California’s state math guidelines encourage students to take algebra in ninth grade, for example, while New York schools are supposed to offer high school math to eighth graders who want to take it.

After a decade of debate and division, the San Francisco Unified School District is adding algebra back into its eighth grade curriculum at a third of its middle schools starting next year.

A tug of war in San Francisco over whether to teach algebra in eighth or ninth grade gets at wider national questions about serving all students fairly. By Soumya Karlamangla How to make algebra ...

“I’m sure some people who read this study will call for a return to 8th grade algebra,” she said ... difference in course-taking patterns, for example, is in statistics.