Access to Algebra I: The Effects of Online Mathematics for Grade 8 Students
January 21, 2012
Source: U.S. Department of Education
This report presents findings from a randomized control trial designed to inform the decisions of policymakers who are considering using online courses to provide access to Algebra I in grade 8. It focuses on students judged by their schools to be ready to take Algebra I in grade 8 but who attend schools that do not offer the course. The study tested the impact of offering an online Algebra I course on students’ algebra achievement at the end of grade 8 and their subsequent likelihood of participating in an advanced mathematics course sequence in high school. The study was designed to respond to both broad public interest in the deployment of online courses for K–12 students and to calls from policymakers to provide students with adequate pathways to advanced coursetaking sequences in mathematics (National Mathematics Advisory Panel 2008).Policymakers have persistently called for broadening access to Algebra I in grade 8. A 2008 report by the National Mathematics Advisory Panel recommended that “all prepared students [should] have access to an authentic algebra course—and [that districts] should prepare more students than at present to enroll in such a course by Grade 8” (2008, p. 23). This recommendation echoed one made more than 10 years earlier by the U.S. Department of Education, which asserted that all states should invest in expanding access to Algebra I for middle school students (U.S. Department of Education 1997).These policy statements are built on two bodies of research. One demonstrates that Algebra I operates as a gateway to more advanced mathematics courses in high school and college. The other suggests that students who succeed in Algebra I in middle school have more success in mathematics throughout high school and college than students who take Algebra I later (Nord et al. 2011; Smith 1996; Spielhagen 2006; Stevenson, Schiller, and Schneider 1994). Given these findings, federal, state, and local policymakers have sought to expand access to Algebra I during the past two decades.National grade 8 Algebra I enrollments increased from 16% in the 1990s to 31% in 2007 (Loveless 2008), and in general, prior mathematics achievement is related to whether or not students take Algebra I in grade 8 (Walston and Carlivati McCarroll 2010). However, not all high-achieving students have the opportunity to take Algebra I in grade 8. An analysis of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K; U.S. Department of Education 2009a) indicated that nationally, approximately 25% of students who scored in the highest quartile on the grade 5 mathematics assessment were not enrolled in a formal Algebra I course in grade 8 (Walston and Carlivati McCarroll 2010).
Categories: education, K-12, technology and internet, U.S. Department of Education
