The Math Pathway to Freedom: How History Informs Equity-Focused Math Solutions

On June 19, communities across the nation will join together to celebrate a foundational tenet of American democracy: freedom. Freedom Day, also known as Juneteenth, commemorates the day in 1865 when the Union army marched into Galveston, Texas, and announced that all enslaved Africans were free—around two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. 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. 

That road runs through math education, where Black students have long been denied opportunities due not to their ability to succeed in math, but to intentionally designed policies and practices. For example, Black students are less likely to take and pass eighth grade Algebra I than their white and Asian peers. Taking Algebra I in middle school is the most common path to high school calculus, which is particularly significant for admission to selective higher education institutions; throughout history, Black students have been steered away from this path. Black students are also less likely to be offered Algebra II, a course that serves as a stepping stone to advanced math. Further, while many colleges and universities use high school calculus coursetaking as an admissions screen, Black students disproportionately attend schools that do not offer the course. Even after successfully matriculating into college, many Black students are denied direct entry into calculus—a STEM major gateway course—and are instead funneled into long calculus prerequisite sequences that can delay or even end their STEM major and career aspirations. 

It was not always this way. As I outline in Just Equations’ new report, Calculated Barriers, history shows us that Black students excel in math when provided with culturally responsive instruction and support that values their lived experiences. Indeed, Black students thrived in math in segregated Black schools, where their teachers set high expectations and challenged them with rigorous math coursework. For example, students in segregated Black schools in Texas and Alabama were expected to take Algebra I. Parents at Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., the nation’s first public high school for Black students, pushed for their children to take calculus but were met with resistance from local white school officials. 

Challenges only intensified for Black students following Brown v. Board of Education’s desegregation mandate in 1954. As a result of racist stereotypes and beliefs about Black students’ math potential, many Black students were tracked into lower-level math courses that did not prepare them for college and career success in newly integrated schools. Efforts to strengthen American STEM education following the 1957 Sputnik launch—such as the National Defense Education Act—largely excluded Black students. Barriers to Black students’ middle school Algebra I access also led Robert P. Moses, a civil rights activist and organizer, to create the Algebra Project in the early 1980s in an attempt to level the playing field. 

At the college level, while the Higher Education Act of 1965 increased Black college enrollment, many Black students seen as “unprepared” for college-level math courses due to earlier barriers in the math sequence found themselves placed in lengthy remedial sequences and, for STEM majors, multiple calculus prerequisites that delayed their progress. 

Throughout our nation’s history, barriers have been placed in Black students’ math education path that have hindered access to the colleges and careers of their choice. Understanding this history and dismantling barriers to equity in math education is our duty as advocates, educators, researchers, and policymakers. States, systems, and institutions must take action now to truly transform math education: 

• First, districts and schools must dismantle barriers that hinder Black students’ access to advanced high school math courses. Automatic enrollment policies offer one solution, by ensuring that students who show mastery of grade-level math coursework are automatically enrolled into eighth grade Algebra I. 
• Second, colleges and universities should end admissions policies that perpetuate inequity. To do so, they should consider a variety of math courses—including statistics—as measures of rigor, showing a preference for calculus only when students’ prospective majors require it and their high schools offer it. 
• Third, higher education institutions should eliminate lengthy calculus prerequisite sequences. Learning-community approaches, such as the Emerging Scholars Program, have shown success in supporting Black students through college STEM pathways. 
• Last, K–12 and higher ed systems must be aligned to ensure transformative and lasting change. The Charles A. Dana Center’s Launch Years Initiative, which supports the development of math pathways from high school through postsecondary education and the workforce in at least 23 states, provides one example of work being done to ensure cross-system alignment. 

Today, math education has the potential to serve as a gateway to opportunity for Black students in a way it never has before. Math can help Black students to meaningfully engage in democracy, providing them with the critical reasoning and quantitative skills to consider candidates, understand complex processes like redistricting, and address social justice issues important to their communities. Math can prepare Black students to secure high-paying jobs because they have the strong numeracy and problem-solving skills demanded by today’s job market. But only if we meet the moment—and ensure that math pathways to freedom are finally available to all of our students.