I’m always fascinated that it’s always the fault of the teachers if students do poorly in their math classes.
I’m fascinated by the different rules everywhere, often leading to grade inflation in HS courses.
In my son’s AP Calc AB class, there are NO retakes, NO homework points, NO extra credit points. The tests are hard and those are the only points you get.
A lot of schools offer test retakes, homework points, extra credit, etc. The problem is that students from our school look worse with B’s in math while students in so many places get easy A’s. And I mean all the way thru the 4 years of math, not just senior year AP course. In fact I’d say the grade inflation is more prominent in the earlier classes (Geometry, Alg2, PreCalc etc).
Even my son’s college Calc2 class had a 90/10 Tests/Homework grades.
I believe that to be incorrect. The “pass” rate (3 or better) is more than 50% for AB and near 80% for BC.
I haven’t read that on this thread, but perhaps I missed it.
@bluebayou I think that what that poster was saying was that in her school only 30% were passing the AP exam. I think if a large portion of the class can’t even get a 3 on the exam, the teacher is most likely at fault.
It may not necessarily be the fault of the calculus teacher (or the calculus teacher alone), if the students were not really ready for calculus to begin with (due to either poor previous teaching or inappropriate overacceleration). But if A students in AP courses normally do poorly on AP tests, there is some fault somewhere in the school.
Interestingly, the program discussed in link in the OP for the SFUSD ( http://www.sfusdmath.org/high-school-pathways.html) was listed as an example of how to achieve equity in math across diverse groups in a recent social media post by the Math Association of America. The more advanced students don’t have to follow the suggested track, according to the link. They can double up freshman or sophomore year! Wow, they get to weigh themselves down with 2 math courses, because everyone is mandated to be on the same track until 9th grade so that the weaker students can spend more class time with the stronger students and stay motivated - well that’s the hope, apparently. The non-tracked approach raised the average scores of the 8-th grade math achievement test, one report touted (well, yeah…)
I am disappointed that the professional organization I belong to- the Math Assoc of America (MAA) - seems to think the original 4-year path A1> Geo> A2/Precalc >Calc is a great idea. Maybe they just want to be PC. I don’t see how a compressed algebra 2/ precalc in 11th grade is going to lead to success in AP Calc AB or BC.
It’s probably not just math where the current fad is to hold back the stronger students to try to help the others. A few years back I got into a conversation with one of our 8th grade English teachers. She was lamenting that the Powers That Be required her to use a 4th grade level book for her whole class to read instead of an 8th grade level book. Why? Because some kids couldn’t handle the 8th grade level and they didn’t want them to feel out of place. “What about her students who were already reading on a 12th grade level?” she asked the Powers. “They’ll do just fine - don’t worry about them,” was the response.
So then we get these students in 9th grade and have to try to get them up to our Keystone test in 10th. I had to work with a group once - the assignment was going over synonyms and antonyms. Every single kid knew what those were. The vast majority were having trouble with the actual words. They had no idea what tedious or porthole meant (and similar).
Seems to me if the average 8th grader had been reading books at their level many of those words would have showed up in the readings, but what do I know? It’s the fad of the day to not track students and lower the bar for the lowest student. High school then is somehow supposed to be the answer to launch everyone at their level. Cram things in.
FWIW, I work at a very statistically average high school. I have a feeling many on here are more knowledgeable about the above average high schools. I went to one of those myself and there’s a big difference. It’s a bit unnerving to know many schools are below the mean and median.
Whichever school they are in, I feel for the students who would like to take extra music/art/science/languages/shop/whatever, and have to use the time to double up on math when they could have taken it earlier.
There are less than optimal math teachers out there. There are also lazy students at all levels of math. Then there are those with naturally slower developing brains or who might have various learning issues. One can’t assign blame universally without knowing the individuals involved.
This was the mentality in our district as well. Basically that the smart kids would take care of themselves. Unfortunately they did - the majority left for private school or homeschool and the district report card plummeted after they cut the gifted/honors/AP offerings. It’s been almost 8 years and the district still hasn’t bounced back even after they re-introduced programming.
“Cramming Algebra 2, Pre-Calc, and Trig in one year seems equally as preposterous.”
Not really, in fact this was how it was done in the good old days when I was in high school, you took algebra 2, trig (honors) in 11th grade and based on that, could decide on AB/BC or the non-calculus option. And guess what, nobody complained! Maybe there weren’t any future Riemann’s or Eulers’ in the class, but these kids got into Stanford, MIT, Princeton et al. I know times have changed but by definition, you cannot have 1000 students at the level of Euler, he was once in a generation type figure, maybe there are 5 or 10 in the world.
“There should be multiple paths to get kids where they want to go.”
Public schools can’t support many paths, maybe 3 or 4 max.
“Wondering what percentage of US schools offer beyond AP calc in HS?”
Probably close to zero at public hs, the kids taking MV and linear algebra do it at a local community college.
