The title comes from a 1977 song, “(What a) Wonderful World,” by Art Garfunkel (with Paul Simon and James Taylor on background vocals). It also describes many San Francisco middle school students — even those who may have an aptitude for math — thanks to off-the-charts wokeness on the part of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board of Education.
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Following a 2022 landslide recall of three SFUSD board members by San Francisco voters, in February 2024, ten years after removing Algebra I from the 8th-grade curriculum (call that initiative Every Child Left Behind), the board voted 6-1 to bring 8th grade Algebra I back, albeit with a messy three-year transition, remarkably admitting that the initiative did not improve math outcomes, math achievement declined, the participation of underrepresented students did not meaningfully increase, and fewer students overall were taking higher-level math.
Who could’ve foreseen all that? Well, Smith, Wesson, and me and you, and everybody else not indoctrinated with woeful wokeness.
To reinforce the decision, in March 2024, the non-binding Proposition G passed with over 80% of the S.F. electorate voting to bring back 8th-grade Algebra I. Prop G was even endorsed by the San Francisco Chronicle.
This author, writing about it back then, naïvely assumed the story was over. Silly me. Thomas Briggs, writing for Education Progress, covers the continuing saga in detail. In March 2026, the Board voted 4-3 for the following plan: Starting in the 2026–2027 school year, only 2 out of 21 S.F. schools will offer an accelerated math pathway enabling students to take 8th-grade Algebra I as a standalone course; the pathway for these two schools will be not at all different from that offered in neighboring districts outside San Francisco. At the other 19 schools, students will have to take Math 8, with Algebra I a concurrent elective — which, among other things, would eliminate the possibility of taking another elective — with only “academically eligible” students (see for what that means, and keep in mind that this is without the benefit of the compressed math pathway) allowed to take the standalone Algebra I, and then only after meeting with a counselor and getting parental consent.
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“Convoluted” is a common description of this policy, but that may be too kind. The likely effect is that many 8th-grade S.F. students, possibly including the very students the woke policy was intended to help, will continue needlessly to be shut out of Algebra I, a major building block and stepping stone to college math and STEM-oriented careers. Among other things, Algebra I gives students familiarity with manipulating mathematical symbols and allows the student to solve higher-order equations. Who can forget memorizing the quadratic formula and still knowing it to this day?
Woke math policies have a spillover effect in college. California (thanks again) eliminated just about all remedial math courses in community colleges starting in 2017, hoping it would speed up times to degrees. Instead, lo and behold (see my shocked face), unprepared students keep on flunking the math courses they’re not ready for. I’m not advocating giving credit at the college level for remedial high school material, but clearly the problem is that many graduating high school students — especially those coming from public schools — are woefully unprepared. Those contemplating a STEM career should at the least be ready for Calculus I when they enter college. Catching up is often difficult and time-consuming.
Math wokeness apparently is against the will even of the people of San Francisco, to whom I say: Vote out all woke officials, whether in education or in politics, and allow sanity and common sense to prevail.
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W.A. Eliot is a pseudonym.
Image: jarmoluk via Pixabay, Pixabay License.