City Hall Digest: SFUSD Adds Algebra Back to 8th Grade—At a Steep Cost
City Hall Digest is TogetherSF Action’s weekly dispatch from San Francisco’s City Hall, broken into bite-sized pieces—because understanding local government is your fundamental right and duty.
The Price of Failure
First, the good news. A decade after removing algebra from the 8th Grade curriculum, San Francisco’s school board reversed course last week and announced it’s working on a plan to bring the course back to middle school.
Next, the extremely San Francisco news. The cost to reintroduce algebra to 8th graders will be $3 million in the first year, balloon to $15.8 million in the second year (including $10 million to buy new curriculum), and level off at about $7.8 million in the third year. That’s $26.6 million to reintroduce algebra, which as a reminder, is $26.6 million more than SFUSD would have spent had it just kept algebra in 8th grade in the first place.
Chart from February 13, 2024 SFUSD Board Meeting
How did we get here?
SFUSD removed Algebra from the 8th Grade curriculum in 2014 in an attempt to promote equity. Disadvantaged students had been struggling with higher-level math courses, so the district delayed Algebra until 9th Grade to help those students. Unfortunately, this experiment was an abject failure. Some high-achieving students left the district in order to get the math courses they couldn’t get at SFUSD, and scores of the students who remained sunk even lower than they had been previously.
After a decade, SFUSD has enough data to realize changes are needed to improve math outcomes for students. But this being San Francisco, of course the district isn’t just adding algebra back to the 8th Grade curriculum. Instead, the district has developed three prototypes that it will test in different schools over the next few years.
“Algebra I for All in 8th Grade” focuses on offering an Algebra 1 course to all 8th-grade students. “Readiness and Interest” involves a compression course called Math 8/Algebra 1, which aims to assess students' readiness and interest in advanced math. And the “Additional Math Period” prototype offers concurrent courses in Math 8 and Algebra 1, giving students an extra math period to cover both subjects.
It’s great that SFUSD has recognized their mistake, and is taking steps to course-correct. Disadvantaged students often do need extra resources to thrive—we’re hopeful that one of SFUSD’s three prototypes it’s experimenting with over the next few years will offer an equitable path forward for all students. But SFUSD is facing a fiscal crisis and declining enrollment—the $26.6 million it’s spending to reintroduce a basic math course to 8th Graders could likely be better spent elsewhere.
Plus, you should still vote yes on Prop G, just to put a fine point on how much the voters want kids to be successful in math.
San Franciscans Are Begging to Feel Safe in the City
It’s no secret that many San Franciscans are frustrated with the city’s lack of progress on a bunch of issues: the drug crisis, homelessness, and crime. Now we can quantify that displeasure—a new Chamber of Commerce poll found that 72 percent of San Franciscans feel like the city is on the wrong track. And residents’ main cause for concern? Public safety. While 61 percent of San Franciscans felt safe visiting downtown during the day, only 34 percent felt safe visiting downtown at night. Simply put, most San Franciscans don’t feel safe in their city right now.
Because people’s perception of lawlessness matters. 69 percent of residents felt crime is getting worse, even though crime actually decreased by 7 percent last year compared with 2022. If residents don’t feel safe due to conditions on the street, they will vote for policies that increase their sense of security.
That logic is supported by poll results—61 percent of respondents supported both Prop E and Prop F. A quick refresher: Prop E modernizes San Francisco’s police department, streamlining paperwork requirements and giving officers access to 21st century police tools, while Prop F requires San Francisco welfare participants to receive substance abuse screenings to continue receiving assistance from the county. Both propositions are directly related to San Francisco’s street conditions and public safety, and the fact that nearly two in three residents support them show that voters are ready for a new approach to solving these problems.
Voter anger seems to be at a tipping point—after years of inaction (or insufficient action at least), voters seem to be completely fed up with the status quo. A number of propositions in the March 5 election offer a new direction for San Francisco—check out the Get It Together, SF Voter Guide for a full list of our endorsements.
But San Francisco’s problems are deeper than a few ballot measures can solve. We need structural reform at the government level to start addressing these issues. We just posted a great explainer of why San Francisco can’t seem to solve its longstanding problems—and of course, we’ll keep you up-to-date on our charter reform efforts that will fix these underlying issues.
Look What Happens When the Mayor and Board of Supervisors Work Together
Last week, the Board of Supervisors did something rare: they worked with Mayor London Breed and unanimously passed a piece of legislation that will have a direct impact on San Francisco’s public health crisis. By eliminating the request for proposal (RFP) process for new public health beds for the next five years, the city will be able to add treatment beds for people suffering from mental health and substance use disorders more quickly.
The Mayor and Board of Supervisors often find themselves at odds, so this is cause for celebration. Not just because this type of collaboration is so rare at City Hall, but because this legislation is such a no-brainer. Previously, every time San Francisco added new treatment beds, they needed to go through a lengthy RFP process to source the beds. Eliminating the RFP process will allow San Francisco to respond more quickly to the city’s mental health and substance abuse crises.
“When people in our city see people struggling on our street, they want us to move faster and more aggressively to get people into care.”
Even with this change and the fact we have increased our capacity to 2,600 treatment beds, the city still has about 8,700 people who are close to homelessness or who are homeless, with substance use or mental health disorders. That’s significant, because San Francisco and California are exploring new ways to make it easier for people with mental health or substance use disorders to get help. California Senate Bill 43 was signed by Governor Gavin Newsome late last year—it streamlines the conservatorship process for the most severely mentally ill residents of California. And if voters pass Prop F and Prop 1 this March, San Francisco will need many more treatment beds to help people recover from drug addiction.
Passing legislation making it easier for people to get treatment is one thing. But having the infrastructure to make sure people can actually get treatment is much more difficult, and it’s where San Francisco and California have often failed in the past. Thankfully, the Mayor and Board of Supervisors put their differences aside, worked together, and passed this common sense change to help San Francisco add the treatment beds it desperately needs.
Got Questions About the Next Election? We Have Answers.
Join us at one of our interactive Voter Guide events. Coming up, we have a panel discussion (plus afterparty!) on February 15 and a virtual Q+A with our CEO Kanishka Cheng on February 27.
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