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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^Forgot to add:  
The types of kids who end up accelerated in math usually LOVE math.  It's a travesty to take a kid's favorite school subject and turn it into a boring slog.  It also tends to make them dislike school as a whole.  [/quote]
Really, it doesn't make sense to accelerate beyond algebra in 7th or 8th.  It's far better to find other ways to enrich the curriculum.  Do more interesting assignments and projects, don't just fly through topics.  Acceleration becomes the lazy way because that curriculum is already drafted.  (If you don't accelerate outside the classroom, the kid will still see new topics each year.  Maybe not as fas as they could learn them, but hopefully in more depth with enrichment activities.)

If you have a kid that good at math, sign them up for something like Odyssey of the Mind and have them do the balsa problem.  They can immerse themselves in statics and structural engineering with no limit to what they can teach themselves.

-- STEM PhD who loves math who won the graduation award at my university as the top math student[/quote]

Most public school teachers have little time to do enrichment. Faced with a choice of 1 or 2 kids who are advanced v/s several who are struggling or just getting by, teachers (rightly perhaps) opt for helping the larger cohort. Besides, some kids are genuinely interested in pure math for math's sake (abstract algebra, number theory, elementary analysis etc.) Odyssey of the Mind won't be appropriate.[/quote]

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