How Texas plans to make access to advanced math more equitable

When Tha Cung looked over his sixth grade class schedule, he took notice of the math block. He had been placed in an advanced class. 

“I didn’t know ‘honors’ even existed,” he says.

Tha was little when his family immigrated to the United States from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and, for much of his time in Dallas schools, he took courses designed for children who are learning English. In fifth grade, his standardized test scores showed he was a strong math student – someone who should be challenged with honors classes in middle school.

Under Dallas ISD policy, Tha’s parents didn’t need to sign him up for advanced math. A teacher or counselor didn’t have to recommend him, either. In many schools, those are the hoops a student must get through to join honors classes. But Tha was automatically placed in the advanced course because of his scores on Texas’ STAAR test.

A version of this approach will soon be replicated statewide as part of an effort to remove systemic barriers that can stand between bright students and rigorous courses. It sounds simple: Instead of having to opt in to advanced math, families are given the choice to opt out.

During its regular session, the Texas Legislature passed a bipartisan bill mandating every student who performed in the top 40% on a fifth grade math assessment automatically be enrolled in advanced math for sixth grade. 

“We’re setting up a structure that uses an objective measure to ensure that students who are already showing that they are capable are being put on that advanced math pathway,” says Jennifer Saenz, a policy director with the E3 Alliance, an education collaborative based in Austin, which advocated for the new Texas law. 

Lessons for the rest of the U.S.

How the approach rolls out in Texas could provide lessons for other states. 

Leaders across the country are confronting the need to prepare a new, diverse generation of science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM, workers. And after COVID-19, it’s been particularly challenging for students to bounce back from widespread learning loss in math. Eighth graders in Texas scored roughly in line with the national average on the test referred to as the Nation’s Report Card in 2022, seeing a similar dip since 2019.

Before the pandemic, E3 Alliance’s research found that Black and Hispanic students in Texas were routinely left out of advanced classes – even if they earned high test scores. The group hopes the new state law will build pathways for students who have been historically excluded.

Enrolling in advanced math in sixth grade clears the way for a student to take Algebra I in eighth grade. That opens up the possibility of courses such as calculus or statistics during high school. And that can then set a stronger foundation for a STEM major in college and a high-paying career after graduation. 

Advocates for the opt-out policy say it’s a workforce issue in addition to an equity issue.

“Especially in today’s rapidly changing and technology-driven economy, math matters more than ever – for individual students and for the larger Texas workforce to remain competitive,” says Jonathan Feinstein, a state director at The Education Trust, a national nonprofit promoting equity.

On a recent morning at Vickery Meadow’s Sam Tasby Middle School, Principal Nesha Maston observed dozens of students in Room 304 calculating the area of parallelograms and trapezoids. 

In that class was Alexis Grant, an 11-year-old who thinks her year in sixth grade honors math will pave the way for achieving one of her goals: studying at Harvard. 

“I knew it would be challenging,” Alexis says of her math class. “We push each other to get the work done.”

Many of her Tasby classmates – including Tha – are immigrants. Families who send their children to the school collectively speak more than a dozen languages, and the vast majority are low-income. 

When Principal Maston looks in on those honors classes, she sees the population of her school is reflected.  

More diverse classrooms

Ms. Maston’s observations are backed up by Dallas ISD data. Not only are far more students enrolling in advanced math, but those classrooms are more diverse.

In 2018, prior to the opt-out policy, roughly 3,500 sixth graders enrolled in honors math classes. About 17% of Black students in that grade, and one-third of Hispanic students, were in those classes, compared to half of white students. 

Last year, more than 5,100 sixth graders took honors math. And now, 43% of Black students are in honors math when they enter middle school and nearly 6 in 10 Hispanic students are. The percentage of white sixth graders in honors math has also gone up, to roughly 82%. 

Meanwhile, the number of Dallas ISD eighth grade students enrolled in Algebra I nearly doubled between 2018 and last year. 

Texas is home to more than 1,000 school districts, which means vastly different ways students could end up in advanced courses. The decisions were often subjective.

Teacher recommendations are a big factor in some districts. But those decisions can be swayed by implicit biases around what an “honors student” looks or acts like, education advocates say. 

In other places, parents must request advanced classes for their children – but that can leave out students whose parents may not be aware of the option. Students themselves also may not want to opt in because they don’t see themselves as good at math or don’t want the extra workload. 

Some Central Texas districts also already have an opt-out policy, with the help of the E3 Alliance. Those schools have seen far more Black and Hispanic students complete Algebra I in eighth grade, as well as a huge jump among children who are learning English.

In the Hays school district, curriculum officer Derek McDaniel watched as the number of sixth graders in advanced math ballooned over the past five years.

As more districts move in this direction under the new law, Mr. McDaniel urges school administrators to prioritize parent communication. Explaining to families why their child is placed into honors math is critical, he says, adding that parents should know the benefit of this more challenging course load.

Communication with teachers is also key, Mr. McDaniel says. Some honors-level teachers are accustomed to a certain student profile. They expect limited behavior problems and for students to always complete homework assignments on time. 

With an opt-out policy, he says, some students will be new to the advanced track and not have developed uniform study skills in the lower grades. 

“The easy solution is to give up,” Mr. McDaniel says. “We’re gonna stick with the kid.” 

Texas’ unique strategy

A handful of other states have embraced opt-out or automatic enrollment policies.

In North Carolina, for example, a 2017 News & Observer/Charlotte Observer investigation found students from low-income families were placed in advanced coursework at lower rates than their affluent peers who demonstrated the same levels of achievement.

Lawmakers later passed an “automatic enrollment” law. According to a 2022 state report, 92% of North Carolina middle and high school students who scored at the highest level on their end-of-grade math test were placed in an advanced math course.

Texas’ strategy is unique in its focus on sixth grade math as a gateway for more advanced courses.

Recognizing the change could be a heavy lift, the Texas Education Agency has given administrators until the 2024 school year to comply with the law. 

Among the potential challenges: Schools may need to strengthen their pipeline of advanced math teachers. Administrators may also have to build out more time for tutoring or host summer camps to bring more students up to speed on key math skills.

Dallas ISD chief academic officer Shannon Trejo says some students might begin middle school fuzzy on various math ideas. Or, because of the COVID-19 disruption, they may have some gaps in their understanding of foundational concepts. 

“We need to be ready to build those little gaps and not make that be the cause for students to say, ‘I don’t think I want to do this anymore,’” she says.

The payoff may be years away, when current Dallas students begin earning high-paying jobs in science, technology, engineering or math fields.

Tha was placed in that sixth grade honors math class two years ago. Now he’s an eighth grader enrolled in Algebra I. He thinks that will give him a leg up in the future.

“My mom told me that I could be anything,” he says. “So I chose engineer.”

This piece is part of The Math Problem, an ongoing series documenting challenges and highlighting progress, from the Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight diverse newsrooms: AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times. To read more of the collaborative’s work, visit its website.