<p>Up here in Canada, it seems quite different. Yes there are AP courses but generally pretty limited compared to the US. </p>
<p>Part of that stems from the college process and college 'market' being quite different in that AP courses are neither required nor expected. Also perhaps related to practical constraints; that is, when to fit them in if provincial curriculums typically require a lockstep full courseload to 11th or 12th grade in math, sciences, english, social studies and french.</p>
<p>No, not crazy, finally the way they should be. The OP's complaint shows a complete lack of understanding of gifted students and their needs. One size education does not fit all any more than one size clothing fits all. Do not complain that we are finally letting students proceed at their pace instead of forcing them to slow down to fit the pace of the majority. We don't tell fast runners or swimmers they have to slow down, why do it for academics? Yes, they do have the advantage for college admissions, just as they always have. One change is that my alma mater no longer offers the Honors Lit sequence used to fulfill lit reqs- now the best students will already have the AP credits. No reason to hold off on math concepts- doing so is like making a fast runner run in place so others can catch up. Also, my impression is that in the old days grades were curved whereas now they seem more based on material learned gives the grade. Is it better for more students to get A's in different courses or to grade on a curve, giving the top students the extra credit points to get the A's in the same course? I see AP classes where my HS had honors classes, the biggest difference is the standardization with AP- the courses/test scores can be compared between schools.</p>
<p>Are AP courses "college-level courses?" It depends on the format and the instructor. If the AP course is taught as a semester course rather than a year-long one, it is more likely to be like a college course. Still, from my knowledge of AP courses, there is a lot more quizzes and tests and a lot more handholding than in a college course (which means that college students find out later if they are thriving or floundering and get less help). Instructors also vary in their approaches to both the teaching and the testing. Both my Ss took APUSH. One teacher was constantly administering quizzes but did not demand an end-of-the-year project. The other teacher gave fewer tests and required a 15 page research paper due after the AP test.
In many schools, AP courses whether they are like college courses are not, are offered at a level of rigor that addresses the needs of many students for whom Honors classes in the same subjects are not challenging enough. What is wrong is to push students who would thrive in honors classes to take AP classes just because it will look good on their transcript or because, as was the case in our school, the principal decided to abolish honors classes as elitist, resulting in the school having only college prep and AP classes. Some students for whom the CP classes were too easy found themselves struggling in the AP classes.
This is somewhat different from taking college courses. Some students exhaust the standard high school curriculum either before or shortly after entering high school. College courses are the logical solution to their educational needs.</p>
<p>Problem starts way before HS. It is way too short of a period to teach Physics or Chem in 1 year, and algebra should start way before HS. Somehow it is understood in English department, but not for math and science. No wonder that some kids feel that they are not challenged enough, some others know few foreign kids who are of ordinary intelligence but somehow have a surerior knowledge of math and science. They take advanced or college classes to catch up. While elementary and JH kids are wasting their time with busy work filling boring work sheets they could have been studying algebra, and sciences just like 12 years olds in other countries. Then HS program could have been much more adequate. Of course, I can hear the screams about damaged self esteem because Johnny cannot get it. Maybe parents need to be involved closer because Johnny is as smart as a next kid, he just need help that the next kid is getting.</p>
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algebra should start way before HS
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<p>Yes. Algebra is a seventh-grade subject for all students, including the below-average students, in several countries. To be ready for that, of course, takes better elementary education in math than most Americans get. How to make elementary math education better is the subject of a fascinating book, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, </p>
<p>that a friend recommended to me back in the year 2000. Professional organizations of mathematicians are trying to do what they can to improve elementary mathematics education in the United States. My main occupation is supplemental math teaching for gifted elementary students.</p>
<p>Of course, one needs to make sure the school is actually offering a rigorous Algebra I and Geometry course to middle school students rather than a watered-down version so that administrators can claim that 75% of their students finish Alg I by the end of 8th grade.</p>
<p>I have a student who had five years of college-level math while still in HS. The need was there, he was more than ready for it, and thrives on the challenge. There is no "test" like the AP, SAT, etc. for Lin Alg, MV/DiffEq, complex analysis, etc. -- S took the courses because he loves the material. AP exams were considered the bare minimum for BC Calc and Stat -- S's Analysis I class finished the BC curriculum by December and just kept rolling.</p>
