In theory, acceleration and compression in K-6 may be able to accelerate more students more successfully. But K-6 in the US is taught by non-subject-specialist teachers who may not be the best math teachers for math more advanced than is typically taught in K-6 in the US.
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Most of examples in my area:
- attend/use AoPS or online gifted programs.
- attend Olympiad maths camps (i.e. similar to the Olympic medalist, Ms. Guâs story)
- tutoring
Not a single family told me their acceleration was done solely from public school education. And most of them start from 3rd grades (i.e. transfer kids to private school or attend camp)
My DD was a +2 and got there through doubling up freshman year. Senior year she took AP Stats, Calc 3 and Differential Equations at the local community college as a concurrently enrolled student. She loved math and was considering a math degree. I think it and the LOR she receive from her math teacher helped her with scholarships and getting into Harvard. She did not take any higher level math in college, choosing a different path.
When you are deciding whether you should advance, the key question you should ask is whether your son has comfort with abstraction. This will determine his comfort with advancing
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Itâs sad to think of kids purposefully taking classes primarily for GPA. But it seems totally reasonable that a college level course is far and above a HS AP course ( even at the top high in the country).
I donât think thereâs a race to calculus among the top students at our school. There are many kids who are advanced enough to reach that level early. This is based on pre-high school work.
We didnât find Summer programs to be useful accelerating. Then again that was never our approach. Some years kids were far ahead and just suffered through repeat info. This happened until our kids begged us to do something. The Summer programs that were useful were very specific and kids would learn some aspect of math or science that proved valuable later. Itâs difficult impossible to make up an entire year of something in 6-10 weeks.
As a parent, deciding whether to advance a lot depends entirely on the child and the options presented.
My D decided to take AP stats senior year instead of calc. Her reasoning: She knew she wasnât going to be an engineer. She started out Pre-Med. She thought she would have more time in college to study for calc than compared to senior year in HS. She was correct.
In HS the kids are super busy with clubs, sports, and jobs, etc. College is toned down some as you arenât quite as much in a rat race to do everything.
On the converse side my D23 wants to take calc and be done with math forever in HS. She will probably be a History/PolSci major. She is looking at HS at taking certain classes for the last time. She would love to get her AP credits for Math and Science in HS and be done.
My S was on the +3 math track based on your definition, but I donât know when his âaccelerationâ started. He had always been in the âgiftedâ program since pre-K and I never paid attention to what he studied in school, whether math or anything else. The idea that he should study in middle school or high school what heâd later learn in college more properly and rigorously with better resources never made sense to me. As a result, he never attended classes outside his schools (or at a local college) or had tutor for any subject. Iâd rather him put his energy into subjects and activities that are outside of his school curriculum (or the first two years of a college curriculum) and interactions between different subjects (including math) that arenât taught in school.
My kids were both +2 on the middle school acceleration route. It was the expected path for the GT cohort (usually about 20 students), and both made the decision to stick with their cohorts. The fact that math and science were the only subjects where acceleration was offered was definitely a failing of the GT program in our district, but it had an unexpected effect on my DD: because math was the only subject where she felt challenged, she ended up falling in love with math. Sheâs an engineering major now - a path I never in 1,000 years could have seen her on before the math acceleration gave her the interest (and the confidence) to pursue it.
There is nothing sad :-). They want to get into law school or medical school. Those admissions are unforgiving regarding GPA â pretty much donât care about grade deflation at your college vs some other college. This is a widely held belief amongst the community applying to law school or medical school. We shouldnât try to tell them how to live their lives. They are almost adults by that time.
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There are a couple of other observations I wanted to share: 1) At our school (and this may apply elsewhere as well), the kids that are one or two years advanced tend to be the ones that more reliably get A grades than the main class that they are now joining. 2) Often they are one or two years younger than the main class. So there tends to be some sociological issues on occasion as existing kids in the main class may resent the kids that are younger, but getting better grades, and often lifting their hands more often if the teacher asks a question. You need to make sure that the kids are comfortable with this dynamic before choosing to advance.
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Good pointâbut not true everywhere. 5th grade and up is middle school here and has specific math teachers doing the teaching (same for social studies, foreign language, English, science, etc: the subjects are taught in separate periods and it is fairly common for this level of teacher to have masters degrees(in HS all do and some have PhD).
I think itâs sad in the sense the pure learning is taking a second seat to strategic thinking for Grad school. Thatâs my sad part.
No need to jump the fence. I wasnât telling anyone how to live their lives. Not sure where you got that idea.
I agreeâit is sad, but it isnât the standard. Many of my premed colleagues placed out of 1-2 semesters of calc (and/or chem) and took the courses we placed into and figured it out. The process is true todayâmy kid is there, just not premedâthe school encourages taking the level you place into (AP scores plus other assessments are used and if there are concerns the math department can give more specific advice or assessment). Repeating just to repeat is discouraged, and they are not the only top school to have similar policies. Students should be aware when applying to schools what the placement policies are: I certainly would not want a doing-just-fine +0 kid taking calculus the first time in college with a bunch of kids who were placed well past that but repeating for a âgood grade.â
My apologies.
One of my kids ran into this in high school. Decided to take the lower level class as it was already +3 result by Senior year. Ended up regretting it.
Repeating anything is just boredom. My kids begged us to switch schools mainly for math and partially for the slow pace of advanced classes. The slow pace of advanced math classes was often due to parents pushing their tutored children into classes which they didnât belong in; Hence slowing down the advanced kids. What a cycle.
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Is it just CC? I get an impression +2 is the norm from reading through this 
In our case it is teacher promoting +3 and we are not so sure.
By this, do you mean stuff like the two year calculus AB then BC sequence (that requires +2 acceleration to get to) that is commonly reported on these forums, suggesting that many of the +2 accelerated students were pushed ahead by their parents, rather than being there based on their actual academic strength in math?
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But shouldnât a future doctor or lawyer be able to get the grade they need without repeating a class they place out of? I completely disagree with repeating when the placing system puts you higher. That is unfair to the students who actually placed into that level. Again, all future docs and lawyers I knew would never have done that, and many schools do not allow it (if you actually place out). Better to figure out how to study and âdrink from the firehoseâ in undergradâmed school is a whole different ballgame.
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I donât know the ethics of this :-). The valedictorian from our class has gone to Harvard and is taking basic Bio and Chem 101s or their equivalent. Val at a highly competitive NJ Private. Canât blame the kid. They need to plan their own life. I donât know what repetition means. The course content in college is definitely harder. The question is the kids are taking stuff 1 or 2 levels below where they can manage. Even if it is not a repeat, it is still substantially below their capacity. I always thought medical school selects kids that are very risk averse. Hence the âdemandâ for a close to perfect GPA. Perhaps because the profession wants doctors to be risk reverse. I donât know. I am not from that profession.
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The high school students on or mentioned on these forums are unrepresentative of high school students in the US generally in many ways.
For example, https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA01000043/Centricity/domain/244/math%20memos/HS%20Letter_English%20.docx from a very large public school district says that (emphasis added) âThe majority of grade nine students will be enrolled in the Common Core Algebra I course. Students who were in an accelerated program in the middle school will be enrolled in Geometry or Algebra 2 in the ninth grade.â In other words, most students will be on the +0 track, though some from middle school placement will be on the +1 or +2 track. The letter also describes the possibility of double-up acceleration in high school.
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