1 STRUCTURING INEQUALITY AT BERKELEY HIGH Beth C. Rubin, Jean Yonemura Wing, Pedro A. Noguera, Emma Fuentes, Daniel Liou, Alicia P. Rodriguez, Lance T. McCready Interviewer: You said you chose yourself to be in prealgebra instead of algebra. Do you think you made the right decision? Chantelle: Yeah, because last year I had prealgebra and this year I’m going to take one semester of prealgebra, and then maybe I’ll be ready for algebra, but if I’m not, I’m going to take prealgebra again so I really know what I’m doing. Because, see, my brother, when he came [to Berkeley High], he didn’t go to prealgebra. He went to prealgebra in middle school, and then he went to algebra here, and he never went to prealgebra here, so he needed to go to prealgebra this year because it’s his last year. Interviewer: You said you had a hard time with math there [pri- vate middle school]. So how is it here at Berkeley High? Jennifer: Much easier. I’m in geometry, and it’s like “Oh, okay. I know how to do that.” I have a [private] tutor now, and she’s planning to be a math teacher at Berkeley High, and the [geome- try] books she’s like an expert at going through because her school created them. So she’s, like, “I understand how they think about this.” So she understands the books . . . and she helps me with that. So I’m getting a lot better, and I’m understanding things a lot better now, but it’s only because of her. 29 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL