Reply to talking multivariable cal/linear algebra

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]just saying this is all so insane to me. I went to a HYP school and I had to get special permission just to take AP calculus as a senior. We didn't offer anything else. [/quote]

Things have just changed since then.  The classes like algebra, geometry that used to be HS classes and were taught at that level, are now watered down to a level accessible to MS students.  It's now necessary to take pre-calc, and even calc, just to learn what used to be taught in algebra.  Students are covering more ground today, but 90% of it is just a shell game.[/quote]
This is spot on.

The system would be better if no MS student could take anything beyond Algebra. There's plenty of space to go deeper in Algebra for top students. The tiger parents have pressured MCPS into accelerating everything, and it serves no useful purpose. It just leads to kids having a poorer foundation when they get to HS, and advancing through the HS courses too quickly only to crash and burn.[/quote]

Yes, but this has been coming on for a generation, and at this point the solution isn't to sit it out, and say calc is just for overachievers--it's now fundamental to HS instruction.  Waiting to take a class called algebra later, is only beneficial if the deeper topics are worked back into the curriculum.

I think the tigers are more symptom than cause.  Starting in the nineties there was a movement to add tech and get students to talk qualitatively about math, even if unprepared for much symbolic math.  Whether this works or not in general, is beside the point, there's still the students who are good at abstraction, and can handle it younger, and for them the simplest option is to push ahead--tigers.  Kids taking pre-calc in 10th today are mostly on pace with kids taking algebra in 8th/9th a generation ago. [/quote]

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