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When my daughter started ninth grade at her New York City public high school, she was placed in algebra 1. She鈥檇 already passed it in eighth grade but, due to the pandemic, hadn鈥檛 taken the Regents exam necessary to move on to geometry. I didn鈥檛 think it was a problem. My math-and-physics-teacher husband did. He pointed out that if she repeated algebra 1 in ninth grade instead of taking geometry, she wouldn鈥檛 be eligible for calculus senior year. It took me before I was able to get the school to transfer her. I鈥檓 glad I did. Because my husband was right.

With many colleges dropping standardized testing for applicants, transcripts featuring calculus 鈥� preferably Advanced Placement 鈥� have come to . However, of American high school students have no access to calculus whatsoever. As a result, of science, technology, engineering and math majors who arrive at college needing to take precalculus manage to earn a STEM bachelor鈥檚 degree, while those who didn鈥檛 progress past algebra 2 in high school have a less than 40% chance of earning any four-year degree whatsoever.

This problem begins in middle school. As I learned with my daughter, students who are not offered algebra 1 until ninth grade are de facto removed from the advanced math track. They will take geometry in 10th grade, algebra 2 in 11th and pre-calculus 鈥� not calc 鈥� in 12th. 

That may not be an insurmountable impediment for non-STEM majors, though it still affects which colleges all applicants ultimately get accepted to. But how many 14-year-olds are absolutely certain of their future career goals? My daughter had no interest in STEM until the summer between her junior and senior years of high school, when she participated in a introducing female and minority students to engineering. She鈥檚 now applying to college as an electrical engineering major, something that would be more difficult if she鈥檇 stayed on the curriculum path that terminated before calculus.

My husband insisted on keeping all doors open for our daughter, which is something all students deserve. In order to make that happen, however, all students would need to be able to take algebra 1 before high school. 

, only about 20% of middle schools offer algebra 1 to all their students, while 60% report some availability. And those opportunities are . A 2023-24 survey by the Rand Corp. determined that 鈥渘early half of the wealthiest schools offered algebra to all of their eighth grade students, regardless of math ability, compared with about a third of the poorest schools.鈥�

My daughter, as I鈥檝e written before, is not a natural mathematician. She was fortunate that her middle school offered eighth grade algebra to all students. If she鈥檇 attended a program that didn鈥檛 have the course available, or one that dictated who could sign up based on prior mathematical knowledge, her future options might have narrowed as early as elementary school, when she wasn鈥檛 performing at the top of the class. If she鈥檇 gone to a high-poverty school instead of a wealthy one, she likely would have had no chance to give eighth grade algebra a try.

only about 24% of American eighth graders were enrolled in algebra 1, though that doesn’t necessarily mean they all .

What this all shows is that at least 75% of American public school kids are going to have a harder time getting into 鈥� and succeeding 鈥� at a college STEM program than if they鈥檇 enrolled having completed calculus. This is especially true for low-income and minority students, who would benefit most from a rigorous college education and a high-paying career.

That鈥檚 unconscionable. That鈥檚 unacceptable.

School is supposed to be about expanding opportunities, not limiting them. 

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