Judge faults PAUSD’s policy on math placement

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

A judge has found that the Palo Alto Unified School District is violating the state’s Math Placement Act, effectively holding students back from taking more advanced classes.

The district now has 30 days to come up with an objective policy that meets the state’s Education Code, Judge Carrie Zepeda wrote in her Feb. 6 decision.

The order applies to ninth grade students, who have routinely been placed in the next class after they complete middle school.

“No effort is made to objectively determine whether students’ knowledge and skill in math places them in more advanced programs,” Zepeda said.

Zepeda was ruling on a lawsuit brought in July 2021 by four parents: Edith Cohen, Marek Alboszta, Yiyi Zeng and Xin Li. The parents said in a statement that the district has been part of a larger trend in education of addressing differences in math achievement by slowing the progress for all students.

The district is lowering the ceiling rather than raising the floor on student achievement, the parents said.
Zepeda ordered the district to create a math placement policy that allows students to skip to the next level of math by doing well on a test in the first month of ninth grade.

The score to test into a higher class must be reasonable, and “decisions around whether students have mastered content must be evidence-based,” she said.

Typically, students take Algebra 1 or Geometry in ninth grade, depending on what level of math they reached in middle school. Those classes are typically followed by Algebra 2 then Precalculus.

The order allows students to take an Algebra 1, Geometry or Algebra 2 class independently and skip the class within the district.

The math placement policy must give parents and students a process for appealing their placements, and the district has to collect data on how the policy is working, Zepeda said.

The district has 30 days to submit its policy to the court, and the parents will have 10 days to file an objection. The next court date is on March 13.

Sex-bias claim dismissed

The lawsuit also alleged the district’s math policies are keeping girls out of advanced math classes.
“Over the past two years, the number of boys in advanced math classes have outnumbered girls by more than a three-to-one ratio,” the lawsuit said.

But Zepeda found that the parents failed to show the district violated Title IX, which is the federal law preventing sex-based discrimination in schools.

3 Comments

  1. For a district so concerned with equity they sure do seem to be great at discriminating against those groups they are supposed to protect- here, girls and a large swath of Asians, and with the newest decision closing down mod/severe special Ed programs at two choice schools, the district discriminates against the most vulnerable of us. The district promotes equity in name only.

  2. @Disappointed — Don’t forget discriminating against underprivileged kids.

    The district has created a math placement process in which it is effectively impossible to advance *unless* you supplement extensively outside of school. It doesn’t advance kids who are just talented at math. No, you have to study extensively to pass the middle school skip tests.

    The result of this should be obvious: virtually none of these underprivileged kids are able to accelerate. It doesn’t matter how smart or talented at math they are. They CAN’T pass the test without learning a full year of math outside of school AND studying for some ambiguous other test (which the district won’t reveal!).

    This is unfair to all kids, but disproportionately kids who don’t have access to out of school tutoring programs. Where is the equity?

  3. @Disappointed — Don’t forget discriminating against underprivileged kids.

    The district has created a math placement process in which it is effectively impossible to advance *unless* you supplement extensively outside of school. It doesn’t advance kids who are just talented at math. No, you have to study extensively to pass the middle school skip tests.

    The result of this should be obvious: virtually none of these underprivileged kids are able to accelerate. It doesn’t matter how smart or talented at math they are. They CAN’T pass the test without learning a full year of math outside of school AND studying for some ambiguous other test (which the district won’t reveal!).

    This is unfair to all kids, but disproportionately kids who don’t have access to out of school tutoring programs. Where is the equity?

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