Streaming is much in the news recently. The can-do academic stream is what will get you into university. The "I don't get it" applied stream will lead to a life of poverty and despair, according to prevailing wisdom.
What I've never seen acknowledged in media coverage of the issue, is that there is actually a third stream, the "Locally Developed" cohort.
Those are courses, fully endorsed by the Ministry of Education, aimed at those kids who still don't get it when they're in the "I don't get it" applied class. School Boards use them to fluff up their graduation stats.
In theory, these courses were only open to kids who were within two grade levels of Ministry expectations. In reality, I was teaching kids who were anywhere from two to seven grade levels behind. In other words, a kid could show up in my grade nine math class with grade two math skills.
There's no point trying to foist the grade seven or eight curriculum on kids with grade two skills, so as a teacher I did what I should; meet them where they're at and help them move forward. If they made an effort and showed some progress, they got the credit. You could do your mandatory three maths required for a high school diploma without ever showing competence in anything beyond grade four math!
Insofar as my math-teaching experience reflected the race issues behind the current move to de-stream math instruction, I never really made any connections. I'd meet the odd Black or Indigenous kid, but most of my students were white boys who chewed tobacco.
I guess the good news for them is unless you want to be a math professor or an engineer, grade four math is more than enough to get you through life.
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