Accelerated and Enrichment Pre-Calculus
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
I don’t understand the point of AP Pre-Calculus. Colleges don’t give credit for it. The district just needs a unified rigorous pre-calculus curriculum. |
Anonymous
The weird thing is that MCPS does have a unified rigorous curriculum - it's called Honors Pre-Calculus. It's widely understood that this is the class where kids who were accelerated just because they were bright and hard working, rather than genuinely math-oriented, will start to struggle. For literal once, MCPS has something that is working but they are insisting on letting principals mess with it. |
Anonymous
Yes. At other schools, there are 2 levels. On-level and Honors. Plenty of kids who do not plan to major in STEM take on-level. There is genuinely no stigma to it, even among bright kids, particularly because you can still take Calculus after on-level Pre-Calculus. But Whitman kids (parents?) wanted the GPA boost of Honors without the workload, so they added a "Super Honors" variant. |
Anonymous
I agree that Honors PreCal is doing what it’s supposed to. On level PreCal should do the same and kids should be prepared for Calc AB, regardless of school. I don’t agree that bright and hard working kids shouldn’t be able to take and pass. |
Anonymous
And that should be stopped! Honors PreCal should be the same rigor across the county. |
Anonymous
Perception and $. AP is perceived to have a greater benefit in rigor and college credit just because of the "AP" attached to it. Communities less in tune with academic reality will buy that hook, line and sinker, and principals find it easier/less costly to offer just two variants -- on-level and AP. Meanwhile, the more rigorous Honors PreCalc, where more might struggle but where more is learned, where those with math talent are met at their level, and where students are better prepared for AP Calc BC, might not be made available, absent large numbers of families pressing for it. As a side-bonus for principals, they can then suggest a two-year progression of AP Calc AB and then AP Calc BC from the AP PreCalc, rather than having to offer Multivariable Calc after students follow PreCalc with AP Calc BC. Again, enough folks buy that line at these schools, and the several at each of these schools who are mathy enough to fit better in AP Calc BC (and whose families are willing to argue that with the adminiatration) can be told, "Well, OK, but don't say we didn't warn you, and, by the way, by getting this "exception" you'll need to arrange to take dual-enrollment MVC at MC rather than take it here if you are going that route." Only the finest of systemic academic inequity is allowed within MCPS... 
Offering AP PreCalc is fine (as is having the option to take AB afterwards as long as BC is made available for those needing that), but, among the PreCalc courses, MCPS should be ensuring that the most rigorous non-magnet variant is available at every school. If Whitman's A/E is yet more rigorous than the Honors PreCalc offered elsewhere, then that should become the uniformly available Honors course. |
Anonymous
Actually, some do but for intro math classes. |
Anonymous
|
Seems like they should offer three pre-calc classes with following default pathways (setting aside other options like AP Stats):
Regular to Calc with Applications AP Pre Calc to AB Honors Pre Calc to BC |
Anonymous
Not weird at all. MCPS families self segregate and that's why the W schools have so much more than the other schools. |
Anonymous
No. PreCal should ensure a student is prepared take Calculus. Period. It shouldn’t try to track you towards a particular course afterwards. That’s up to the student and teacher recommendation which should be based on performance, student desire, and speed of course. Calc AB= Calc1 Calc BC = Calc 1 & 2 Calc w/ Application = Calc 1 with a more business focus and less abstract. |
Anonymous
Then you just have one general ed pre Calc class with some kids who are bored and others flailing. All three classes currently prepare you for at least Calc with Applications. |
Anonymous
Pre-Cal is the same as Pre-Alg in that both are points to ensure students have covered all the material necessary to be functional in the next base class. It’s a review of prior content, additional depth, and introduction of some key ideas coming up. Pre-Alg for Alg1, Pre-Calc for Calc1. The point of various versions of classes isn’t to track but to address speed, depth, and interest. It doesn’t mean the on-level class should not prepare you for the next base class. This is particularly true for Checkpoint class (ie “Pre” classes). A honors/AP class may go quicker and thereby provide tome for greater depth than needed, or to look at things in different ways, or provide means for other exploratory learning like field trips or research. It might combine two classes or provide enough depth so you can skip the next base class in favor of an elective or a higher class. But the on-level class is still required to provide you the ability to move to the next base class. Calc w/ Applications and AP Calc BC are options, Calc 1 is the base. |
Anonymous
No. A/E is an attempt to replicate SMaCS Magnet Precalculus, going beyond the MCPS Honors strandard. Honors is roughly the same everywhere. |
Anonymous
Yes, and at Blair, Magnet Functions is the honors class, Magnet Precalculus is the on level class, Honors Precalculus is remedial, and plain Precalculus is for the cognitively disabled.
|
Anonymous
So, again, with A/E at Whitman, MCPS fails on equity. |