. And without a college preparatory track of advanced math classes to take after algebra, the benefits of taking Algebra 1 in eighth grade are unlikely to accrue.

It’s also not economically practical for many low-income middle schools to offer an Algebra 1 course when only a handful of students are advanced enough to take it. A teacher would have to be hired even for a few students and those resources might be more effectively spent on something else that would benefit more students. That puts the most advanced students at low-income schools at a particular disadvantage. “It’s a difficult issue for schools to tackle on their own,” said Goldhaber. 

Improving math teacher quality at the poorest schools is a critical first step. Some researchers have suggested paying strong math teachers more to work at high-poverty schools, but that would also require the renegotiation of union contracts in many cities. And, even with financial incentives, there is a shortage of math teachers. 

For students, AIR’s Goldhaber argues the time to intervene in math is in elementary school to make sure more low-income students have strong basic math skills. “Do it before middle school,” said Goldhaber. “For many students, middle school is too late.”

It’s critical for student success in college and beyond. 

It’s an unnecessary barrier meant to keep students of color from higher education. 

That’s the argument on both sides of a long-standing debate about algebra. 

There is, however, consensus on a few key issues: Race and wealth play a role in how and when the course is offered in K-12 and students’ failure to pass the course by high school or college has long kept them from graduating — and qualifying for high-paying jobs.

They agree, too, that the pandemic, which tanked math scores nationwide and stunted students’ social skills, leading to that continue to hinder learning, has left young people particularly vulnerable. 

What they do not agree upon is a solution. While some say schools should double down on the course and offer it to all children starting in the eighth grade, others say it’s time to drop higher-level algebra as a graduation requirement and provide students with another path, one made up of more practical mathematics coursework that would not prohibit them from pursuing their education. 

“What is so magical about algebra as a math requirement?” asked Eloy Ortiz Oakley, former chancellor of California’s community college system. It’s a gatekeeper to virtually every type of credential and transfer in higher education, he said, calling it a “killing field” for low-income students and those of color. “One could argue that it is becoming a barrier as soon as eighth grade given the push to make algebra a requirement.”

High school freshman Mia Miron, 14, who currently has a C+ in algebra, doesn’t understand how the subject will help build her career: Miron, who lives in Pomona, California, hopes to become a chef, a hairdresser or to pursue ethnic studies. 

“There are some lessons that are harder than others, but I’m not perfect in understanding,” she said. “Math to me is not my favorite subject and I don’t think it could help me in my future.”

While some advocate for universal eighth-grade algebra, many children don’t have access to the course that early: It’s often available only to white, more well-off students based upon test scores, teacher recommendations, previous years’ grades and parent choice — all of which benefit the affluent. 

Data obtained by ����Ӱ�� show that just 31,400 eighth-graders took the Algebra Regents exam in New York City in 2022: 72% passed with a 65 or higher. There were roughly 64,500 eighth graders in the city school system in the 2021-22 school year, excluding those in charters, marking a 48% participation rate. 

Nearly 37% of eighth graders in Broward County, Florida, less than 22% in Baltimore City Public Schools and 21% in Phoenix’s Paradise Valley Unified School District were enrolled in the course most recently. In Seattle Public Schools, 37% of eighth graders take algebra, as do hundreds of seventh graders. Many districts only offer the class to eighth graders deemed advanced. 

Students in the McAllen Independent School District, for example, must earn roughly 86% on their seventh grade end-of-year state math exam to qualify for a blended math course in which they learn eighth-grade mathematics in the first semester and, if they are successful, algebra in the second. Just 23% of its eighth-grade class is enrolled in the course, district officials told ����Ӱ��: Administrators there said the number dipped as a result of COVID. 

Both Baltimore and New York City schools say they hope to boost participation. 

Algebra’s proponents say failure to offer rigorous mathematics coursework early in a child’s educational career is a civil rights violation. 

“The relationship between math and science is very strong,” said Talia Milgrom-Elcott, executive director and founder of , a group which aspires to prepare and retain 150,000 new STEM teachers, especially for schools serving majority Black, Hispanic and Native American students, by 2032. “A whole set of careers would be closed off to them — all of which happened to be some of the fastest growing and highest paying. From an equity perspective, it’s almost untenable.”

William Crombie is the director of professional development at , an organization founded by civil rights icon and mathematics educator Robert P. Moses. The group uses mathematics literacy as an organizing tool to boost the quality of education for American schoolchildren, focusing on the most underserved middle and high school students, who too often also score low on standardized tests. 

Crombie said that while algebra is an expected offering for eighth-grade students in “well-to-do, suburban communities,” it’s much harder to find elsewhere. “In urban and even rural high schools, they are struggling to accomplish algebra in the 9th grade.”

But, he said, there is no logical reason to accept the inequity: If wealthy children can learn these concepts, so can others.

“Unless people believe in some very strange distribution of talent in the human species, if that upper decile can do it, it’s incumbent upon us to find the proper opportunities for learning so that all students can do it,” he said. 

But Boaz Barak, a computer science professor at Harvard University, said uneven access to rigorous mathematics is just one part of a much larger and persistent problem. 

“This is not math specific,” he said, adding a gap in math scores between two groups of students often means a gap in other academic areas, including reading. 

And while some might want an alternative pathway, Barak urges against it. 

“The problem is that sometimes people try to solve the gap by claiming that the issue is with math itself,” he said. “Then you have counterproductive and harmful policies that try to fix equity by trying to lower the ceiling and remove advanced math options for everyone, or replace them with superficial areas like ‘data science.’”

Such courses, while marketed as alternative pathways, are really “off-ramps” from any quantitative major in college, Barak said. Data science is “a great field,” he added, but for students to grasp the concept, they need a background in statistics, computer science and math: linear algebra and some calculus. 

“This means that it can’t be taught properly at the high school level,” he said. “What you can teach is a data literacy course, which teaches you basic tools such as spreadsheets and some notions about plotting data and correlations. The latter is a fine course to teach — but it’s not a math course.”

Both and are changing — and, in some cases lowering — math standards so that students meet basic requirements for high school graduation. The plans are controversial with some saying such modifications will leave students unprepared for the future.

School-aged children are already in the midst of an academic crisis and face dire predictions about their financial futures: They could suffer hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings throughout their .

Crombie, of The Algebra Project, believes challenging, relevant coursework will help them meet their academic goals: He encourages students to model the importance of mathematics education by serving as math tutors, mentors and advisors to their peers. And his organization wants teachers to have adequate time during the school day — and support during the summer — to work with each other to deepen their understanding of the subject and improve classroom practices. 

Schools, the group contends, should give struggling students the tools they need to succeed rather than relying upon older, failed methods. 

Teacher training and retention also cannot be ignored, Crombie said. 

“The strongest teachers are often pulled out to better-paying suburban districts,” he said. 

Ortiz Oakley understands the challenges schools and students face but believes algebra is not the answer. He recognizes the importance of the subject for a calculus-based pathway in math at the high school and college level — and its relevance to STEM. 

But what, he asked, is the relevance to the humanities and social sciences? 

“That is what we are questioning,” said Ortiz Oakley, who left his community college post last summer to head , an equity-focused higher education group. “There is no doubt this is a vestige of exclusionary tactics rooted in racism and discrimination. We’ve seen that repeatedly in this country.”

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Walton Family Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York provide financial support to and ����Ӱ��.