When did it become common for high school students to be 2-3 grades ahead in math?

Parents Forum
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<p>I’m a strong proponent of students being allowed to work at the level that is appropriate to them. I don’t think kids should have to fit the curriculum but rather that the curriculum should fit them. Having intellectually strong children myself, I know they are upset if the work is not challenging enough. My children have had academic accommodations made for them throughout their schooling. It doesn’t have to do with parents being pushy but due to the children wanting this for themselves and the parents advocating to have their kids’ needs met academically speaking.</p>

<p>Our K-6 elementary school was very good about meeting individual learning needs and letting kids work at their own levels, including acceleration. As well, we have multi-age classrooms which also help with that. In sixth grade, I recall my kids doing seventh grade math (the whole class doesn’t work at one level, in other words, at our elem. school). Here, the most advanced track in math would be Alg. I in 8th grade, Geometry in 9th, Alg. II in 10th, PreCal in 11th and AP Calculus in 12th (usually resulting in one Calculus class for seniors). However, both my daughters were ready for Algebra I in seventh grade which was unheard of at our school when D1 came along. Through advocating, we were able to set up an independent study Algebra for her in 7th grade where she sat alone in a 7th grade classroom that was doing other math work and was given the Algebra assignments and the exams from Algebra I in the high school and a teacher supervised her assignments. In 8th grade, she had to do Geometry independently as well under a teacher’s supervision and was given the high school exams, etc. She therefore reached AP Calculus as a junior (only kid) and did that with the advanced seniors. She ran out of math for senior year (and going to a college is too difficult here as it is rural and far away and she was booked solid in ECs every afternoon and evening) and so in senior year, wishing to continue with math, she took AP Calc BC through Johns Hopkins’ CTY long distance. She never took math in college, though it was required for her grad school admissions but her AP scores on two years of Calculus sufficed. I’m just explaining math here but this was not the only subject where she did acceleration beyond the most advanced levels offered at each grade at our school. D2 was in the same situation and did the same as D1, except when she was in 7th and 8th, two other kids joined her in a “group” independent study for Alg. I and Geometry because other families of very advanced kids caught on and we had made headway at the school that broke ground for kids who came after D1!! D2, who reached AP Calculus in junior year like her sister, had to do it as an independent study under the supervision of the math department head one period per day (just given assignments to learn on her own and all the tests, but no class) because the senior AP Calc class (we only have one section here) met at a time when the highest level English and History classes for a junior met and she was a junior and so this conflicted. She didn’t have the dilemma of no math classes offered for her as a senior as she graduated after junior year and went to college and also never took math again. This also was not the only subject she had accommodations for and unusual acceleration at our school. All of these things were set up through the advocating of ourselves as parents and our kids advocating and setting up meetings at the school to make these things happen as these were our kids’ learning needs/levels. </p>

<p>That said, even though my kids were two years advanced in math, and their math path at our school was highly unusual (to reach Calculus by junior year), I have found that by reading CC that this is NOT unusual at all at other schools and in fact, many high schools around the country appear to offer advanced math courses beyond Calculus right at their high school. </p>

<p>I’m currently advising a junior in another state on his college admissions process and he wants to be a math professor. He is very advanced in math. He attends a magnet school (nothing like my kids’ rural public) and has been taking college math classes since middle school. He lives in a much more populated area than we do. He took Calculus in middle school at a college, but he also had AP Calc AB in ninth at his high school and Calc BC in 11th., yet has college classes he took in 10h in Linear Algebra, Calc III, and now Differential Equations in 11th. I’m not clear yet what he’ll do for math for 12th grade.</p>

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<p>RobD, I also took Calculus senior year in high school. However, the OP is talking about kids taking Calculus as juniors, or even as sophomores, not seniors like we did back in the day or like the typical advanced track for lots of kids today too, such as at our HS here.</p>

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<p>My children are both interested in math, as well as having talent for math, so that puts them at the top end of the spectrum. </p>

<p>We were fortunate enough to have a slightly accelerated math sequence at the middle school age, which started our D in algebra as a 7th grader and ended with her in Calc BC as a senior. In retrospect she wished she had been able to accelerate further in hs. </p>

<p>Fortunately the local U has an accelerated math program for talented students and S qualified for the program in 7th grade. They start with algebra/geometry the first year and S, who is now a junior, has taken Calc 3 and beyond this year. </p>

<p>Although it is a challenging program, it draws from a large metro area and has ~400 students total in its program. It is definitely not for most students, but I suspect that most of the participating students are like my son, who was in a holding pattern through much of elementary school and really wanted and needed more than was available through the school systems.</p>

