When I read that there were three separate pilot programs to test how to introduce algebra back to 10 year olds all I see is dollar signs and bureaucratic paralysis. I will avoid political arguments and instead make a simple economic one, which is that in California there is a lot of money to be made by endlessly experimenting and trialing and suing for any given public proposal. And this incentivizes things like not teaching 10 year olds algebra, or taking 10 years to reintroduce algebra, when such a pedagogy is already well established for many decades, because you can make a career out of toying with outcomes. But we're not talking about software simulations here: A whole generation of kids have been denied an educational opportunity that will have effects on the rest of their lives. This reintroduction is a decision that should have been made in a single day long ago if the well-being of the pupils was the goal of these schools.

That was the bone of contention in the Jaime Escalante / Stand and Deliver case. They had a 7/8/9 middle school and a 10/11/12 high school, and for a long time they couldn't have a 4-year math program because the middle school didn't want to offer algebra.