Can someone explain to me the advantage of getting high school credit in middle school?

[Anonymous]

Hunh, it that all DC urban mom?

[Anonymous]

Come back and let me know how the 5th grader's reasoning skills and numerical flexibility is in 3-4 years. Racing to Algebra is silly. It's not all about Prealgebra and Algebra.

Does your logic apply to a 4th grader completely fluent in Spanish when taking a high school Spanish language class ( such a race will ensure future impairment!) or a talented 4th grader in spelling B, geo B (taking social studies) or the violin?

You should spend just a day attending the typical high school classes in MCPS and then tell us whether the pace, breadth and depth would challenge top, bright 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 year-olds. I bet you'll be surprised by the findings.

[Anonymous]

Look, maybe the 5th grade Algebra teacher is awesome. That said, many students make it to middle school in MCPS in super advanced math classes and all they can do when presented with a word problem is try to set up an equation with a variable or two because they were pushed to learn quadratic equations before 6th grade. If a student doesnt understand why or how it works it's, hard to know when to use it. Maybe they'll do amazingy on standardized tests but frequently they lack the ability to think flexibly about math problems. I could be wrong, but in my experience kids who take Algebra I and use variables before becoming flexible mathematicians have a hard time going back.

[Anonymous]

Math is different than languages and music. I stand by the previous post. Agree to disagree.

[Anonymous]

Look, maybe the 5th grade Algebra teacher is awesome. That said, many students make it to middle school in MCPS in super advanced math classes and all they can do when presented with a word problem is try to set up an equation with a variable or two because they were pushed to learn quadratic equations before 6th grade. If a student doesnt understand why or how it works it's, hard to know when to use it. Maybe they'll do amazingy on standardized tests but frequently they lack the ability to think flexibly about math problems. I could be wrong, but in my experience kids who take Algebra I and use variables before becoming flexible mathematicians have a hard time going back.

I agree completely with you. If the extent of math preparation is limited to MCPS math curriculum even for the elementary school students in Algebra 1 you may be in trouble. Your analysis makes one leaping assumption ... the MCPS math curriculum is the only exposure students with a deep interest and passion are getting. In fact, for many of these students MCPS is simply a nuisance requirement necessary for a transcript. For those rushed by MCPS system in the past with no interest in the subject than beware.

Do you believe the problem solving math clubs (outside of MCPS curriculum) where some elementary students have spent 3 full years preparing and taking annual AMC 8, AMC 10, Kankaroo Math and Elementary and Middle School Math Olympiads assessments of their weekly activities does not improve problem solving abilities? In fact, some of these kids are now performing in the top echelons along with advance math students in middle and early high school. Think of these extracurricular activities as similar to soccer, chess, physics, and science after school clubs. The focus of the math club is pure problem solving and analytical thinking outside the traditional MCPS math box where students share their strategies to solving hard problems with one another (the solutions come from many walks of mathematical life, common sense and intuition, algebra, geometry, counting and probability, number theory...domains rarely explored in any depth in the MCPS math curriculum).

Beware of a one size fits all analytic approach. There are many examples in human biology were this theory falls flat on its face.

[Anonymous]

Math is different than languages and music. I stand by the previous post. Agree to disagree.

From a neurobiological perspective there are more similarities than differences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most college admissions people will tell you that regardless of the level of the course, colleges like to see 4 years of English, history, math, science and foreign language taken during the 4 years the kid is at high school. If you believe this, your kid is not freeing up time to take electives in hs (by taking hs credit classes in ms), instead, he's putting himself on track to take advanced (by 1 or 2 or 3 years) english, history, math, science and foreign language. Some kids/parents want this. Most probably do not (at least not in every subject area).

This is exactly what I am worried about. If a student elects to take a Foreign Language in 6th, 7th & 8th grade, will this be sufficient for college admissions? Seems silly to offer these courses in Middle School for kids that can do the work and then it not "count" for college admissions. Surely MCPS wouldn't be doing this if it hurt the students........although we are dealing wtih MCPS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most college admissions people will tell you that regardless of the level of the course, colleges like to see 4 years of English, history, math, science and foreign language taken during the 4 years the kid is at high school. If you believe this, your kid is not freeing up time to take electives in hs (by taking hs credit classes in ms), instead, he's putting himself on track to take advanced (by 1 or 2 or 3 years) english, history, math, science and foreign language. Some kids/parents want this. Most probably do not (at least not in every subject area).

This is exactly what I am worried about. If a student elects to take a Foreign Language in 6th, 7th & 8th grade, will this be sufficient for college admissions? Seems silly to offer these courses in Middle School for kids that can do the work and then it not "count" for college admissions. Surely MCPS wouldn't be doing this if it hurt the students........although we are dealing wtih MCPS!

"Sufficient for college admissions?" Yes and no. From top colleges, we heard time and again that they prefer to see 4 years of high school filled with 4 years of the core subjects, regardless of the starting point (so, if kid starts at Spanish 2, then goes to 3, then 4 and then AP Spanish) even though the minimum accepted by the college is "3 years foreign language" (which would be satisfied by 10th grade in this scenario). So it's all a guessing/best judgment game. My DD really struggles with foreign language but excels in math. So she'll stop with the language after Spanish 3 her sophomore year (her school's requirement) but she's taking advanced math and will finish up with AP Calculus. So, like everything else, we make the best judgments we can.

[Anonymous]

This is exactly what I am worried about. If a student elects to take a Foreign Language in 6th, 7th & 8th grade, will this be sufficient for college admissions? Seems silly to offer these courses in Middle School for kids that can do the work and then it not "count" for college admissions. Surely MCPS wouldn't be doing this if it hurt the students........although we are dealing wtih MCPS!

No dilemma here. I learned languages much better when I was in elementary and middle school than at the high school level. Therefore, if a child is eager to learn a language start them early and worry about College requirements when the child gets to High School. From my perspective, I would not postpone my passion to learn a language or two earlier just because I wish to save it to high school in order to satisfy the College language requirement down the meandering road.