Deal math tracks

[Anonymous]

Can someone share how kids are assigned to math tracks at Deal? Is it just testing in 6th grade, or do they take elementary school grades into account?

[Anonymous]

There’s a test at the beginning of the school year in 6th grade that determines what level math they end up taking.

[Anonymous]

Ugh. Is it iready? My kid is so sick of that diagnostic test and dreads it. He hates how it jumps around. He does fine but tends to underperform on it.

[Anonymous]

From the Deal website:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60db9e69e1c32956621f6226/t/68f01536f2f3567ade20bd39/1760564534501/Deal%27s+Math+Acceleration%27s+Policy.pdf

[Anonymous]

Why is Deal no longer offering Algebra 2 and geometry is the highest track in 9th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s a test at the beginning of the school year in 6th grade that determines what level math they end up taking.

Yep. If your kid, like mine, missed the cutoff by one point, you can do also do the summer acceleration between 6th and 7th grade. They do not look at ES grades or anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is Deal no longer offering Algebra 2 and geometry is the highest track in 8th?

I don’t know, but my guess would be because it’s unnecessary, and because art and music are important too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is Deal no longer offering Algebra 2 and geometry is the highest track in 8th?

I don’t know, but my guess would be because it’s unnecessary, and because art and music are important too.

What?? This is BS.

You can offer art and music and more advance math.

At least Deal offered Algebra 2 in the past. So they have taken that away and now no DCPS middle school offers anything except geometry by 9th.

Talk about lowering standards. Why have Deal families not pushed back in this???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is Deal no longer offering Algebra 2 and geometry is the highest track in 8th?

I don’t know, but my guess would be because it’s unnecessary, and because art and music are important too.

What?? This is BS.

You can offer art and music and more advance math.

At least Deal offered Algebra 2 in the past. So they have taken that away and now no DCPS middle school offers anything except geometry by 9th.

Talk about lowering standards. Why have Deal families not pushed back in this???

Typo by 8th

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is Deal no longer offering Algebra 2 and geometry is the highest track in 8th?

I don’t know, but my guess would be because it’s unnecessary, and because art and music are important too.

What?? This is BS.

You can offer art and music and more advance math.

At least Deal offered Algebra 2 in the past. So they have taken that away and now no DCPS middle school offers anything except geometry by 9th.

Talk about lowering standards. Why have Deal families not pushed back in this???

At Deal, you always had to double-block to get to Algebra 2 in 8th. That means giving up another class. What other subject are you planning to sacrifice, if not art or music? History? Science?

There are only so many hours in the day. If you do more math, you have to do less of something else. And middle school is a little young to be dropping core subjects.

[Anonymous]

Instead of arguing about acceleration you should be pushing for true honors classes. Where kids learn a given topic with more depth and are asked harder questions. This will improve performance in calculus. Your goal shouldn't be to get through it faster. It should be to get through it better.

[Anonymous]

The Deal super advanced math track was pretty crappy anyway. We loved the teacher but my kid (who received high As in all Deal math classes through Algebra 2) transferred to a top DC private for high school and found that they had giant knowledge gaps from Deal's Algebra 2 class. Entered the private in honors pre-calc and got a C/D on the first test and dropped down to take Algebra 2 for a second time and fill in missing knowledge gaps. Finished up the private school's math sequence with linear algebra and is now a math major at an Ivy league university and a TA in their math dept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Deal super advanced math track was pretty crappy anyway. We loved the teacher but my kid (who received high As in all Deal math classes through Algebra 2) transferred to a top DC private for high school and found that they had giant knowledge gaps from Deal's Algebra 2 class. Entered the private in honors pre-calc and got a C/D on the first test and dropped down to take Algebra 2 for a second time and fill in missing knowledge gaps. Finished up the private school's math sequence with linear algebra and is now a math major at an Ivy league university and a TA in their math dept.

Can’t argue that the math teaching in DCPS is really poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Deal super advanced math track was pretty crappy anyway. We loved the teacher but my kid (who received high As in all Deal math classes through Algebra 2) transferred to a top DC private for high school and found that they had giant knowledge gaps from Deal's Algebra 2 class. Entered the private in honors pre-calc and got a C/D on the first test and dropped down to take Algebra 2 for a second time and fill in missing knowledge gaps. Finished up the private school's math sequence with linear algebra and is now a math major at an Ivy league university and a TA in their math dept.

I totally believe it wasn't sufficiently rigorous for Sidwell, but I'm not sure that means it was bad. The math PARCC scores have always been good at Deal for the advanced math classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Deal super advanced math track was pretty crappy anyway. We loved the teacher but my kid (who received high As in all Deal math classes through Algebra 2) transferred to a top DC private for high school and found that they had giant knowledge gaps from Deal's Algebra 2 class. Entered the private in honors pre-calc and got a C/D on the first test and dropped down to take Algebra 2 for a second time and fill in missing knowledge gaps. Finished up the private school's math sequence with linear algebra and is now a math major at an Ivy league university and a TA in their math dept.

I totally believe it wasn't sufficiently rigorous for Sidwell, but I'm not sure that means it was bad. The math PARCC scores have always been good at Deal for the advanced math classes.

The scores are good for Algebra I and Geometry. They don’t typically test or report Algebra II, which is the one the PP was saying was not very good (and also the one that seems to have been quietly retired).