<p>What he now says about his extremely rigorous HS program is that it prepared him superbly for college by teaching him to think efficiently and to solve complicated problems in unusual ways. He has found that while he learned this discipline in math and computer science, it has been just as useful in his humanities course.</p>
<p>I will join the chorus on the need for effective writing instruction!</p>
<p>I don't think we should join an 'arms race' with other countries about how advanced our kids are in math (or science or any other subject). The genius of America lies in being a country of free thinkers who are creative, innovative, and well-rounded. It does not lie in being a country that leads its young down a straight and narrow path of academic achievement. The founders of Apple and Microsoft and Google and Facebook may or may not have taken BC Calculus in 10th grade but that was not the reason they accomplished what they did. Our universities and colleges have done a fine job of educating the world's finest minds, and they have started with students with greatly varying degrees of preparation in high school. </p>
<p>By all means, we should continually re-examine what our children need to learn in high school and perhaps we do need to make high school more rigorous than it is. But it is very dangerous attitude that just because "they do multivariable calculus in 8th grade in China", we should do that too.</p>
<p>vicariousparent,
We absolutely need to "join an 'arms race' with other countries about how advanced our kids are in math and science"
Observing what is going on in IT departemnts and having been talking to a lot of people who started their college as engineering major just to realize that their dream is not within thier reach because of poor background in math and science. I am not talking about some geniuses, we need enough average ordinary people to sustain and develop our IT and engineering. I have been in IT for almost 30 years and few years ago have taken computer class at local college. Prof. indicated that quality of students has gone down dramatically. The good portion of staff in IT departments is close to retirement, it is gone considerably older (I have been with 9 companies). Cannot rely on foreigners either, some of them are going back home primarily to India.<br>
There is no question, improvement is needed so some kids realize it and take college classes in HS to avoid tutoring or flanking out of college in a future.</p>
<p>You don't need a lot of education for IT department. </p>
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The genius of America lies in being a country of free thinkers who are creative, innovative, and well-rounded. It does not lie in being a country that leads its young down a straight and narrow path of academic achievement.
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<p>I agree with the above. </p>
<p>CNN.com</a> - Transcripts</p>
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VERJEE: He was the hero in South Korea, but his research made news all over the world, with "TIME" magazine crediting him with the most amazing invention of 2005. </p>
<p>HOLMES: Now the scientist Hwang Woo-suk has resigned his university post after an expert panel says he falsified data in landmark stem cell research.
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</p>
<p>Survey ranks U.S. tops in fostering innovation</p>
<p>I agree with MiamiDAP.</p>
<p>Vicariousparent, I do not agree that "the genius of America lies in being a country of free thinkers who are creative, innovative, and well-rounded." The tech companies you mentioned succeeded mostly due to business reasons, such as marketing and good timing. American entrepreneurs have been successful largely because of the availability of investment capital, but that will change.</p>
<p>Look up the backgrounds of Page and Brin, the founders of Google. They had degrees in math and CS, their fathers were math and CS professors, and both were on their way to CS degrees at Stanford. Gates was an experienced programmer in high school and the founder of Facebook was a Harvard undergrad. All had strong academic credentials. I would argue that it was a strong background in math and science that allowed them to be creative in the tech field. </p>
<p>I think we do need to make high school stronger due to competition from around the world. This does not mean "being a country that leads its young down a straight and narrow path of academic achievement." Rather, our students need strong math and science skills to be creative in the first place.</p>
<p>I am emphasizing math and science here, because there is a misperception that only the humanities involve creativity. But I will add that there is a huge need for improved instruction in writing. Teachers need to fill every paper with red ink and dramatically increase feedback. This will be very labor and time intensive.</p>
<p>US education is still good for excelling small number of gifted students. As long as these kids (and their parents) manage an extra, the elite schools can ask more. It should be a good thing. Look at the top 100 rankings of international colleges and graduate schools. Majority is the US schools. (There is only one Korean and no Indian college in the top 100, despite of the claims on their excellent educational level of high school kids as an average.)</p>
<p>Keeping the average level of education in general is a different thing. That would be new (or regular) topics on average high school education and non-top 300 university in the US.</p>
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The genius of America lies in being a country of free thinkers who are creative, innovative, and well-rounded.
