<p>Wow, BC at 8th dgrade, don't you think that's a bit too obsessive? Why rush your child like what? What will it give him/her?</p>
<p>It wasn't a question of being obsessive...my son, in second grade, was able to do all the math of a 5th grader, so keeping him on level or even a couple years ahead would have meant complete boredom. His school gave him the opportunity to take a placement test for the 6th grade accelerated math program, and he scored a 99th percentile. So, the district gave him a tutor (they felt he was too young to go into the actual classroom with middle school students), and that's how it started. He was totally happy, challenged, but not overly so. In fact, the tutor then recommended that he skip another year, which made him 5 years ahead. He continued this way until 7th grade, when they started bussing him over to the high school for math. Without this kind of accomodation, we felt we'd have to send him to private school, because boredom can be a very negative school experience. It worked out beautifully, because he remained in all other areas with his regular classmates (taking honors and later AP classes), had a wonderful, age appropriate social life, graduated valedictorian, and is on his way to Harvard in the fall.</p>
<p>Newyorker-Acceleration in math is often a good alternative to skipping entire grades for smart young students. I did Calc AB in 8th grade, after skipping over four grades of math in elementary school. Never felt rushed, pressured, etc, and I got to do everything else at grade level (ie play varsity football).</p>
<p>It wasn't a question of being obsessive...my son, in second grade, was able to do all the math of a 5th grader, so keeping him on level or even a couple years ahead would have meant complete boredom. His school gave him the opportunity to take a placement test for the 6th grade accelerated math program, and he scored a 99th percentile. So, the district gave him a tutor (they felt he was too young to go into the actual classroom with middle school students), and that's how it started. He was totally happy, challenged, but not overly so. In fact, the tutor then recommended that he skip another year, which made him 5 years ahead. He continued this way until 7th grade, when they started bussing him over to the high school for math. Without this kind of accomodation, we felt we'd have to send him to private school, because boredom can be a very negative school experience. It worked out beautifully, because he remained in all other areas with his regular classmates (taking honors and later AP classes), had a wonderful, age appropriate social life, graduated valedictorian, and is on his way to Harvard in the fall.</p>
<p>That's the kind of stuff that depresses me lol</p>
<p>Can you tell me which district is so enlightened as to do what it did for your son? My impression is that most school authorities direct their efforts towards achieving statistics used by politicians (whose own children are invariably in private schools), and couldn't care less about gifted kids like yours.</p>
<p>We have been very lucky, no question about that. I have to say that when my son was completing 2nd grade and I requested putting him in the accelerated middle school math program, they were very reluctant indeed. They said he would have to meet the same standards as any rising 5th grader, so that's why they gave him the standardized test given to all students entering middle school. I think they never expected him to meet those standards. Once the results came in, they kept to the agreement, and had no choice but to continue providing services until he completed all available math courses. They did ask, however, that we not publicize this, as they feared that every parent with a bright child would start to make major demands for acceleration. So, for this reason, I do not want to give the name of our district. We remain enormously apopreciative of the administration, and I think they, in turn, have been glad to have my son remain with them, as actually has brought a fair amount of notoriety to the district through national recognition in several areas.</p>