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<p>I think it is great that schools have options for kids who like, and are talented at, math. But not all kids enjoy math. I would have a problem if my kids were expected or forced to take math classes that they were not ready for. Our state requires 4 yrs of math - which is usually accomplished by taking precalc. If you want to go farther, fine. But many kids stop taking math in 12th grade and accelerate in social studies, or science, or because we’re a magnet school - the arts. Expecting a “one size fits all” HS curriculum is ridiculous. I think colleges realize this - a potential fine arts major should not be expected to have taken calculus for admission into college. A potential engineering major - sure.</p>

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<p>so true, megpmom…but you hit the nail on the head; the top schools DO expect even social science/ humanities/arts majors to have “hit” Calculus…and have actually told our local HS counselors such…</p>

<p>Mind you, I am talking about the very top schools (not the ones you have mentioned above), but it has been a problem for a certain group of students around here…</p>

<p>They mostly land at GREAT schools that are perfect “fits” for them, but as you say, a one size fits all HS curriculum is not for everyone…and colleges should acknowledge that…some do, but the highly selective ones do not…</p>

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<p>My daughter who took AP Calculus as a junior and was accelerated all through school in math, majored in musical theater. I think having a very solid academic background and good grades and all that jazz, positioned her well for college even though she entered a professional arts degree program and never took math again. I don’t think one’s high school coursework needs to be tied to their eventual college major or career but colleges like to see, for good reason, a very solid academic core prior to starting college. (we also don’t have arts high schools here, but my D did lots and lots of arts training, and a bunch of that was outside of school)</p>

<p>I will add that even though she only applied to and matriculated at specialized arts degree programs, I’m pretty sure her strong academic record played a part in both admissions and scholarships.</p>

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<p>Megomom, the norm for even advanced college prep kids is that they finish calculus by high school. Anything else is unusual even in some of the top schools. They finish what is similar if not equal to AP Calc AB. Those who are beyond that are truly exceptional and except in a few schools, they are not traditional students. Many go outside of their high school to get that extra math.</p>

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<p>That actually seems to be a decelerated course schedule started earlier. When I was in high school, a student who started high school algebra 1 in 7th grade finished calculus BC in 11th grade. That was rare, one student every few years. Most math accelerated students (about 8% of the class at the time) started high school algebra 1 in 8th grade and finished calculus BC in 12th grade.</p>

<p>But that brings up the other part of the question – it seems that perhaps more good-but-not-great-at-math students are starting more advanced math sequences two years early, so schools are decelerating the curriculum by doing things like requiring a full year of calculus AB before taking calculus BC, instead of offering a one year calculus BC course to at least the strongest math students (when I was in high school, the one calculus course was BC based; they only later added a calculus AB course when there were enough students for two classes’ worth of calculus). Does starting two years early but ending only one year early make sense (especially for the strongest-in-math students)?</p>

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<p>In my district, there is a lot of parental competition to have one’s child on the advanced track in middle school math (which for my district is algebra in 7th grade, geometry in 8th). Many parents hire tutors and enroll their children at Kumon. For some students, this acceleration is absolutely appropriate, but for some students the acceleration is very, very stressful. IMHO if a student needs a daily tutor to manage a B in the advanced class, the acceleration is inappropriate.</p>

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<p>No.</p>

<p>Not sure that it makes sense for other students either. Are they sacrificing something else to be two years early?</p>

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<p>^^ yeah well I’ll be smirking inside this spring at my S1’s college graduation while some of those competitive parents are wondering why their darlings dropped out of college. Kids go to school not parents. You can lead a horse to water and all that. Like I said, it’s great that public schools have the ability to allow kids to accelerate but in general kids do better over the long haul when they are self directed than parent directed in my experience.</p>

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<p>I certainly don’t think one should get tutored in order to get into an accelerated track. </p>

<p>However, acceleration makes sense for certain kids who are not challenged by the regular track and crave to be adequately challenged and not bored. That is how it was for my kids. It was a matter of meeting their learning needs and not trying to fit them into some sort of accelerated track. We had to actually create a more accelerated track than the one that existed which did not meet their level. </p>

<p>BCEagle, I can only speak for my own kids, but they didn’t sacrifice anything by accelerating and they accelerated in more than just math (I only mentioned math here as this is a thread about math). Conversely, their well being would have been sacrificed if forced to take classes that were not sufficiently challenging to meet their learning needs.</p>

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<p>^My kid was begging me to do something for him in math. I was dragged into acceleration, I never, ever had to push. (Except to push the school to do what he was asking for.)</p>

