@spaceship “1. AB Calculus
I never took a precalculus class and barely passed algebra 1 and 2 as a college student. I am not taking calculus.”
This course is not difficult. BC Calculus moves quickly, but AB does not. It really gives students a lot of insight into the math behind everything in nature that can’t be modeled using a linear function, which is most things. It only covers the basics and does not get into a lot of complexity.
It is true that Algebra II is difficult. In fact, Newton invented calculus because of the failure of Algebra to be able to explain/model how the world works. Once it is explained, you will discover that many of the most difficult problems that you saw in Algebra II can be solved very easily with calculus.
How it is taught makes all the difference. My 8th grade son’s English homework yesterday was to read Self-Reliance by Emerson and write a one to two page essay explaining what you thought about it. I mean, are they trying to make them all hate English? I am guessing that the percent of ivy league students who could read this piece and clearly understand it without prior knowledge of this essay, or supporting materials, is close to zero. They will understand some parts of it, but not others. Why assign this to Middle Schoolers as homework? As an in-class discussion where a good teacher reads a paragraph and teaches the students how to approach breaking it into understandable components, it could be great. That is true with Calculus too.