"The problem is that students from our school look worse with B’s in math while students in so many places get easy A’s. "
Then these kids wouldn’t do well on the AP test right? The B’s in your school would get 4s and 5s, while the As in other schools would get the 1s an 2s.
“seems to think the original 4-year path A1> Geo> A2/Precalc >Calc is a great idea.”
It is a great idea because it works for the majority of hs students, like 99%. Even though ucbalumnus said this thread is about them, and not the gifted, people still focus on the kids that are Einstein-esque in their knowledge of the mathematical universe.
“Maybe they just want to be PC.”
No, it’s about less stress and a happier hs experience.
“I don’t see how a compressed algebra 2/ precalc in 11th grade is going to lead to success in AP Calc AB or BC.”
There’s a lot of data to disprove this. This is typically in a alg 2/trig honors class (without the word pre-calc):
linear functions, systems of linear equations and inequalities, quadratic functions and complex numbers, exponential and logarithmic functions, rational and irrational algebraic functions, quadratic relations and, systems, trigonometric and circular functions, trigonometric Identities, vectors
What’s missing in this that would be needed to prepare the students for calc?
Our high school generally rates in the bottom half of high schools in the county and we offer linear algebra when my son was in school. It was a very small class. It looks like they are now offering differential equations via dual enrollment. In the past the DE courses were taught in the high school, not long distance or by having to commute to another location.
Speaking about average students, IME the average student is ready for Alg 1 in 8th grade. There are rarely problems at that age comprehending concepts. Not all students are average, so some should start Alg 1 in 9th and others are definitely ready sooner yet still under the bell curve without being an outlier.
At our school we are more likely to run into the problem that not all average students want to do Pre-Calc. It’s not necessary for those who don’t want the college path. However, 4 math credits are required to graduate high school and no credits are earned <9th grade regardless of what the course was in our district.
So… average students come in, have Geometry, Alg 2, (2 credits), then what? They have to do Pre-Calc and Calc or Stats. For those heading to college this is not a problem. For those who don’t want that path yet started on it in 8th grade? Uh…
For those who aren’t really capable of abstract math reasoning or who simply don’t want to put forth the effort to comprehend it we have low level math classes, but average students don’t need to take those, esp after completing higher courses. I’m in favor of having our Personal Finance course count for math credit, but so far it does not.
Starting Alg 1 in 9th grade would be better for these students, but that’s no reason to hold all other average students back.
In our District, the “regular” students take algebra 1 in 9th, Geometry in 10th, Algebra 2 in 11th, and Precalculus in 12th. The “accelerated” kids take algebra in 8th, and then take AB or BC Calculus in 12th. It is a well regarded NY HS. Doesn’t seem to affect college applications. My son was a very strong math student starting in 9th, so in 12th he is taking a combined double period class of precalulus and AB AP Calculus and is doing fine. So far so good. There have been discussions about other Districts in our County that are “forcing” Algebra 1 on all 8th graders, and frankly the reports are not all positive. Many kids feel like failures.
It’s so interesting to see how other districts handle this progression. In my original post, I did mean that there was a 30% pass rate in AB Calc at our school that year with the good teacher. I’m not sure how it was with the poor teacher that one of my daughters had. The good Calc teacher is the only one who has ever taught BC Calc and thankfully, there were fewer students enrolled in AB Calc overall that the poor teacher wasn’t needed to cover any sections of the course. I don’t fault the teacher at all because my daughters felt he did a really good job presenting the material and explaining concepts to them. He understood the material enough to explain how they could derives some formulas from others to reduce how many they needed to memorize. The poor teacher could not and she presented the same material but both formulas needed to be memorized.
In our district, any high school level math class you take does count on your HS transcript even if the class were taken while in middle school. So in theory, students on our normal progression with Alg 1 in 7th or 8th grade could fulfill all their math requirements by the end of sophomore or junior year.
There is a huge push by both the school district and by some parents to place these students on this accelerated pathway so they can get a lot of students taking AP calculus at some point while in high school. The school receives a financial incentive for every student they can enroll in any of the AP classes offered and the teachers get a monetary bonus for each student who receives a passing grade. In addition, the cost of the AP tests are subsidized by someone (district/state?) so parents/students don’t pay for them. You are only penalized if the student enrolls in the AP class and doesn’t sit for the test at the end of the year in which case you have to pay the cost of the test. The district also weighs the AP classes in such a way that a C in an AP class is equivalent to an A in a regular class or a B in an honors class.
Voting for accelerated math in middle school rather than waiting for high school. The math talented kids will already dislike math due to boredom if you wait too long.
I actually think some algebra fundamentals should be taught in elementary school. Like, before fractions. Then kids won’t be so scared when they finally get to “math with letters”.
We still have people coming out of school mathphobes who can’t do basic operations. You would think after all these years that we would have figured out what is being done wrong in the system.
This book review from Harvard magazine touches on some things that are wrong with the system.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/01/francis-su-math