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</p>
<p>I get really tired of people quoting Bill Gates as an example of what a college drop out can achieve. So, for the umpteenth time, Bill Gates dropped out because he did not find college challenging enough, not because he could not hack it. And Harvard when he attended was very low on the totem pole for computer science. And it helped that his parents were extremely wealthy to start with.</p>
<p>And as for another Harvard dropout who made good:
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Mark Zuckerberg was born in Boca Raton, Florida, and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida, by his parents, Edward and Karen Zuckerberg, who are both doctors. Early on, Zuckerberg enjoyed making computer programs, especially communication tools and games. He started programming when he was in middle school. While he was attending Phillips Exeter Academy in high school, he built a program to help the workers in his dad's office communicate and a version of the game Risk. He also built a music player named Synapse that used artificial intelligence to learn the user's listening habits. Microsoft and AOL tried to purchase Synapse and recruit Zuckerberg, but instead he decided to attend Harvard University.[4]
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<p>One reason for the success of the US is that it has (until now) the funds to market innovations by foreigners. This happened to the CAT-Scan which was invented in the UK but could not be developed there because of lack of funding. </p>
<p>To be sure, not everyone needs to know calculus to do well in their chosen profession. But why denigrate the importance of providing students with courses that address their educational needs, such as Multivariable Calculus or whatever in high school?</p>
<p>I am not denigrating science, math, computer science, or access to accelerated classes for those students who want them and can benefit from them in high school or middle school. </p>
<p>My point is simple- just because other countries are forcing their young students to do higher and higher level math at earlier and earlier ages, we should not raise expectations across the board.</p>
<p>I guess my post was mostly directed at comments such as in post#2 of this thread.</p>
<p>The American middle school curriculum is an international joke. If schools were not so concerned about "the social and personal changes that take place in the middle school years" and focused on academics instead, the US would not fall so far behind other countries. It's not an issue of forcing kids to work beyond their capacities. It is failing to teach them at their capacity. I was in 7th grade over 40 years ago. And that's when French kids were introduced to algebra. Even then, we knew that the French math curriculum was not as rigorous as the German curriculum. We began learning a foreign language in 6th grade, something that happened in my kids' school only in the last few years after many many many requests.</p>
<p>My D got Algebra in 7th grade and a foreign language in 2nd Grade without doing anything out of the ordinary in her non-magnet public high school.</p>
<p>Precisely. Your daughter's school considered that 7th graders were capable of doing algebra and so offered it to one and all. That should be the norm rather than the exception. But in the majority of schools, algebra is introduced in NINTH grade.
And if you follow discussions among math teachers, the majority claim that 8th graders are not ready for algebra.</p>
<p>"The American middle school curriculum is an international joke. " I work in a wealthy suburban middle school and completely agree. Very little is asked of these students. Multi var calc is offered at HS - with only 3 students in it. I think many more students are capable of performing well at that level. They don't get the background in middle school to do so.</p>
<p>She qualified for algebra because she performed at a certain level in math and the teacher thought she was ready, along with a bunch of other kids in her grade. The school did not offer it to 'one and all', and I'm glad that was the case. I don't want children being pushed into (or held back into) classes that are not right for them. </p>
<p>Some kids will be ready for algebra in 7th grade, others won't be ready until 10th grade.</p>
<p>We should not let India and China decide what level of math little Jimmy in the 7th grade needs to be taking.</p>
<p>Instead we let the kids in the most backward parts of the United States decide what little Jimmy should be taking, most of the time.</p>
<p>India, China, France (40+ years ago and today) Germany, countries of Eastern Europe..... The US is in the minority. And if it weren't for immigrants, it would rank even lower.</p>
<p>I totally agree with Tokenadult. We teach to the bottom.</p>