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<p>^^Yes that.</p>

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<p>mathmom, that was our experience as well. D1 was upset when she got to the middle school which here begins in 7th grade. It was not challenging enough. We had to set up meetings to create acceleration accommodations that had never been done there in this fashion. Had to do it again with D2. D2 had a big meeting with administrators, guidance counselor, someone from the State Dept. of Ed, us, teachers, etc. in 7th grade when she was 12 to create plans for accommodations in school and this went on throughout her years at the middle/high school (one facility). Her GC even wrote about this in his report for college admissions for D2 and referred to this meeting when she was just 12 years old and where she advocated to get her learning needs met at this school and made it happen, with her parents’ support.</p>

<p>I agree with your statement. We NEVER pushed our KIDS. Our kids pushed US. We then had to push THE SCHOOL (middle and high school only…our elem school truly wanted to individualize and accommodate).</p>

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<p>Here’s another data point, S did math and math-related things for fun from a young age. </p>

<p>And yes, D’s path was a slow one for her. Her school system required that she spend one year on algebra II and then another on pre-calculus. It was painfully slow and redundant for her. Back in the ancient days when I took those courses, we either took algebra II or pre-calc, not both. The school also would not allow her to skip Calc AB and only take Calc BC. Unfortunately she was our guinea pig and we didn’t know better at the time. We did better by my son and I regret we didn’t push the school system harder for her.</p>

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<p>I am junior without math.
I finished Ord. Diff. Equation last semester at near college, but I can’t find Linear Algebra anywhere around.
My real math started in 5th grade.
They chose 20 kids (120 kids in class/ 700 kids at school) to participate in special early morning advance math class, just twice a week in spring semester. That class covered some Algebra and Geometry.
In middle school we started with low math again. I was bored. For whole month we did do nothing - add and subtract. I refused to do any math homework. So as a punishment my 6th grade math teacher send me to 8th grade Algebra class. It supposed to be only a week, but I stayed with that class to the end of school year.</p>

<p>Middle school
6th – Algebra
7th – Geometry with 9th graders at high school and Advanced Algebra on-line CTY-JHU
8th – Pre-Calculus with juniors at high school</p>

<p>High school
AP Calculus AB, BC, and AP Statistic</p>

<p>College – dual enrollment
Ord. Diff. Equation </p>

<p>Math was always easy for me, but I am alone. I don’t have no one to practice math with. (My school has 3000 students and has barely one AP Calculus BC class every year).</p>

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<p>The various high schools around the country are very very different. </p>

<p>I would not assume that pushy parents are to blame. In fact, in our area, parents are often asking counselors to get their kids off the “fast track” that was a good idea in 6th-9th grade and became difficult in 10th and 11th.</p>

<p>I have two daughters who just went to the math class that was on their program in 6th grade, then did well each year with little stress, and continued along the sequence. I double-checked each year that they were signing up for what they really wanted to take. I thought the Bio teacher was nuts when she recommended my daughter take AP Chem with no previous Chemistry class, and tried to talk my d. out of it, but she wanted to do it, and it worked out fine. Most of the kids in the class were doing the same thing. I know that that is not allowed or encouraged in some other schools.</p>

<p>I’m sorry I must strongly object to the parent above who joked?? about going to graduation with a smirk because kids of pushy parents are not graduating. I can take no joy when a student is struggling. The young people I know who are not finishing college are in difficult situations, with issues of ADD, depression, alchoholism, gaming addiction. Or, a couple have found really good jobs that are more interesting than college right now. They will probably go back to college with a lot more motivation and maturity in a few years.</p>

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<p>This is a resource issue at any public high school. If we have 500-700 kids in one grade, someone could be 4-6 grade ahead of someone else in math or any other subjects. We cannot afford to accommodate their natural talents in the past, but are trying now, at least in wealthier districts. But, a balanced education, rather than advancing too fast in one area, is often the best choice for a kid. Getting in a GT program in elementary years doesn’t mean a kid is gifted and that may not be beneficial in the long run.</p>

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<p>The more time I spend on CC, the more I realize why Texas ranks 48 in the country in public education!! (I get a little envious at times) But even districts within TX vary greatly. The more affluent suburbs have all the acceleration, etc. that many of you describe. I happen to live in a less affluent “first ring” suburb that struggles just to get most of kids passing the state graduation tests. I am very pleased, given the circumstances, with the education my kids have received. </p>

<p>I will be very interested to see what happens to all districts given current and future budget issues. Where will the cuts be made? I suspect from both “ends” of the spectrum - from both G & T and vocational classes. We may return more and more to the “one size fits all” model.</p>