<p>Oldfort, there are so many wacky school policies to fight that you have to pick your battles.</p>
<p>Yes- would be great if the teacher gave the tests back. Do I think it’s worth fighting this misguided rule? No. Can the OP’s kid learn calc without the old tests? Yes. If the parents weren’t paying for a tutor already a case could be made that this policy is really quite offensive to the parents who can’t afford outside tutoring. But- they’re already doing it.</p>
<p>Sometimes you’ve got to do a workaround. Not every dumb thing that happens in a high school is worth getting riled up about. And no- not every problem is a black and white problem. But something tells me that this kid is not understanding a couple of basic, early in the year kinds of concepts (or even holdovers from last year’s math) and it’s not some big critical thinking issue we’re talking about. Call me crazy-- but this doesn’t sound like Sir Isaac Newton struggling to make sense of the world, just a kid who had strep the day a concept was introduced and has never quite caught up.</p>