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Just Equations and our partners will be lending our voices and our expertise to inform this process and ensure equitable and accessible math preparation for students across California. Based on years of analyzing math preparation, one thing is clear: The absence of standardized tests did not cause declines in student math preparation, and reintroducing tests will not reverse those declines.

As we look toward next month’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Juneteenth, referred to as America’s second Independence Day, serves as a continual reminder of the long road to freedom for Black people in our nation. 

For years, Just Equations has been recommending to colleges that they accept a range of advanced high school math courses for admission and limit any preference for calculus to students whose majors require calculus.

Our eighth annual conference, The Mathematics of Opportunity 2026, explored how we—as educators, researchers, policy leaders, and advocates—can meet the moment and ensure that math education becomes a gateway to opportunity for all students.

Sitting in the audience at the San Francisco City Arts & Lectures conversation, I stepped away with a question I haven’t been able to shake: As AI tools take on more of the work we used to do ourselves, including in classrooms, what are we at risk of offloading along with that work? Not just calculation but the cognitive struggles that build deep understanding; not just procedures but the habits of mind that