In July of 2023, a new California Math Framework was adopted. After years of debates and revisions, the goals of the final framework are to make math education more real-world focused and equitable for students. In theory, this sounds like a great solution to the inequities in education and the constant question “What will we use this for?” that many students have. However, the practices the framework puts into place will not solve these problems.

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The policies the new California Math Framework suggests include:

• Encouraging students to delay taking Algebra 1 until 9th grade

• Prioritizing data science over calculus

• Focusing on social justice oriented problems

• Organizing curriculum around big ideas in math rather than specific standards

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These policies that have been put into place don’t entirely align with our values of preparedness, support, interest, and equity.

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Equity vs. Equality in Tracking

As shown in Figure 1, the framework is pushing for equality when they encourage all students to take Algebra 1 in 9th grade. Equality is not the same as equity. If we want equity, we would provide all students with the same opportunities for advancement. Rather than keeping students down in order to achieve equality, we must build students up with support at all levels of math to achieve equity.

Supporters of the framework claim that tracking students creates a racial divide. Tracking is when students are placed on different curriculum tracks based on an IQ test. Todd McCardle, a professor of education at Eastern Kentucky University, claims that “tracking practices are a form of racial injustice and limit opportunities for students of color” because there is low representation of students of color in advanced tracks. Rather than getting rid of tracks all together, to make tracks more equitable, we should make different tracks available in all schools and test all students’ intellectual advancement and curiosity to determine placement.

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A study by PhD students at Stanford of the San Francisco Unified School District found that there was no change in the representation of Black or Hispanic students in AP math courses when tracking was delayed until high school. There was a 15% decrease in AP Calculus enrollment. Though ending tracking has good intentions, it ultimately creates a roadblock for all students trying to advance in math to pursue STEM careers.

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Data Science vs. Calculus

Originally, the second policy of the framework was to completely replace calculus as the final class offered in high school with data science. As shown in Figure 1, they instead revised it to emphasize and incorporate data science in all curriculum. Kyndall Brown, the executive director of the California Mathematics Project claims, “The high demand for data science has been linked to the rise of big data and its increasing importance to businesses and other organizations”. Though data science is becoming increasingly applicable to the professional world, students pursuing STEM careers would be significantly underprepared for college if they took statistics instead of calculus. Not only that, but the UC system has recently stopped counting data science classes towards their math requirement. The framework has since been revised and the data science pathway has been relegated to an option in the 11th and 12th years of high school. However, there are still supporters of the framework that believe in replacing calculus with data science. Though data science courses should be offered, they should not completely replace calculus for all students.

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Curriculum Organization

Currently, the California math curriculum is organized into concepts, domains, and standards at every grade. For example, in the 8th grade curriculum, within the concept of functions, there's the domain of defining, evaluating, and comparing functions. Within each domain there are numbered standards. The new California Math Framework claims it can reorganize these individual standards into more conceptual “big ideas”. The framework doesn’t provide the reorganized curriculum and proposes a very similar concept to the common core standards that are already in place. 

The curriculum was reworked in 2014 to common core standards, which mixed all the standards usually separated into algebra I, geometry, and algebra II into three integrated courses. This already reformed curriculum to show connections between concepts and is based on learning progressions “informed both by research on children's cognitive development and by the logical structure of mathematics.” There is no need to further reform curriculum and design an entire new curriculum and lesson plans at this time.

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Social Justice and Real World Issues
One of the biggest complaints about math that every student has at one point or another is “Why do I have to learn this?” As shown in Figure 1, the framework addresses this issue by suggesting that classes focus on social justice oriented problems, which is the start of a great idea. By addressing social and political issues in math classes, content is made more accessible and interesting for students. Real world applications are incredibly important for math, especially at a young age to spark interest for students. However, there’s no reason to limit math applications to just social justice. Teachers should apply math to science, medicine, economics and more along with social issues. Cross-disciplinary education is the most exciting form of learning because students can make connections and see how they might be able to use all the things they are learning in combination. Mathematics on its own is exciting for some, but the real reason we learn math is to use it to solve problems, analyze the world, and build logical reasoning.

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How Should the New California Math Framework be Reformed?

Though the California Math Framework does a decent job of tying math to real world problems, it denies students opportunities to excel in math, overemphasizes data science​, and proposes an unnecessary reworking of the curriculum without the research to back it up.

If we were to adopt anything from the California Math Framework it would be to have lesson plans that tie in more real world applications to social, environmental, health, and economic issues.